Progressive men of the state of Montana, pt 1, Part 53

Author: Bowen, A.W., & Co., firm, publishers, Chicago
Publication date: [19-?]
Publisher: Chicago : A. W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 1374

USA > Montana > Progressive men of the state of Montana, pt 1 > Part 53

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PROGRESSIVE MEN OF MONTANA.

worse menace than the Indians. These outlaws were the source of one of the dark pages in Mon- tana's history, and nothing but the gravity of the situation would have compelled the better ele- ment to have recourse to the methods adopted in freeing the country of the murderous robbers. In 1865 Mr. Ledbeater removed to Helena, where he was engaged in teaming and herding cattle un- til March, 1868, when he moved to the old town of Hamilton, in Gallatin valley, and for a year conducted a general store for a man named Dum- phy, after which he took up a tract of land and en- gaged in farming and freighting for several years. He then engaged in mercantile business with John Potter at Hamilton. In 1883 they removed to Man- hattan and continued business until 1887, when Mr. Ledbeater purchased the Philip Thorpe ranch of 180 acres of particularly fine land, most eligibly lo- cated one and one-fourth miles northeast of Man- hattan, his present home. Two streams run through the farm, known as Big and Little creeks, and the confluence being on the place. Very lit- tle irrigation is required, although the facilities controlled are unexcelled. While carrying on di- versified farming, Mr. Ledbeater devotes special attention to the raising of oats and potatoes, and to the breeding and raising of high grade poultry, in which line he is a fancier and an authority. He keeps from two to three hundred chickens, show- ing the best breeds, his favorite being the Wyan- dotte strain. He has the best of facilities for car- rying on his extensive poultry business, and takes justifiable pride in this industry. The farm is im- proved with excellent buildings, including a com- fortable and attractive dwelling, where our sub- ject keeps bachelor's hall, having never married. The caller at his home finds it well cared for and scrupulously neat in every particular. In politics Mr. Ledbeater gives his support to the principles and policies of the Republican party, and frater- nally is a member of the Masonic order, in which he has been raised to the Master's degree. He is well known, held in the highest esteem in the com- munity, and is one of the sterling old pioneers of Montana.

H ON. CHARLES R. LEONARD has been a resident of Butte since 1890, and during the greater part of that time he has been prominent and influential in the professional, political and social life of the community. He is one of the

acknowledged leaders of the bar, an ardent and skillful party worker, and a cultivated and agree- able gentleman. He was born December 3, 1860, at Iowa City, Johnson county, Iowa. His parents, Nathan R. and Elizabeth (Heizer) Leonard, are living in Butte, where his father is president of the School of Mines. After due preparation in lower schools Mr. Leonard entered the Iowa State University to complete his academic and profes- sional education. He was graduated from the lit- erary department of that institution in 1881 with the degree of A. B. (subsequently receiving the honorary degree of A. M.), and from the law de- partment in 1883. He was at once admitted to the bar and entered upon his professional practice at Creston in his native state, winning substantial rec- ognition from the community in a lucrative busi- ness and a gratifying personal popularity. In 1890 he was elected city attorney of Creston, but de- clined to serve on account of his removal to Butte, where he has since resided. Fortune has smiled upon his professional and other labors in his new home, rewarding them with a comfortable share of profit and honor. His practice is large and constantly increasing in volume and character. He has also valuable interests in mining operations, both in this country and in British Columbia.

Mr. Leonard is a prominent member of the Montana Bar Association, of which he was presi- dent two years, and in which he has served on many of the most important committees through- out his membership. He is enthusiastically de- sirous of the elevation and advancement of his pro- fession, in all of its general and individual aspects, and contributes much of the inspiration necessary to that end. In politics he is an unwavering Re- publican, and for the good of his party has more than once led a forlorn hope at the election. He was defeated for the lower house of the state leg- islature in 1892, but two years later was trium- phantly elected to the senate for a term of four years. In 1896 he was Montana's member of the national Republican committee, and did manly ser- vice in the campaign. Mr. Leonard has been twice married and has three children, Frank, Margaret and Olive. His present wife, Fanny (Sutphen) Leonard, is a native of Lancaster, Ohio, and a daughter of Capt. J. M. Sutphen, of that place. Among the fraternal societies he belongs to the Masons, the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World and the Order of Elks. His repu- tation is by no means confined to his own city,

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county or section. Throughout Montana and ad- joining states he is well and favorably known, and is looked upon as one of the most substantial, up- right, far-seeing and agreeable professional men and citizens of the entire northwest.

PATRICK A. LARGEY .- In the life story of this versatile, masterful and well-beloved citi- zen of Butte the element of tragedy had a potential part. His early struggles for a foothold in the world of effort were discouraged and rendered more difficult while he was yet a very young man by the loss of his father through a distressing ac- cident, and also by the business reverses of others, and yet they led to final and commanding triumph, but only to end at the very acme of his usefulness and power by violent death at the hand of a cow- ardly assassin, who had frequently fed unon his bounty. He was born on Palm Sunday in 1836 and reared on a frontier farm in Perry county, Ohio, far from the din and turmoil of the busy marts of traffic, and he saw in his childhood and youth noth- ing of the great world in whose contests he was to engage so vigorously and successfully. Yet it may be that with the imagination which was a part of his inheritance from a long line of Celtic ances- tors he dreamed dreams of future conquests in mercantile and financial lines. If so his rosiest and most romantic visions could scarcely have surpassed the reality. Certain it is that he used the slender facilities for education afforded by the primitive public schools he attended to such good advantage that while many of his associates of the same age were still toiling through the grades he was cred- itably established among the teachers and saving the beggarly per diem he earned to assist in paying his way through the neighboring St. Joseph's Col- lege at Somerset, piecing this out with the fruits of hard labor on the farm during his vacations. After leaving college he continued teaching for a time, and then went to Cincinnati and became a book- keeper for a commercial house. A year later he went into the employ of John McCune, who owned steamboats on the Ohio, and in this way he worked his passage down that river and up the Mississippi to Keokuk, Iowa, where he filled a clerkship in a dry goods store for about two years, and until the firm failed. He then returned to his Ohio home and made a slender income by working on the farm in the summer and teaching in the winter. He was, however, shrewd, energetic and self-denying.

He shunned expense and dissipation. He was rarely or never seen at balls or frolics. He did what came his way, and did not hesitate because the job was disagreeable if it bade fair to be profitable. He laid up the major part of his earnings, so that when he went west again in 1861 and located at Des Moines, Iowa, he had enough money to buy a small stock of merchandise and open a store. Then, be- ing long-headed as well as handy, knowing as well as skillful, when opportunity came his way he saw and seized it. After a year of merchandising at Des Moines he sold out and went to Omaha, and became purchasing agent for Edward Creighton, a renowned freighter, in buying horses, mules and oxen to be used in freighting across the plains.

In 1865 he was made captain of one of Creigh- ton's trains of sixty wagons, safely conducted it to Virginia City, Mont., in the fall of 1865, losing only one man, who was shot from ambush by a hos- tile Indian, and Mr. Largey, seeing the great pos- sibilities of the new country, concluded to remain, and the next spring opened a grocery store at Helena, but the business was too slow tor him and he sold it in the fall. He then began freighting again, purchasing mule trains of Majors & Russell, and within a year carried $60,000 worth of gold to Salt Lake City. He also engaged in cattle dealing in Jefferson county for a short time. He started merchandising in Virginia City, sold it out and be- came a salesman in the grocery store of Creighton & Ohle for four years, then was a hardware mer- chant for eight years, selling out in 1880 to Elling. Knight & Co., then found his true place at last in Butte, where he organized the Butte Hardware Company, a stock company, of which he was made superintendent. The company flourished under his able management to such an extent that in 1883 it established a branch house in Anaconda and laid that town and its surroundings under tribute to aid in filling its coffers. But prior to this he had been engaged successfully in works of construction of considerable magnitude. He erected telegraph lines for the Western Union in 1867 from Virginia City to Helena, in 1868 from Helena to Fort Ben- ton and in 1869 from Helena to Bozeman. In 1879 he built a line between Deer Lodge and Butte. The company owning it, of which he was the prime fac- tor, later became the Montana Central Telegraph Company. When the Northern Pacific Railroad was building through this territory he sold part of this line to the United States government. While engaged in these various and multiform occupations

P.a. Largey,

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Mr. Largey was also steadily and securely building up a sound and profitable banking business in Vir- ginia City and Helena. But in these efforts he was apparently only pluming his pinions for a more am- bitious flight. In Butte his aspirations in the direc- tion of finance took definite form and reached full development. He there founded on January 29, 1891, the State Savings Bank, with a capital stock of $100,000, and gave to this offspring of his ma- tured and seasoned faculties his best mentality. He was elected to the presidency and controlled its pol- icy, augmented its usefulness, popularized its vaults and directed the investment of its revenues. Mean- while, with an eye quick to perceive and a hand ever ready to supply public needs, he, with two others, purchased a feeble and struggling electric light plant in Butte, developed and improved it to a con- dition of value and then sold it. He also founded the Inter-Mountain newspaper, and in connection with it the Inter-Mountain Publishing Company, of which he was the first president.

Mr. Largey was the son of Patrick and Jane (Cassilly) Largey, both natives of County Armagh, Ireland, where they were married in 1809. In 1814 they emigrated to America and settled on a farm near Somerset, in Perry county, Ohio. There they worked and prospered; there they reared their eleven children; and there in the fullness of time they died-the mother in 1857 at the age of sixty, and the father in 1859 at the age of seventy-two, from injuries received by falling into a well. Pat- rick A. Largey was the eleventh child. He was married in Chicago on April 30, 1877, to Miss Lulu Sellers, a native of Cincinnati, and daughter of Morris and Amanda (Patterson) Sellers, her father being a Pennsylvanian, whose ancestors came over with William Penn. Removing to Chicago, he is now one of the most prominent business men in that city, being president of the Sellers Manufac- turing Company, a very extensive and important manufacturing enterprise. He was also long a suc- cessful mechanical engineer in railroad construc- tion. Mrs. Largey's mother, his first wife, died many years ago and he has remarried. The mar- riage of Mr. and Mrs. Largey were blessed with six children, four of whom are living. The oldest, Morris Sellers, is an advanced student at the Uni- versity of Michigan at Ann Arbor ; Lulu is the wife of Frank C. McGinn, of Omaha; Edward C. is at- tending school at Salt Lake City, and Mary Mon- tana, born the day Montana was admitted to the Union as a state, is still at home. Those deceased

are Grace Helen, who died in 1879, and Blanch, who died in 1882. The sensational and tragic event which ended Mr. Largey's life and shocked the en- tire northwest, occurred on January 11, 1898. On that day he was deliberately shot to death in his bank by an irresponsible miner named Riley, who had cherished an imaginary grievance until it be- came a mania. Three years before the murder he was injured in an explosion in a concern of which his victim was one of the stockholders. For several days before the tragedy he haunted the bank, where he was always kindly received by Mr. Largey, who frequently gave him financial assistance.

Mr. Largey was then in the full flush of manly vigor-every faculty alert, every function playing, all the resources of his active and prolific mind at work-with a promise of many years of usefulness. He had vast means, all of which were employed in enterprises which gave employment to labor, com- modities to the market and growth and consequence to the state. His influence and substantial aid were harnessed to the car of progress and employed in the development of every laudable enterprise. In social life he was an ornament and an inspiration to the community-sunny in disposition, captivat- ing in manner, entertaining in conversation through both wealth of wisdom and felicity of expression, and elevated in the tone and elevating in the influ- ence of his sterling, dignified and benignant man- hood. All these virtues pleaded "like angels trum- pet-tongued against the deep damnation of his tak- ing off." The Butte Daily Inter-Mountain, in com- menting editorially on his untimely death, said : "P. A. Largey was one of the very foremost citi- zens of the state, and for twenty years has been a leading and influential citizen of Butte. His money is invested in a score of useful enterprises for the upbuilding of the commonwealth. In Madison and Jefferson counties he had profitable interests. In Silver Bow he has been merchant and miner on a large scale. As president of the State Savings Bank he was prominent in financial circles, being recognized as a conservative, honorable and able financier ; and personally he was a very rich man. His estate will figure over a million dollars, the Speculator (copper mine) alone having yielded him a very large fortune. As a man, as a husband, a father and a citizen Patrick A. Largey stood high. A better hearted man never lived. He was devoted to his family and to his friends. He was public spirited and liberal to a fault. His quiet humor endeared him to everybody. He had oppo-

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nents, but they were not his enemies ; he had busi- ness differences with others, but he always thought he was,right in his convictions."

Mr. Largey, as this writer suggests, left a very large estate. His bank was one of the most pros- perous in the city. He owned, besides much real estate and valuable mining properties, the Specula- tor, which paid large dividends, and the Center Star at Rossland, B. C., being among the richest. Since his death his widow has taken active control of his extensive business affairs, and is conducting them with a breadth of view, a skill and a vigor which would do credit to a veteran of finance. She is the administratrix of the estate and conducts its vast interests in attractive offices in one of the ele- gant down-town office buildings belonging to it, where she spends a portion of her time giving per- sonal attention to the multiplicity of details involved in the business. But while thus concerned with these extensive fiscal matters, she does not ignore her social duties, the claims of humanity or the teachings of religion. All public interests have her cordial and liberal support; and realizing that the prodigality of the rich is the providence of the poor, her benefactions are bountiful although not ostentatious. Especially has she been generous to church interests and their charitable coadjutors. She erected a chapel for St. James Hospital and made large contributions for the construction of the new Church of the Sacred Heart, at Butte. At Omaha, in New York city, by many a humble hearth at the mines, her bounty has been felt. And without the knowledge of her right hand, her left has made provision for sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry and nurs- ing the sick, and also for the education, both academic and technical, of many a youth of promise; the child of poor but worthy parents. It would offend her modesty to detail these benefactions. But they are written on imperishable records, and shine with undimming lustre to her credit-good deeds in this unappreciative and unsympathetic world.

PRESIDENT NATHAN R. LEONARD .- the great English litterateur, Dr. Johnson, once wrote concerning biography: "The accounts of the parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our kinds, are above all other writings to be found in the lives of particular per- sons; and therefore no species of writing seems

more worthy of cultivation than biography." Es- pecially do we recognize the significance and truth of these statements when we come to review the life work of such a man as Prof. Leonard, who has attained distinguished honors in the great field of educational action and whose life has been sig- nally true to high ideals. The laws of nature have forbidden isolation. Every human being either submits to the controlling influence of others or wields a power for good or evil on mankind. Thus there can be no impropriety in scanning the acts of any man or his public, business and social rela- tions. If he be honest and successful in his sphere of endeavor, investigation will brighten his fame and point the path along which others may follow. As the president of the Montana State School of Mines, and as one whose life has been one of signal usefulness, we are gratified in being permitted to here incorporate a brief review of the career of Prof. Leonard.

Nathan R. Leonard was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 29, 1832, the eldest of the six children of Hiram and Elizabeth (Patterson) Leonard, both of whom were born in Pennsylvania. Hiram Leonard, who devoted the most of his life to agriculture, and accumulated a fortune, removed from Pennsylvania to Ohio in 1825, and from thence to Iowa in 1844, being a pioneer of each of these great states. Originally a Whig he became an active member of the Republican party at its formation and was ever afterward a stanch advo- cate of its principles. He rendered valiant service in the great Civil war as major of the Fourteenth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. His death occurred at Iowa City, Iowa, in October, 1887. On January 17, 1832, Hiram Leonard was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Patterson, a descendant of old Pennsylvania families, who gave of their sons to be soldiers in the Continental army of the Revolution. Her maternal grandfather was taken prisoner by the British while in service and for some time was confined on a prison ship in Philadelphia harbor.

Nathan R. Leonard was about twelve years of age when his parents removed to Iowa, and after an academic course of study he entered Yellow Springs College (now succeeded by Parsons Col- lege) at Kossuth, Iowa, where he was graduated in the class of 1857. After this he studied one year in Harvard University, giving special attention to mathematics. He then engaged in teaching, and thus early began the educational labors to which he has devoted his life and in which he has been

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so successful. He became a member of the faculty of his alma mater, and there did most efficient work for seven years, when he tendered his resignation, having been elected to the chair of mathematics and astronomy in the Iowa State University, at Iowa City. With the fortunes and work of this institution Prof. Leonard was identified for twenty-seven years. While filling this chair he contributed valu- able articles to leading scientific journals, and was editor of the mathematical department of the Iowa School Journal for many years. He was appointed dean of the faculty of the university in 1863, and was its acting president from March I, 1866, until April, 1869, and from September, 1870, to April, 1871, while he held the office of dean until he closed his connection with the institution. In 1887 Prof. Leonard removed to Fort Wayne, Ind., and there remained for a full decade, during which time he was editor and proprietor of the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette. He disposed of this property in 1897 and went to California for rest and recrea- tion, and in 1898 he took up his residence in Butte, Mont.

Prof. Leonard was elected president of the State School of Mines in 1900, becoming the first incumbent of this office and thus assuming the exec- utive control of the institution at its practical in- ception. This office involved exacting labor and great powers of discrimination, as the working policy of the school had to be clearly outlined and defined and its affairs thoroughly systematized. He proved fully equal to the task set him, and the prestige which the institution has attained within the short period of its existence is almost phenom- enal and is creditable alike to the president and his able and zealous coadjutors, the members of the board of trustees, whose policy has been one of liberality and progressiveness. The school has a larger attendance for its years than any similar in- stitution ever opened in the west, its roster showing an enrollment of thirty-nine students for the first year. The fact that the mining industries of Mon- tana constitute one of the most important sources of its prosperity and progress (and will so continue during uncounted future years) makes the school an institution whose value can scarcely be estimated. The State School of Mines will supply the demand for scholarly men thoroughly trained in and cogni- zant of all of the scientific knowledge demanded in properly developing the rich mines of not only Mon- tana, but the entire mineral regions of America. It is one of the wisest acts of the state government that

its establishment and maintenance were made possi- ble. Prof. Leonard is enthusiastic in regard to the school and its future, and its destinies rest safely in his hands, for he is not only a man of the highest scholarship, but a careful and capable ex- ecutive.

In 1875 Prof. Leonard was made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he has lectured on scientific subjects and educational topics in divers sections of the Union, particularly on astronomy, he having de- voted special attention to those nomadic bodies which invade the solar firmament, comets and mete- ors. He prepared a most valuable and interesting monograph for the Journal of American Science on the meteoric showers of 1866-7-8, and also wrote an article relative to the great meteor which fell in Iowa in 1875. In politics the Professor gives his support to the Republican party. His religious faith is that of the Presbyterian church, in which he is active and influential, and his name appears on the church roll of the First Presbyterian church of Butte. He is a member of the session and has been frequently a delegate to presbyteries, synods and general assemblies. On August 25, 1853, Prof. Leonard was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Heizer, who was born in Ohio, the daughter of Frederick and Margaret Heizer. Of the five children of this union four are living : Levi O., general traveling freight agent for the Northern Pacific Railroad, with headquarters at Salt Lake City ; Charles R., of Butte, one of the representative members of the bar of Montana, and a member of the state senate from 1893 to 1897; Frank M., the manager of the Brittannia mine near Vancouver, B. C., and also interested in mining and real estate; Minnie E., a teacher of Latin in the Butte high school.

- OSEPH M. LINDLEY, a Montana pioneer of note, and the first "cattleman" of the Yellow- stone valley, helped to organize and was treas- urer of the first cattle association of eastern Mon- tana, and is now a retired capitalist and highly re- spected resident of Bozeman, Gallatin county. He was born near Vernon, Ind., August 6, 1840. His father, James M. Lindley, was a native of New York, but died in Indiana at the age of forty-five years, known as one of the pioneer farmers of In- diana, having accompanied his parents on their re- moval from New York in the days of his childhood.

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Progressive men of the state of Montana, pt 1, Part 53

Author: Bowen, A.W., & Co., firm, publishers, Chicago Publication date: [19-?] Publisher: Chicago : A. W. Bowen & Co. Number of Pages: 1374

Author: Bowen, A.W., & Co., firm, publishers, Chicago
Publication date: [19-?]
Publisher: Chicago : A. W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 1374