in Missoula county was solemnized at Hell’s Gate; that of George P.
White to Mrs. Josephine Mineinger. The ceremony was performed by Henry
Brooks, justice of the peace, and who was afterwards known as ‘Bishop
Brooks.’ This was probably the first marriage of white persons within
the limits of the country that is now Montana.
‘The first lawsuit ever commenced in Missoula county, or in fact in
Montana, was commenced and tried at Hell’s Gate, in the month of March,
1862, before Henry Brooks, justice of the peace. The proceedings were
under the laws of Washington Territory. A Frenchman called ‘Tin Cup
Joe’--other name forgotten--accused Baron O’Keefe with beating one of
his horses with a fork handle and then pushing him into a hole, thereby
causing his death, and claimed damages in the sum of forty dollars and
sued O’Keefe to recover that amount. The place of trial was in Bolte’s
saloon. A jury of six was impaneled and sworn to try the case. W. B. S.
Higgins, A. S. Blake and Bart Henderson were of the jury. As the trial
progressed the proceedings became less harmonious until it ultimately
culminated in a bit of unpleasantness, the friends of the respective
parties lent a hand and it was far from being a select or private
affair. While the unpleasantness was in progress the court and the jury
had fled for dear life, and when harmony was restored they were nowhere
to be found. After considerable search the court and jury were captured
and the trial proceeded. The case was finally given to the jury, and
after a brief time they came into court and rendered a verdict for the
plaintiff for forty dollars damages. The costs swelled the judgment to
about ninety dollars. This was probably the most hotly contested case
ever tried in the state. The defendant endeavored to take an appeal
to the district court, but as that court was held at Colville, three
hundred miles distant, he concluded to settle the judgment, which he
did. Poor Bishop Brooks was, in 1865, killed in Uncle Ben’s gulch near
Blackfoot City, shot through a glass in a door by whom or for what
cause was never known.
“On the 3d day of March, 1863, Idaho Territory was organized and this
county became a part of that Territory and an election was held in the
fall of that year for members of the legislature. The writer has no
knowledge that any county officers were appointed by the governor of
Idaho for this county, and from the fact that Montana was organized on
the 26th of May, 1864, he is of the opinion that none were appointed.
In the fall of 1864, under the proclamation of Governor Edgerton,
an election was held for delegates to congress and members of the
legislature. September 27, 1867, the first district court convened in
Missoula county, Hon. L. P. Williston presiding. The first churches
established in Montana were in Missoula county, the first being at the
old Catholic mission established in the Bitter Root valley, and the
next that of St. Ignatius mission. Prior to 1865 there was scarcely a
protestant minister within the Territory of Montana. Bishop Tuttle of
the Episcopal church visited Missoula in 1870, and the services held by
him were the first by any protestant minister in the town of Missoula.
In 1872 Rev. T. C. Iliff of the Methodist Episcopal church organized a
congregation in Missoula. The first Presbyterian church was organized
in Missoula in 1876.
“The first train over the Northern Pacific railroad reached Missoula
August 7, 1883, and the last spike connecting the east and west
divisions of the road was driven at a point between Garrison and Gold
Creek by Henry Villard, president of the road, on September 8, 1883.”
Judge Woody came to what is now Montana in October, 1856, when the
western portion of the state of Montana was a part of Washington
Territory. He has resided in the country ever since, and nearly all of
this time in Missoula county, thus giving him a residence in Montana
of over forty-four years. During all this time he has, without moving,
been an inhabitant of three territories and one state. The western
portion of Montana was, in 1856, Washington Territory, then became
Idaho Territory, Montana Territory and finally the state of Montana.
Judge Woody was born in Chatham county, North Carolina, on December
10, 1833, and on his paternal side was of Quaker descent, and on his
maternal side of good old revolutionary stock. His early life was that
of a farmer with very limited educational advantages. At the age of
eighteen he entered New Garden Boarding school (now Guilford college),
a Quaker institution of learning near Greensboro, North Carolina.
After remaining at this institution one year, he taught school in the
eastern portion of the state for six months. He then, in the summer of
1853, attended another Quaker school in Indiana, after which he taught
school in that state until April, 1855, when he removed to Kansas. Not
being satisfied with the country, and with a desire to see more of
the West, he joined a merchant wagon train bound for Great Salt Lake,
and remained with the train until it reached a point west of Fort
Laramie. He then joined an emigrant party bound for Shoalwater bay,
in the Territory of Washington, and remained with it until it reached
Independence Rock, a once noted point on the Sweetwater river, near
the South Pass, in the state of Wyoming. At this point he became sick
and was forced to remain several days and eventually fell in with a
party of Mormons bound for Salt Lake and went with them, reaching there
August, 1855.
He remained in Utah until the fall of 1856, when he joined a party of
traders coming to the “Flathead country” (now Missoula and Ravalli
counties), to trade with the Indians, and about the middle of October
arrived on the Hell Gate river, near where the town of Missoula now
stands.
From that time until February, 1866, he followed different pursuits,
engaging in freighting, mining and merchandising, and, on the last date
named was, by the board of county commissioners, appointed county clerk
and recorder of Missoula county, which office he held continuously by
re-election until the fall of 1880, when he refused to again become a
candidate. During a portion of this time he also filled the office of
probate judge, which office had been consolidated with that of county
clerk and recorder. For eight years of this time he also served as
deputy clerk of the second judicial district court of the county of
Missoula. While acting in the latter capacity, he began the study of
law and was admitted to the bar in January, 1877. He soon built up an
extensive clientage and took rank as one of the leading lawyers of
western Montana. In 1869 he was elected a member of the legislative
council for the counties of Missoula and Deer Lodge.
He once edited a weekly newspaper, and at a period when editors labored
under difficulties and disadvantages of which the present generation
can scarcely conceive. Then mails were but weekly and later on
tri-weekly, and often in the winter it was from eight to twelve days
between deliveries, therefore an Eastern or California paper was seldom
to be obtained so that the old-time editors had great difficulty in
making up their editorial columns or securing clippings for the general
news page. But, after all, the infrequent arrival of the mails was
in favor of the Montana editor, for in those days few of the general
readers of the territorial papers ever read an Eastern or a Pacific
coast paper, consequently everything printed in their home paper was
news to them, and the editor, who was supposed to be the writer, was
praised as a smart fellow, when, in fact, it was often copied from
other papers.
At the annual meeting of the Montana Press Association at Anaconda
last fall, Judge Woody was present and was called upon to give his
experiences as an editor. The judge arose, and, in a humorous way, said:
“I remember well when we received the news of the death of Napoleon
III., in 1873. I wanted to write an editorial about him and give a
short sketch of his career, but there was not a work of reference in
town. Fortunately the San Francisco Chronicle, which was received,
contained an account of his death and also an elaborate editorial on
his life and achievements, and from this I constructed an editorial
which would have astonished the editor who wrote the one for the
Chronicle.
“These pilferings were hardly legitimate, but were excusable under the
plea of ‘military necessity.’ In the early days the editors of many
of our weekly papers were not only editors, but ‘local,’ and often
proprietors, and they were required to furnish not only the copy, but
the means to keep the paper running, which was not always easy to do
when we shipped our paper by express from Helena to Missoula at twelve
and one-half cents per pound, cash down, before we could get it out of
the express office. Talk about ‘steamer day!’ No one ever rustled on
steamer day as we were compelled to on the day when the express arrived
with our week’s supply of paper. We never failed to get our paper out
of the express office, but it sometimes made us sweat blood to do it.
In those days there was never a circus in the vicinity. There were no
shows of any kind, and complimentary tickets to such entertainments
were never seen by the editorial ‘staff.’
“In those days, while we did not get any complimentaries, and but
little wedding cake and wine, we received our regular supply of
threatened lickings, and the kickers of those days were more robust,
muscular and dangerous than the kickers of the present time. Most of
them wore six-shooters, which had a decidedly ugly look. It was not
always safe to write what we deemed a complimentary personal, and on
more than one occasion I raised a storm by printing what I deemed an
innocent local. I wrote a harmless item--as I thought--concerning some
school mams who were coming to Missoula to spend their vacation and
incidentally mentioned that a bachelor of the town, hearing of the
intended visit of these school mams, had caused a new picket fence to
be constructed around his bachelor quarters in order to protect himself
from invasion. Now I thought this was exceedingly clever, but just here
I made a mistake. The bachelor friend was highly indignant and did not
speak to me for more than a month, and when I received the next number
of the New Northwest, of Deer Lodge, it contained a letter from one of
the aforesaid school mams, in which she walked all over me with spikes
in her shoes. This was a good opening, and in our next issue I returned
to the fray a little, just vigorously enough to get the lady to go
another bout. She came back sharper than ever in the next issued of the
New Northwest, and thus it went until Captain Mills, the editor, shut
her off, and that ended the fight.
“About this time there was quite a sensation in New York city
concerning the ‘Little Church Around the Corner.’ At the time of which
I write, Dr. T. C. Iliff, now of Salt Lake City, was stationed in
Missoula as a Methodist minister, and was quite a young man. He had
in the summer of 1872 erected the church in Missoula now known as the
Methodist church, and during the winter of 1872-73 he, with some other
preachers, were holding a protracted meeting in the church. They had
quite a revival. One day, during the time the meeting was in progress,
I wrote a short local notice of it, in which I referred to the revival
in the little church around the corner, and said something to the
effect that Brother Iliff had brought into the fold ‘Tapioca’ and some
other tough cases, and that, having succeeded so well with them, there
was hope for ‘Yeast Powder Bill’ and some others in town.
“Be it known that there were then in town two rather hard cases, known
by these titles. ‘Tapioca’ joined the church and became a bright and
shining light--for a short time. Well, Brother Iliff and my other
Methodist friends took great umbrage at my little item and appointed a
committee, headed by Brother Iliff, to wait on me and demand some kind
of a retraction, all of which they did not get.
“However, the storm soon blew over and Brother Iliff and I have ever
since been the warmest kind of friends. Such were a few of the
amenities of early journalism in the Wild and Woolly West.”
Frank H. Woody is now, and has been since his election in 1892, the
district judge for the Fourth judicial district of Montana, which
comprises Missoula and Ravalli counties.
Thus, in brief, is the history of the first settlement in the state of
Montana, and also a short biography of one of her first pioneers.
ROBERT VAUGHN.
Dec. 18, 1899.
MONTANA THEN AND NOW.
Montana! The name carries with it the “legend of the aborigines” who
called it “Tay-a-be-shock-up,” or “Country of the Mountain,” a name
appropriate and expressive that its beautiful significance will ever
suggest a synonym as permanent as “The everlasting hills.”
It was created a territory by act of congress approved May 26, 1864,
and admitted as a state into the Union February 22d, 1889. As now
constituted, Montana covers all that vast region lying between the 45th
and 49th parallels of north latitude, and the 104th and 116th meridians
of west longitude, extending 550 miles from east to west, and nearly
300 north to south, a total of about 150,000 square miles, or nearly
100,000,000 acres. We can more fully appreciate the meaning of these
figures when we remember that the six New England states and the great
state of New York would not cover this area, that Minnesota and Iowa
could be turned over upon it and a margin left for Connecticut to rest
upon, or that England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland combined do not
near equal it in size.
In another letter I have spoken of Montana as an infant, and well I
may for she was “then” only a few days old, her population was only a
few hundred gold seekers, her wealth was undeveloped, except a limited
number of gold placer claims; “then” it was thought fit for nothing
else. Her civil courts were but those of the miners’ courts that were
held in the open air or in some miner’s log cabin. No one can give
a description of what Montana was “then” better than Judge Wade in
Joaquin Miller’s “History of Montana.” He said: “History tells the
story of race movements and migrations and the planting of laws and
institutions in new countries, but there is nothing in the history of
the migration of races more interesting or remarkable than the story
of the march and journey of the masses of men, women and families
from the states over plains and mountains to the gold fields of the
Pacific slope--a march more perilous than that of Xenophon and the ten
thousand, and the establishment of law and order in a vast and desolate
region, and such law as would secure individual rights and promote and
protect the mighty industries and enterprises which arise therein.
“These hardy pioneers, these builders of states yet to be, more
venturesome than Columbus or Marco Polo, found themselves in a new
world, full of resources and surrounded by new and strange conditions.
They were beyond the reach of law. They were effectually beyond the
protection or control of the government of the United States. These
mineral lands had not been declared open to exploration or purchase.
There was no means of acquiring title. These immigrants, miners and
prospectors were trespassers upon the public domain, and as between
themselves actual possession was the only evidence of ownership.
“They organized miners’ courts, preserved order, protected life and
property, and adjudicated rights, and commenced the conquest and
reclamation of a vast unexplored country that has since then added so
much to the wealth and power of the United States.
“Montana had a history before it had a name; it enacted laws and
established courts before it had a legislature or judges; it planted
a state before it was born a territory. The period from the discovery
of gold in 1862 to the organization of the territory in May, 1864, was
an era of government and control by the inherent force and majesty of
American citizenship, unaided by executive, legislative or judicial
departments, and as to mines, mining and water rights, this era
continued until July, 1866, and May, 1872, when congress opened the
mineral lands to exploration and purchase, and validated the miners’
rules and regulations theretofore existing. The first courts in what
is now Montana were miners’ courts, presided over by judges elected by
the miners of the districts to enforce miners’ rules and regulations
by and for themselves. Besides providing for themselves a system of
mining law, the people acting together were compelled to exercise their
original criminal jurisdiction, which corresponds to the right of self
defense in the individual.”
At this time new gold discoveries were constantly made, and a rush
would follow, or “stampede,” as it is called in a mining country. This
attracting all classes, and among them the very lowest element, until
criminals and outlaws from other places flooded the country and were
getting so bold that the well disposed people were compelled to get
together and organize for self-defense. At this time comes the work of
the vigilance committee, which will always be a thrilling chapter in
the history of this great state.
The following was written by one of those that were here “then:” “In
the wake of every gold ‘stampede’ follow a horde of thieves, robbers,
desperadoes, criminals of the worst class and refugees from justice.
Too idle and thriftless themselves to take up the pick, shovel and pan,
they prey upon the honest miners and despoil them of their hard-won
treasure. And Montana, during the gold excitement of 1862-3, was no
exception to the rule. Among the later arrivals were some desperadoes
and outlaws from the mines west of the mountains. In this gang were
Henry Plummer, afterwards the sheriff, Charley Reeves, George Ives,
Moore and Skinner, who, as soon as they got ‘the lay of the country,’
commenced their nefarious operations. These ruffians served as a
nucleus around which the desperate and the dishonest gathered, and
quickly organized themselves into a band, with captain, lieutenant,
secretary, road agents, and ‘outsiders.’ They became the terror of
the country. When the stampede in Alder gulch occurred in June, 1863,
and the discovery was made of the rich placer diggings there, many
of the dangerous classes were attracted thither. Between Bannock and
Virginia City a correspondence in cipher was constantly kept up. To
such a system were things reduced that horses, men and coaches were
marked in some manner to designate them as fit objects for plunder. The
headquarters of the marauders was at Rattlesnake ranch, in the upper
Beaverhead country, and a favorite resort was Dempsey’s Cottonwood
ranch. The plan of operations of the road agents was to lie in wait
at some secluded spot on the road for a coach, a party, or a single
individual, of whom information was given by their confederates, and
when near enough, would spring from their cover with shotguns with the
command, ‘Halt! throw up your hands!’ And while a part of the gang
kept their victims covered others would ‘go through’ their effects.
A failure to comply with the order or any hesitancy in obeying it,
was sure to cause the death of the person so disobeying; and, indeed,
if there was probability that any information which a victim might
communicate would result in danger to themselves, he was shot, on the
principle that ‘dead men tell no tales.’
“By the discoveries of the bodies of the victims, the confessions of
the murderers before execution and other information, it was found
that one hundred and two people had within a few months certainly been
killed by these miscreants in various places, and it was believed
that many more had shared the same fate. The whole country became
terrorized, and, although the few ranchmen and dwellers in the mining
camps knew the road agents, they dared not expose them for fear their
lives would pay the penalty. Some action on the part of the honest
portion of the community to check these wholesale murders and robberies
and bring their perpetrators to justice became imperatively necessary.
But what was to be done? It was four hundred miles to the nearest man
who was authorized to administer an oath. Clearly no relief could be
had from the law. The conclusion that something should be done was
hastened by the murder and robbery of Lloyd Magruder and his party, the
sum stolen being over fourteen thousand dollars. They were murdered
by a number of road agents whom they had unknowingly hired to drive
their teams. Magruder was well known and very popular throughout the
whole region. This culminating outrage of the desperadoes led to the
formation of the vigilance committee late in the year 1863. Five men
in Virginia City and one in Nevada City took the initiative in the
matter. Two days had not elapsed before their efforts were united, and
when once a beginning had been made the ramifications of the league of
protection and order extended in a week or two all over the territory.
From the 21st of December, 1863, to the 14th of January, 1864,
twenty-four of the desperadoes, including the leaders, Henry Plummer
and George Ives, were captured and hanged at various places. Every one
confessed, or there was testimony to show, that he had murdered one or
more men. This vigorous action of the Vigilantes brought to an end the
terrible deeds of blood and rapine of the road agents in Montana, and
criminals of all classes and grades fled for their lives.”
Again Judge Wade says: “Life, liberty and property were without any
protection. The situation was desperate and unparalleled. It was
crime against society, criminals against honest men, murder and
robbery against life and property. The people, few in numbers and
scattered over a wide extent of country, were compelled to organize
and confederate together for self-preservation. They acted with
deliberation. The supreme hour had come. They were to test their right
to live. Their calmness was not that of despair or cowardice, but of
self-respect, manhood, American citizenship. They did nothing in the
nature of mob violence or lynch law. Remembering the forms of law in
their distant homes, where judge and jury tried men for crime, they
organized citizens’ courts with the miners’ judge to preside, formed
juries who listened to the evidence, had attorneys to prosecute and
defend, and not until the testimony had excluded every doubt was a
verdict of guilty returned; and when returned, without undue delay,
uninfluenced by petty technicalities, maudlin sympathy, or unholy
passion, it was, in an orderly manner, carried into execution. There
is nothing in history like these trials. They were open and public;
they were attended by the well disposed people and the desperadoes
alike, all being armed and on the alert, some looking for the arrival
of confederates and preparing to rescue the prisoners, and others, with
their lives in their hands, ready to prevent the attempt. It required
supreme courage for a lawyer to prosecute, or for a witness to testify
against, a prisoner at these trials.”
“Now” Montana has its courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction equal
to any state in the Union, and the sturdy stroke of the miner followed
by that of the mechanic, farmer, stockman and manufacturer has brought
out her hidden treasures, until today Montana is the wealthiest state
in the Union in proportion to its population. The total value of
the product of her mines and ranges for the year 1897 amounted to
$69,139,675, or about $324 per capita of her population, which is about
210,000.
To carry on the vast commerce given rise by this great wealth, Montana
has in operation 2,928 miles of railroad, equipped equal to any railway
system in the world.
The yearly lumber product is estimated to be worth $1,500,000. The
coal product, at an average valuation of $2.60 per ton, is counted at
$8,000,000. Nearly all of the lumber and coal are consumed at home.