USA > Montana > Then and now; or, Thirty-six years in the Rockies. Personal reminiscences of some of the first pioneers of the state of Montana. Indians and Indian wars. The past and present of the Rocky mountain country. 1864-1900 > Part 13
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When Major Schoonover, who was Indian agent at Fort Union, heard of our being captured, he sent out his inter- preter to tell Firewind and Antelope, both Assiniboine chiefs, to bring in the white prisoners to him, and that unless they did so they would get no annuities for that year. We were about two weeks getting in; we reached Fort Union on the morning of the 4th of July. We related to Major Schoonover all the facts in relation to our having been taken prisoners, and where we were from and where we were going. He took us up-stairs to his room and said, "Well, boys, this is the 4th of July." We had lost track of the day of the month, and did not know that it was the 4th of July until then. He treated each of us to a good drink of brandy. He asked me
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where my home was, and I told him that my parents lived in the city of Providence, Rhode Island. He asked the others the same question. Well, Bill Smith was from Baltimore, Jim Wendall from Piclo, Nova Scotia (he was killed in 1863 by Slade, a desperado, when on a freighting trip from Cow Island; Slade was afterwards hanged in Virginia City by the vigilantes). All the others were from Canada. The only truc American in the lot was Bill Smith. I was born in Ireland, being three years old when my parents came to Providence.
The major sent for all the chiefs and had a council with them, at which we were present. He told them that we were going across into Washington territory, and that he wanted them to give us the right to cross the country and not detain us again; and he further told them to bring everything that they took from us or he would have to give us goods out of their annuities. The Indians returned to us all of our prop- erty and promised not to trouble us any more. The old squaw, when we were leaving, came and shook hands with all of us and expressed gratification at our being safe. We came up the Milk river valley. At the big bend, near what is now Fort Browning, I first saw a grizzly bear. From there we came to Fort Benton and remained there until the spring of 1860.
Captain Mullan was then constructing the Mullan road from Walla Walla to Fort Benton. He wanted men to build bridges, and, as we were all good ax men, we hired out to him. Ma- jor Blake had command of several companies of recruits that came up the river to Fort Benton. They were on their way to Colville, Washington territory. The only houses I saw then between Fort Benton and Missoula were those of Johnny Grant, a half-breed who lived at Deer Lodge, and Bob Demp- sey, an old discharged soldier, who lived between Gold Creek and what is now Radersburg. He had an Indian woman for a wife. That summer we built a bridge over the Blackfoot
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river and another over the Big Blackfoot. There were but few white people living there then. I remember Captain Higgins, Baron O'Keefe and old man Moues, who was run- ning a kind of mill and grinding meal for the Indians, and Lou Brown, a Hudson Bay trader, who took charge of a ferry that Mullan built. There were few other white men who lived there then. We went clear through to the Coeur d'Alene ; we got there in the month of September. From there we went to Wolf Lodge and crossed the St. Joe river and went down by where the city of Spokane now is; thence to Walla Walla, where we arrived on the 8th of October, 1860. There we sep- arated, John Peterson, who was with me, working for Mullan, and I went to the Dalles in Oregon.
From there I went to the Cascade Falls on the Columbia river. That fall I voted for Stephen A. Douglas for presi- dent. When at the Cascades, I worked for the Oregon Navi- gation company, hewing timber for ship building, for which I received twenty-five cents per foot. At this place myself and two other men hewed a remarkable stick of timber, it being one hundred and thirty feet in length and four feet square. After the hewing was done, we sawed it lengthways into two pieces. The sawing was done by hand (whipsawing), there being no sawmills in the country at that time.
Those two huge timbers were used in the building of a steamboat that was to be operated on the upper Columbia river. I worked here until late in the spring of 1861. The following summer I went prospecting on Jolm Day's river. Finding nothing that would pay, I went to Walla Walla, and remained there during the winter of 1861-2. That winter there was four feet of snow on the level. It was the worst and deepest snow I ever saw in my life. Mr. Gerald, a gen- tleman with whom I was well acquainted, had twenty-three
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hundred head of beef stcers near Walla Walla; he was fur- nishing beef for the miners in the Salmon river and the Kootenay country. At that time you could buy five and six- year-old steers in Walla Walla for seven dollars per head. Gerald had several hundred tons of hay put up to feed during the winter ; hay and grass were plentiful everywhere, but, for all that, most of the live stock in that country perished from cold and deep snows. You would see those big wild steers coming up the street and eating the cards that had been thrown out of the gambling houses. Gerald told me that out of the 2,300 cattle, and after feeding all the hay, he had but sixty- three cattle in the spring. Wood went up to $80 a cord in Walla Walla, and flour $30 per hundred pounds. Steamboats could not get up and there were no animals to haul the freight. Men used to go thirty miles to Walula to get a sack of flour and packed it on their backs.
In the early part of the winter I furnished a man named Fox with six months' provisions to go prospecting with John Peeterson on the North fork of the John Day river. In the spring of 1862 I received news from Peeterson stating that they had struck good diggings on Granite creek and for me to come at once. I went from Walla Walla to where Peeterson was. We mined there until fall and did very well, when we sold out for $1,500 to Eph Day, who at one time was the treasurer of the Oregon Navigation company. I suggested to Peeterson that we had better go next to the Fort Benton coun- try, and we decided to do so and started on our journey. Finally we got to Gold Creek. Jack Dunn was there, keeping a store. Jim and Granville Stuart were there. I remember giving Granville the Sacramento Union and he was very glad to get it, for newspapers were very scarce in the camp. They were the men that first found gold in paying quantities in Gold creek, and, for that matter, in the state of Montana, al-
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though "Gold Tom," an old trapper, had found a fair prospect in Gold creek before the Stuarts did. And there I met my old friend, Bill Fairweather, whom I had not seen since we parted at Fort Geary over three years before. A few weeks later I met Bill Sweeney at Bannock.
As I desired to go prospecting east of the Rocky mountain range, I left Bannock about the latter part of October, 1862, in company with John Peeterson and Thomas Thomas. On top of the main range, and where the Mullan road crosses, we met the old frontiersman, John Jacobs. He told us that Cap- tain Fisk, in company with a lot of immigrants from Minne- sota, were in camp in the Prickly Pear valley. I went to their camp, which was near to what is now called Montana Bar. James King and W. C. Gillette were there with a lot of flour ; from them I bought a sack to go prospecting. With the same outfit came Jesse Cox, Jim Wiley, Albert Agnel, Jim Norton, Charles Cary, Alvin H. Wilcox, A. McNeal, James Fergus, Bob Ells, old man Olan and old man Dalton. They and others were in camp and had not decided where to go next. John Peeterson, Thomas Thomas, Jim and Bill Bu- chanan, Dick Merrill and I did some prospecting there that fall and got considerable gold.
Late in the fall, myself, a man named Thebeau, Nickolos Bird, and a fellow by the name of Gervais, who could talk the Flathead language, went off with the Flathreads and Pend d'Oreilles Indians to prospect the country they were going to travel through that winter. The Indians were on the way to the Musselshell country to hunt buffaloes. At this time the Flatheads and Piegans were at war with each other.
All the Indians, who numbered from eight to twelve hun- dred, went through what is now called Confederate gulch. We found good prospects there, but the Indians would not let us stay. It appeared that they had some kind of an under-
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standing with the Crow Indians to go and hunt in that part of the country, but not to encourage any whites to go there, consequently we had to move whenever the Indians would move, and, by this time, they would not let us go back. We camped for several days on the little prairie at the head of Smith river, near where White Sulphur Springs, the county seat of Meagher county, now is. There the Indians had a buf- falo hunt and killed many. After that we went down Shields' river and made three camps there. During all this time the Indians were killing buffalo and drying the meat. At the mouth of Shields' river we saw a large war party of Crows trying to capture some of the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles who were out hunting, and who belonged to the Indians we were with. We camped near where there was a lot of wil- lows. Moise, the head chief of the Flatheads, came and asked me if I would fight; I said yes, and he said, "That is good." I had a good rifle and two revolvers. Soon our Indians got together and prepared for a battle, but the Crows did not fol- low, and it was good for them, for the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles were well armed and mounted on good horses and were eager for a fight. That night they placed their horses in- side the camp and put pickets out in as good way as I ever saw in my life, but the enemy did not make an attack. From there we went east of the Little Snowys. There we met a war party of Piegans coming around what is called Wolfe moun- tain ; there were about thirty of them. They came to our camp to stop all night, and were received as friends, and they played games during the evening with the Pend d'Oreilles. About midnight the Piegans sneaked out and stampeded many of the best horses belonging to the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles and started away with them. Chief Moise at once blew a horn and his son beat a kind of drum; this aroused the whole camp. The Pend d'Oreilles and Flathead warriors
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were in an instant on their best horses and went after the Piegans and captured them all and recovered the stolen horses and brought them to camp. The Pend d'Oreilles wanted to kill the Piegan thieves, but Chief Moise said, "No, we will not kill them, though they are dogs. They came to our tepees as friends, but at the time they were deceiving us. They are dogs ; they came to our camp and we treated them as friends, but they got up in the dark of the night and stole our horses. No, we will not kill them, but we will mark them." Then he ordered his warriors to bring the Piegans to the front of his tepee. After this was done, he ordered them to take the younger bucks and cut their hair short, and to cut a piece off each ear of all the others. During the time this was being done, the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles stood with their bows strung, and others with rifles in their hands, ready to shoot if anyone made a move to get away. After the marking was done, the Piegans were taken outside of the camp and were told to go home as dogs and never return or they would be killed as dogs. I witnessed all this.
On Christmas eve, 1862, we were in camp at Wolfe moun- tain. Chief Moise invited us to his tent to eat a Christmas dinner with him. He knew that it was Christmas day and respected it as such, for he had been taught what the meaning of it was by Father De Smet. His wife cooked dinner for us. She had fried doughnuts as good as any I ever ate, and ex- cellent yeast powder bread; we had buffalo tongue and all kinds of meats. In all my life I never enjoyed a Christmas dinner better than I did that Christmas eve of 1862 in the tepee of the Flathead chief near Wolfe mountain.
Christmas morning I went on the top of what the Indians called Heart mountain. My object was to try and look in the direction of Fort Benton, for I knew we were not far from there, as I could see the Bear Paw mountains plainly. We
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decided to leave the Indians and go to Fort Benton. The Flathead chief sent six Indians to escort us through. It took us two days and part of a night. The second day out we traveled on a trail where the sage hens were as thick as I ever saw turkeys in a barnyard, but the Indians would not allow us to shoot, fearing that it might draw the attention of other Indians who were hostile to all of us.
Before the Indians started back we gave them tobacco and some matches, and a fancy pipe for them to take to the chief. It was the 18th of January, 1863, when we crossed the Mis- souri river at Fort Benton, and the river at that time was perfectly free from ice. There were only a few days of cold weather and but little snow that winter.
About the first of March, 1863, Thebeau and I started for the upper country and got as far as Sun river the first day. Vail had charge of the government farm, which was near where we crossed the stream. After going over the hill in the Prickly Pear canyon, and while we were in camp at a little spring W. C. Gillette came along with a eayuse pack train on his way to Fort Benton to get goods for Bannock. Tom Clarey and Jim Gourley were with him. Gillette had his sacks filled with gold dust, and as the road agents were very troublesome at that time, he mistook us for desperadoes; he went by and would not stop to talk with us. From there we went to Montana Bar. By this time the immigrants had nearly all left. Albert Agnel, Alvin H. Wilcox and John Peeterson were there yet, besides a few others. John Peeterson and I sunk a shaft twenty-five feet deep on the bar and found fifty cents to the pan on bed roek. After that Peeterson and I went and surveyed a ditch (it is the same big ditch that now conveys the water from the Prickly Pear creek onto the bench land.) Our surveying apparatus was a triangle and a plumb bob which we made ourselves.
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Alvin H. Wilcox, Jesse Crooks, Albert Agnel, and Jim Marston were also interested in the ditch. About the last of May I received word from Bill Sweeny of the discovery of Alder gulch and that he had staked a claim for me, and for me to come as quickly as possible, but it was pretty late in June before I could leave to go to Alder, and when I got there some one had taken possession of my claim, according to miners' rules, and those were if the owner was not there to represent his claim it could not be held only so many days; consequently I went to work for Bill Sweeny for $14 per day. After working for Sweeny for several weeks, I decided to go back to the bar and do more prospecting. Early in the summer of 1863, I found twenty-five cents to the pan on a bar where the city of Helena is now. I filled the hole up again and built a fire on the fresh dirt to conceal the place, with the in- tention of going back ; that was an old trick which was practiced by the prospectors. As I was interested with John Peeterson in the ditch and the mines on the bar (American bar), and as it was necessary for us to have more sluice boxes, one day I went to cut logs to make lumber. I was on the side of a moun- tain, when a log rolled and caught my leg between it and a stump. It was some time before I could release myself, and when I did so I found that my leg was broken, and that is why I am lame now. There was no doctor to be had. I squeezed the broken place together the best I could and wrapped it up in some bandages I made out of a pair of overalls I had. That winter (1863-4) I stopped in a little cabin. I hired a man named Talbot, who was a Baptist preacher, to cook and stay with me; I paid him twenty dollars a week for liis services and companionship. All this time my leg was troub- ling me terribly. Knowing Father Ravalli, in whose honor Ravalli county is named (he is now dead, and peace be to his memory, for he was a good man), and hearing that he was at
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the Mission, near where the Ulm station on the Montana Cen- tral railroad is located, I decided to go and see him, for I knew that he was a good physician. I gave a man named Mer- rill all my interest in the mines to take me as far as Malcolm Clarke's place at the head of Prickly Pear canyon ; from there a man named Morgan, from Fort Benton, took me to the Mis- sion, a distance of fifty-five miles, and he charged me two hun- dred and fifty dollars, which was all the money I had. Father Ravalli was not at the Mission, but Father Jurada was, he also being a good surgeon. He told me that he could break the leg over again, but it would be shorter. He operated on my leg, and by the summer of 1865 I was able to work.
In 1867 I located the ranch where I am now, and have been ever since. It is like a dream to me when I think of the old trails I traveled over, forty years ago, and, on the other hand, it is a revelation to listen to the rumbling of the heavy trains that pass to and fro on the Montana Central rail- road only a few miles from my door; while, looking in an- other direction, I see clouds of smoke arising and hear the whistle of the locomotives of the Great Falls and Canada rail- road, and looking in still another direction I see the city of Great Falls and the towering smokestacks of its great smelters. Where once were the lone trails I helped to blaze through a wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts and savage men, I now see a flourishing city, and the country around me dotted with fine homes and prosperous towns.
While looking back, my imaginary view is tinged with sadness as I realize that the old days are gone forever ; nevertheless my declining years are made contented and happy by the knowledge that I have done all that I could to convert this one-time wilder- ness into an empire, I now lay down the rifle of the pioneer and the pick and shovel of the prospector to pass the remainder of my days in the peace and content that comes from the consciousness
1
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of having done my best to help develop this western country that it might become the abiding place of an intelligent and pros- perous people. And now, in the sunset of life, as I realize that before many years I shall strike the trail that leads "over the great divide," I rejoice that I can leave to my children a name honored by being enrolled on the scroll of Montana's pioneers."
Now Mr. Brown is past seventy-five years of age and lives with his family on a farm. Sun River is his postoffice. He is a well-preserved man for his age and has a remarkably good memory. What I have written here is but a fraction of that which he told me that evening of what the West was forty-two years ago. The only way to get a true early history of a country is to get such a narrative from its pioneers, and surely John D. Brown should be counted as one of the early historians of the state of Montana.
January 4, 1900.
ROBERT VAUGHN.
A PIONEER MINISTER.
As the following was written for this book by "Brother Van," it needs no introduction. The writer tells of the first services that he held in Montana -- when he fought the Nez Perces as well as sin and the whole host of hell. He said :
"We reached Fort Benton by the steamer "Far West" on Sabbath morning, June 30, 1872, at 7 a. m. It was in the midst of a heavy rain. In making inquiries, we were told that we could have the court house in which to hold service. However, on examination, we found it to have a roof com- posed of native soil, in which there were some places where the water came through in great quantities. We were then, told that a room had been prepared in which Father Van Gorp was to hold service that morning. In asking him for the use of the same room in the evening, he replied most courteously that he would use it in the morning, then we were welcome to use it as often as we might desire, so our first service in Montana was held that evening.
"There was a large congregation, composed of the busi- ness men, freighters and river men. There was only one lady in the congregation-Mrs. George Baker-now of St. Louis.
"Here I first met, and they were my first acquaintances in Montana, W. G. Conrad and C. E. Conrad, young men then full of business and energy. They, with others, gave us a most hearty welcome. The greater part of the freight for Montana then came by the Missouri river, and freighting was a great business from Fort Benton to other points in the ter- ritory.
REV. W. W. VAN OLSDEL.
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"Leaving Fort Benton, after a journey of fifty-two miles over bleak prairie without habitation, except one lonely stage station, I came to Sun river valley. The first settler I met there was Mr. Robert Vaughn, a much respected and honored citizen. He was one of the earliest settlers of this great val- ley, which, at that time, was a part of Choteau county. I was indeed a stranger in a strange land, but I can never for- get the hearty welcome accorded me by him. Though a bachelor, he knew how to give a welcome and make home pleasant to the young itinerant who had but very little money and whose best mode of travel was to go afoot.
"No person but he who has experienced it can appreciate what it is to come from a long journey after being exposed to the elements and hostile Indians, and then to receive such kind treatment. Among others who welcomed me at that time to Sun River, were the Largents, Strongs, Fords, Burch- ers and Browns-in fact all who resided in the little settlement treated me with kindness.
"At that time there roamed over those prairies great herds of buffaloes, antelopes and deer. The Indians were hostile, and great risks had to be taken to protect life and property- It is said that more of the carly settlers were killed in what was then Choteau county, than in any other part of the state.
"The first religious service held at Sun River was con- ducted in the house of Mr. Charles Bull, who kindly threw open his door and invited the neighbors in. As we sang the old hymns and preached the gospel, there were many eyes dimmed with tears as recollections of the old home and the old home church came to memory. Without any solicita- tion on the part of the preacher, the people took up a very lib- cral offering and presented the same to him.
"It was at this time a visit was made to the Blackfeet and Piegan ageney on the Teton river, and near where is now
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located the town of Choteau. Major Jesse Armitage was agent, and Mr. B. W. Sanders teacher. A hearty welcome was given and a very interesting service was held at that time with the employes and Indians.
"I made my first visit to Butte in May, 1874. All but ten of the population of Butte attended the service; the congrega- tion numbered about forty. Rev. Hugh Duncan (now of sainted memory), one of the first pioneer preachers, who came to Alder gulch in 1863, was then pastor of that large circuit, and met me there. Mr. and Mrs. Reese Wampler entertained the preachers. A striking contrast between past and present- then about fifty, now about that many thousand.
"In 1876 the population of the territory was very much decreased, the Black Hills and Leadville excitements, then at their height, drew away many of the miners; others went East to see friends and attend the Centennial, which was held that year. In June of the same year the Custer massacre took place on the Little Big Horn.
"Those who remember attending Fourth of July celebra- tions that year can well call to mind the sorrow that over- shadowed the homes of the Montana frontiersmen, for the war cloud commenced to gather over all the small and isolated set- tlements in this then new territory.
"Early in the summer of 1877, after some hard fought battles in Idaho, Chief Joseph and Looking Glass, with their band of Nez Perces Indians came over the mountains on the Lo Lo trail passing up the Bitter Root valley, and were en- camped for a few days on the Big Hole river, when General Gibbon, with his soldiers from Fort Shaw and some citizen volunteers from the Bitter Root, met them in battle on the Big Hole, August 9th.
"On the next Sabbath we were at Bannock, where we held service that evening. Some of the men and nearly all of
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the women from the surrounding country were there for safety and others came in that night. One young man was wounded in the arm; others had escaped almost miraculously. That night fifteen of us volunteered to go out to Horse Prairie. Melvin Trask was selected as captain, and before sunrise we were on the move. We had information that some men were killed and others severely wounded at the ranches over in that beautiful valley, especially at the ranches of Montague, Win- ters and Mr. Hamilton's. Mrs. Winters was in town. She said she was going with us; we said no, and persuaded her to remain, but when we were about twelve miles out she over- took us. She was a woman of fine form, her long, black hair hanging down her back, mounted on a very fine horse, and a revolver buckled on, and she knew how and was not afraid to use it.
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