Progressive men of the state of Montana, pt 2, Part 73

Author: Bowen, A.W., & Co., firm, publishers, Chicago
Publication date: [19-?]
Publisher: Chicago : A. W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 1092

USA > Montana > Progressive men of the state of Montana, pt 2 > Part 73

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Mr. Keller is a native of the state of Iowa, having been born in Delaware county, on the 5th of Sep- tember, 1858, being the son of Rudolph Keller, who was born in Monroe county, Pa., on the 19th of July, 1819, and who has been for many years a successful farmer in Delaware county, Iowa, of which state he is a pioneer. His wife, whose maiden name was Eliza Ann Reese, was likewise born in Monroe county in the old Keystone state, on the 19th of June, 1819, and died in Delaware county, Iowa, in 1866. Charles R. Keller, to whom this sketch is dedicated, received his early schol- astic training in the district schools in the vicinity of the old Iowa homestead and thereafter supple- mented this by a course of study in the high school at Colesburg, that state, and in the Iowa Business College, in the city of Keokuk. He left school at the age of twenty years and in the fall of 1879 went to Lincoln county, S. D., where he devoted his at- tention to stockraising for a period of three years. He then removed to Whitman county, Wash., where he continued in the same line of enterprise for eight years. In August, 1892, Mr. Keller came to Montana and located on his present ranch, in the Sweet Grass hills, where he and his wife took

up claims. Here he now has a valuable ranch of 480 acres, improved with excellent buildings, in- cluding a good farm residence, and here he has since been successfully engaged in sheepgrowing, running an average of 6,000 head, the same being of high grade and of the type best adapted to this section of the state. He also has sixty acres of his ranch under cultivation and is beginning to direct special attention to the raising of cattle. His ranch is located three and a half miles southeast of the village of Whitlash, which is his postoffice address. In politics Mr. Keller is a stalwart sup- porter of the cause of the Republican party, taking an intelligent interest in the questions and issues of the hour, and being essentially public-spirited in his attitude. Fraternally he is identified with St. John's Lodge No. 91, at St. John's, Washington.

In the year 1883, in Lincoln county, S. D., Mr. Keller was united in marriage to Miss Josephine Fockler, whose death occurred in the 30th of Oc- tober, 1886. On the 8th of August, 1892, Mr. Keller consummated a second marriage, being then united to Miss Belle Livingston, who was born at Roseburg, Ore., the daughter of Elijalı Livingston, a prominent citizen and politician of that place. Our subject and his wife had two children, Lucille, born November 25, 1893, died March 21, 1898, and Steward A., born October 17, 1897, died November 27, 1901.

J AMES KENNEDY, youngest son of James and Katherine (Reynolds) Kennedy, was probably one of the youngest of the now nearly extinct class of "old-timers" who took part in the first movements in the transition of savage Montana into its present civilized state. He was one of the seven who gave the name to Helena, and from that remote period he has been one of the sons of the west. His birth occurred July 15, 1849, in Rich- land county, Ohio, and his mother died so soon thereafter that his only remembrance of her is seeing her in her coffin. He was bound out to a farmer with whom he stayed until he was sixteen, having but common school advantages for an edu- cation. At that time his older brothers, John and William, had come back from an extended stay in the far west, and were contemplating a return. Several of the brothers accompanied them, among them James. Their experience in reaching Fort Ben- ton is told in the biography of John J. Kennedy elsewhere in this volume.

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It was in 1863 that Mr. Kennedy's first introduc- tion to Montana occurred. On arriving at Fort Ben- ton the brothers separated, William and James go- ing north to Edmonston. They found nothing there to please them and retraced their route, making their next objective point Bevin's gulch, where Will- iam engaged in mining. James passed most of the season of 1864 in hauling lumber from the Trombley mills to Virginia City in Alder gulchı, when he commenced mercantile life by going to the extreme western part of the state and trans- porting a load of vegetables from Pend d'Oreille to Virginia City, where, though frozen hard as rocks, they found ready sale at fifteen cents a pound. In 1865 he was first at Silver creek and later at Last Chance gulch, where, as before men- tioned, he took part in changing the name to Helena. (Mr. Kennedy states that the name as first sug- gested was Helen Orr, but none of them other than the one who proposed it liked that name, so the transition to the pleasanter term Helena was quickly made and carried by a vote. One of the party suggested that the next thing to do after nam- ing the place was to start a graveyard, and Mr. Kennedy says that four months later the grave- yard was started by the burial of the very man who made that remark.) The next season Mr. Kennedy was in the Prickly Pear valley and saw another phase of frontier life in the great Sun river stampede. In such a life and with such sur- roundings men's natures rapidly acquire habits of quick thought and decision and become strongly self-poised and self-reliant. These conditions were accentuated when, in the fall of 1867, he went to the junction of the Union Pacific and California Pacific railroads, at Ogden, Utah. He. passed the winter there and says it was by. far the wildest place he ever saw and during that time he saw more killing than in all of his life beside.

During 1868 Mr. Kennedy was for some months working at quartz mining at White Pine. Nev., and gradually going west he passed Christmas. 1869. in San Francisco. His next field of employment was in San Buena Ventura, Cal., where he made water ditches for several months. Going to Los Angeles county with the intention of traveling on to Mexico, he learned that it was absolutely neces- sary for him to acquire the Spanish language. To accomplish this object he joined a company of Mexican miners and for three years labored with them and thereby fully acquired the language. During this time, however, he discovered that he

didn't want anything to do with the Spaniards or Mexicans and relinquished his contemplated Mexi- can trip. After this he was engaged in various occupations in San Bernardino, Cal., agriculture, beekeeping, etc. Here he married and began to think of making a permanent residence. Before this was done, however, he was three years in the real estate business in Santiago county, where he made money. In 1888 he went to Ventura county as a real estate operator, and there, satisfied with the country, purchased land and established a permanent home at Hueneme, on the sea coast, sixty miles north of Los Angeles. In 1890 lie brought his family to visit his brother John at Columbia Falls, Mont., and that visit still con- tinues, Mr. Kennedy considering himself "a wan- derer far from home." Nevertheless he has pretty well established himself at Columbia Falls. He built there a business block and leased it to two men, Fullerton & Nelson, dealers in stationery and drugs. At the same time he was commissioned the first postmaster of the place. In the store he built he was postmaster for over four years, dur- ing which time the occupants of his building failed, he was made assignee, and, to close up the matter, he purchased the goods and is now in trade. He is also interested in the newly discovered oil fields in the north part of Flathead county. Mr. Ken- nedy is a man of marked individuality, original in thought and methods, possesses a rare fund of brilliant humor and is a most delightful social com- panion. He has worthily won success.

Mr. Kennedy married Margaret Huff, born at St. Mary, Iowa. Soon after her birth her father. a native of Germany, came to Bannack City, Mont., and was a merchant and a mason there for some time. He died when she was five years old. Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy have three children, Henry, Ed- mond. Minnie ( who were born in San Bernardino, and never saw snow until they saw it in the Flat- head valley in 1890), and Marguerite, born in Hueneme. Ventura county, Cal.

JOHN J. KENNEDY .- Resting quietly on his pleasant ranch on the beautiful tableland at Columbia Falls, Mont., surrounded by magnificent mountain scenery and the healthful atmosphere of the Rocky mountains, here passing the eventide of a wondrously active life, is John J. Kennedy, the subject of this review, one of the last survivors of

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the daring heroes who nearly half a century ago led the van of civilization along Indian trails into the Rocky mountain mining region. Year after year he has witnessed the marvelous development of the west and in many ways has contributed his time, his labor and his money toward its accom- plishment. Mr. Kennedy was born in Richland county, Ohio, on March 17, 1839. His parents, James and Katherine (Reynolds) Kennedy, emi- grated from Tipperary county, Ireland, to America in 1831, settling first in New York and later in Ohio, where they passed their lives. John J. Ken- nedy was an industrious youth, working diligently in summer and studying as hard in the winter terms of school. From his thirteenth to his seventeenth year he lived in Cleveland and hauled brick and sand in a brick yard when not attend- ing school, after this, while visiting Ashland county, he engaged with a cattle man of Iowa to work for him in that state and farmed for two years. The town of Fort Atkinson had just been platted and Mr. Kennedy was given, as an inducement to start a brick yard, a deed of two town lots and the right to cut 100 cords of wood. He made brick one season under discouraging circumstances, then, in 1859, traded his whole outfit for a gun and money enough to take him to Pike's Peak, from whence marvelous gold discoveries were reported. With a partner, C. P. Lowry, he started with oxen, a light wagon and a tent. They reached Fort Kear- ney, when the returning number of "Pike's Peakers" caused his partner to give up further travel. Re- turning with Mr. Lowry to Nebraska City and Salt creek, Mr. Kennedy there attached himself as a chainman to a United States surveying party under Captain Cook, who was surveying the base line between Kansas and Nebraska. Commencing at Cottonwood creek, the line went west to Fort Kear- ney, then a line was run north to the fort from the Platte river and a government reservation sur- veyed. This finished Captain Cook's contract. Starting east, the company soon met Major & Rus- sell's train of twenty-four wagons, with twelve oxen to a wagon, on its way to Utah with sup- plies for the United States troops. Mr. Kennedy and two of his surveying comrades joined the train as employees. "Billy" John, now residing at Prickly Pear canyon, was one of the three. The route led through Echo and Weber canyons to Camp Floyd, forty-five miles south of Salt Lake City. Receiving pay at $40 a month, his next win- ter was spent in taking care of cattle in Rush valley.

His older brother, William, was a soldier of Com- pany I, Tenth United States Infantry, stationed at Camp Floyd with term of service nearly cx- pired. . They were planning companionship, but an opportunity occurring to join a train of emigrants going to Oregon, Mr. Kennedy did not wait for his brother's discharge. This was the second train that took the overland route for Oregon. Dangers beset them. Hostile Indians at times surrounded them. The Snake Indians killed two of their num- ber at Brewer's creek, but they were watchful and ably commanded and none others were injured. The next company on the trail lost many, killed by the same Indians and every member of the next succeeding one was killed at the spot where the attack on the first was made. His first winter in Oregon Mr. Kennedy passed in cooking and car- ing for teamsters' horses at the half-way house on the sixteen-mile portage at the Dalles. In April, 1861, he went to the Orofino creek, a branch of the Clearwater, the first gold-producing camp in the rich Clearwater placer mining district, and was there early enough to join a party of eight secur- ing a claim. The noted "Johnnie" Healy, now of Alaska mining fame, was one of the partners and was long connected with Mr. Kennedy in mining. Here his brother William joined him and took his place in working the claim while Mr. Ken- nedy prospected. Soon, however, Baldwin & Whitman, of Walla Walla, started a branch store at Orofino and engaged Mr. Kennedy for a time as clerk, but later, while prospecting, the rich Sal- mon river mines were discovered by Healy, where grew up Florence City. Selling their Orofino claims Mr. Kennedy, his brother William and Mr. Healy were members of the party that developed the Florence mines. Prices were high, shovels $25 each, gum boots $50 a pair, and all goods in pro- portion. The next spring, after an open fall and a hard winter, Mr. Kennedy bought a pack train at White Bird canyon and returned to Orofino for a load of supplies which he took to Florence City, and sold, both teams and goods, to his old employers, Baldwin & Whitman. On this trip occurred his refusal to drink with the desperado, Boone Helm, who was at the time "owning" the camp of Florence. It is probable that no other man could have done this and lived, as Helm, by his numerous murders, had terrorized the whole community and usually killed any one who slighted his invitation. Supply wagons from Orofino were unloaded at Mountain City, twenty miles west of

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the Florence mines, and packed in from there on the backs of men at a cost of twenty-five cents per pound. The Florence mines were among the earliest mines ever worked, owned by "Johnnie" Healy, Harley McEwen and Kennedy. In 1862 rumors of a wonderfully rich gold deposit on the Salmon river took Healy off on an investigating trip, and later Mr. Kennedy decided to sell their mine, and with his brother and McEwen go in search of him. They journeyed up the Clearwater, past Elk City, and on east for fifty miles, where they found Healy, who had discovered no wealth and had nearly starved, just rescued from death by Colorado miners bound for Florence City. Healy now proposed the return of all to the states, and, as they had won a fine return for their labor, this proposition was accepted. As Mr. Kennedy says, "this was a year's job." They returned home by way of Lewistown and Deer Lodge, on their way camping where is now Missoula. Going on horseback to Fort Benton, they left their horses there and arranged with a fur trader to transport them to St. Louis. A large Mackinaw boat was built and manned by nearly twenty men to take the party down the Missouri until the steamer was met on her upward trip. The contract then called for the steamer's return to St. Louis with their outfit. They met the steamer near the mouth of Milk river and the transfer of goods occupied nearly ten days. The first day of their steamer's travel brought them into extreme peril. Thousands of Sioux warriors in war paint and flushed by their recent massacre of the whites in Minnesota lined the shores and surrounded the steamer. They made no hostile manifestation at first, but the sec- ond day they tried to run off horses. Any flinching of nerve or sign of fear by the occupants of the steamer would have precipitated a general massacre. A determined front was presented, a horse taken by the Indians was recovered under cover of rifles aimed and at full cock, the boat was anchored out in the stream each night and in a few days the danger passed. Leaving the steamer at Council Bluffs and taking stage 160 miles to the nearest railroad station, they went to Chicago and from there to Philadelphia, where their supply of gold was left at the mint. Mr. Kennedy then visited Ohio, and the next spring, with five of his brothers and Mr. Healy, left St. Louis on the first packet for Fort Benton. At Cow island low water prevented further progress by boat. Wil- liam Kennedy went to Fort Benton for the horses

left there the previous year. They then brought boats which they loaded with provisions and min- ing outfits and towed them to Fort Benton, the trip occupying the whole summer. On the steamer were three hundred passengers, among them Ed. . McClay and King and Gillette, since so prominent in Montana. From Fort Benton, Healy, William and James Kennedy and others went north to Fort Edmonston. Mr. Kennedy and brother Michael followed their brothers Peter and Stephen to Alder gulch, where mines had been struck the fall before. Here they engaged in hauling min- ing timbers, making $15 daily. He also conveyed three of the first elected members of an Idaho legislature to the capital. The next spring (1864) he made a prospecting trip up to Fort Steele, B. C., passing through the Flathead valley. On the way he was royally entertained over night in the camp of "road agents," then the terror of the country, and who not long afterward suffered death for their crimes. He had known many of them before they had 'taken to the road.' In the fall of 1864 Last Chance gulch came into promi- nence and Mr. Kennedy went there from Virginia City and the next summer built Mackinaw boats by the hundreds near the dam below Helena, sell- ing them to people going down the Missouri. Here he was again joined by his brothers, William and James, and they located the famous ranch on the Prickly Pear river that is still called Kennedy's ranch. Here for two years they kept a hotel and stopping place for teams. Mr. Kennedy in 1866 built all the stage stations between Benton and Helena and supplied them with the hay needed for the winter at $25 a ton, leaving 200 tons at Fort Shaw. In 1867 he prospected in northwestern Montana, reaching, at the close of the year, the Cedar creek country, seventy miles west of Mis- soula .- Wintering at Missoula, he heard rumors that the Northern Pacific Railroad was going to touch some point on the Missouri, and in the spring, with John Duval, went to Fort Benton, then by steamer to Fort Union, now Fort Buford. In the fall he took charge of freight trains hauling goods for Healy & Hamilton from Fort Benton to northern trading posts for two years. He then bought one of the posts and carried on freighting himself until 1876, when he sold out and bought a herd of cattle in the Bitter Root valley and drove theni through the Flathead valley and Tobacco plains, via Gray creek to Fort McLeod on the British possessions. This was the first herd driven

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into the Lethbridge county. The same season he drove another herd from Missoula to the Marias river, where he wintered. In 1877 he shipped cattle to Bismarck by boat down the Missouri. Then for five years, from 1878, had the sub-contract for furnishing beef to the posts of the Northwest Mounted Police north of the international boun- dary, with headquarters at Fort Benton. On one of these trips he drove his herd past Sitting Bull, who was addressing his assembled braves near the British line. From 1878 to 1891 he was in the cattle and meat business at Fort Benton, when lie sold his interest there and contracted to furnish beef to the construction camps of the Great Nortlı- ern from Havre to Kalispell. While doing this he purchased 160 acres of land at Columbia Falls for a permanent home and plotted forty acres of this as Kennedy's addition to that town. He also erected a warehouse and bought and sold grain for some years until failing health demanded his re- tirement from business. Democratic in politics, he has never troubled himself to seek office, but the esteem in which the people hold him is evidenced by his complimentary election in 1900 to the office of public administrator of Flathead county. He joined the Freemasons in 1881 in Fort Benton Lodge No. 25, and still holds membership there.

Mr. Kennedy married, on December 27, 1883, with Miss Irene Morrison, also a native of Richland county, Ohio. Her father, Rev. Benjamin Morri- son, was long an honored Baptist minister of Ohio. One of her great-great-grandfathers was John Hart, a native of Cork, Ireland, who came to New Jersey in colonial days, as a delegate from that state was a signer of the Declaration of Indepen- dence, and was an officer and an active participant in the Revolution. His daughter Martha married first an English officer. They had two sons and he later returned to England alone. Sometime afterward his brother came to America, told his wife her husband was dead and offered to take the boys to England and give them a better education than American schools could do. The mother finally consented to this proposition and they de- parted to sail from Boston on a specified date and ship. They were never again heard from, nor did inquiries show that any such person had sailed on the ship on which they were to embark. Martha Hart's second husband was John Morrison, the Scottish immigrant, and the great-grandfather of Benjamin Morrison. Mrs. Kennedy was carefully educated at the Young Ladies' Institute, of Gran-

ville, Ohio, under Dr. Shepardson, a noted in- structor, in whose memory the school received its present name, Shepardson University. She became a teacher. Commencing with a primary class in the school of Galion, Ohio, she won distinction and concluded her labors of eleven years in the same city as assistant principal of the high school. This position she resigned to make her home in the Flathead valley. She is an ardent and a diligent . student of the English classics and her library of old standard English authors is large and choice, a veritable "well of English undefiled." Nature in all its forms is delightful to her. She is an en- thusiastic florist; her collections of minerals and other "nature subjects" are large and discrimin- ating, and her herbariums of lichens, mosses and ferns are a delight to the eyes, all of these showing in arrangement and grouping the correct taste of a cultured artist.

A RTHUR TRUMAN .- In noting the salient points in the genealogical and personal history of the subject of this review, one of the progressive and influential farmers of the Gallatin valley, we find that he comes of stanch lineage, the families on either side having long been established on American soil, while each succeeding generation exemplified the deepest loyalty and patriotism.

Mr. Truman is a native of the old Buckeye state, having been born in Spring Valley, Greene county, Ohio, on February 9, 1842, the son of Jeffrey and Jane (Elam) Truman, the former of whom was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pa., and the latter in Spring Valley, Ohio, and it may here be noted that the town of Transylvania, Ohio, was given its name by the father of our subject in honor of the university of that name in Kentucky. Jane Elam was the daughter of Josiah Elam, who was born in Culpeper county, Va., and was a valiant soldier in the Continental army during the war of the Revo- lution. After independence was established he re- moved to Kentucky, and there was solemnized his marriage to Miss Sarah Porter. Their home was on the very frontier of civilization, and they were constantly menaced and greatly harassed by the Indians, many of their neighbors being slain by the savages while others were taken captive, the depredations coming mostly from the Miamis. Mr. Elam was a captain of a Kentucky company under Gen. St. Clair during the war of 1812, and after

Arthur Demand

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the close of this war he selected 1,000 acres of land on Caesar creek, an affluent of the Miami river, in Ohio. He eventually settled upon this estate, a portion of which is still occupied by his descendants. John B. Elam, a cousin of the sub- ject of this review, was a law partner of the late Benjamin Harrison at the time of his election to the presidency, the firm name being Harrison, Miller & Elam, and their headquarters being in the capital city of Indiana.

In the agnatic line the ancestry of Mr. Truman is of the old Quaker stock of Pennsylvania, the original American representatives having come hithi- er in the early Colonial days and identified with the original colony established by William Penn, who sold to George Smedley, who came from Derby- shire, England, in 1682, 250 acres of land which he located in Chester county, reserving a lot in the city of Philadelphia. Our subject's grandfather and grand uncle were members of the Harmony Fire Company of Philadelphia, Pa., which was organized August 24, 1784. The Truman forebear was Riclı- ard, who, with his wife, Martha, came to America from England in 1715, and settled in what is now Montgomery county, Pa. On the maternal side Mr. Truman's ancestors were Welsh, of the royal stock of the Llewellyns, tradition says descendants of that Prince Llewellyn, who figures in Welsh poetry as the great political saint of the race ; and through- out a long line of distinguished men the family has well sustained the character of indomitable perse- verance and firmness for which he was renowned.

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Progressive men of the state of Montana, pt 2, Part 73

Author: Bowen, A.W., & Co., firm, publishers, Chicago Publication date: [19-?] Publisher: Chicago : A. W. Bowen & Co. Number of Pages: 1092

Author: Bowen, A.W., & Co., firm, publishers, Chicago
Publication date: [19-?]
Publisher: Chicago : A. W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 1092