Morning journal and courier., 1885-05-26
n1sroR1cAL socrErY..

A~~SS
 and gentlemen to listen to the paper by ex-
 Judge L. E. Munson on Montana as It
 was and as it is." The speaker, who was
 one of the United States judges in the early
 history of this territory, was we'll able to
 speak on the subject which made up the in
 teresting paper read by him to the society. Professor Simeon E. Baldwin presided
 and introduced Judge Munson to the au-
 dience.
 We give below full abstract of the paper as read, our space not permitting it's pubh- cation in full
 Montana, or according to the Spanish pro- nuneiation Montanya, which signifies the land of mountains, or in the Indian dialect Fay country of the mountains, was organized and set apart as territorial commonwealth by act of Congress approved May 26, 1864 It is bounded northerly by the British possessions, easterly by Dakota, southerly by Wyoming and Idaho and wester- ly by Idaho. These widely separated boun- daries co ltain 145, 776 square miles and near ly one hundred million acres of land. In or der to more fully impress upon you the sig nificance of these figures I will add that it embraces 8 territory larger in extent than Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu- setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland com bined Since it's organization there has been taken from it's original terri torial limits section of country more than twice as large as Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, to form the Territo- " of Wyoming, which has a territorial area more than one-third larger than all the New England States combined.
 may speak of the territory as containing five large basins, four east and one west of the Rocky Mountains, each large enough to form a good=sized State, of great richness and fertility. These valleys are easily trav- ersed from one to the other by good mountain | roads over low passes.
 The physical aspect and properties of the territory are all the imagination can desire. It is unsurpassed in the fantastic groupings ! of it's mountains, it's teeming valleys, shifting landscapes, countless streams, boiling gey- sers and leaping cascades.
 Its river system is the finest the globe Its western slope is drained by the headwaters of the Columbia, which flow westward through the territories of Idaho and Washington and the State of Oregon emptying into the Pacific, with an expanse broad and deep enough to float the navies of the world. Its eastern slope is drained by the great rivers, the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin with their tributaries, springing from every little hillside and fed by springs bubbling up in the valleys. These unite in forming the Missouri river, which sweeps on to the sea. These mountain streams, clear crystal, are full of delicious trout, as pretty speckled beauties as ever feasted the vision or tickled the palate of Isaac Walton or as ever played hide and seek with the angler in the lakelet and mountain streams of Vermont
 The Yellowstone river emptying into the Missouri drains the hills and valleys of Mon tana and is more than thousand miles in length It has succession of magnificent waterfalls, one perpendicular plunge of $50 and one of 115 feet, but a short distance apart The waters in their haste to the sea
 leap and tumble and foam down rocky de- cIivities and over rocky beds more than 5, 900
 feet in fifty miles,
 The Yellowstone lake by barometric meas
 urement is found to be S,337 feet above sea
 level; body of water 30 miles long and IS miles wide.
 Of it's momentous height give no figures Some of them lift their majestic heads above snow line and wear their white caps undis- turbed from generation to generation, flash
 ing morning sunlight into teeming valleys below, around whose crowned summits lin-
 ger the last rays of the sun ere he sinks be-
 hind the pillows of the Pacific.
 In October, 1865, h company with the
 acting Governor of the territory, with an
 escort of eight invited guests, all of us
 armed with Winchester rifles and revolvers,
 we started on horseback for Fort Benton, 40
 milespdistant, to meet the Indiant agent and
 help make 8 treaty with the Indians and
 witness the distribution of their annuities
 Three log cabins owned by French half
 breeds were the only visible evidences of life
 on the way. At Benton we met about 2, 800
 of these Indians to form treaty with them
 by which they were to cede to the govern
 ment the country then being overrun and
 taken by the whites. The Indians claimed
 all this country as theirs, and the govern
 ment had guaranteed them protection from
 intrusion by the whites. Indians were exas-
 perated and the whites were lawless.
 Human life was unsafe and cheap
 on both sides. A good opportunity
 for skill in craftsmanship with the rife or
 bow was generally rewarded with bloody
 trophies. We made treaty by which they
 were to give up their coveted lands, the land
 of their fathers, the gamiest land in the
 world, and to go on to reservation on the
 borders of the British possessions, and we
 distributed to them about $7, ,500 in annui-
 ties, dollar for each man, woman and
 child This treaty, owing to the protraeted
 illness and death of the Indian agent on his
 way to Washington and the loss of his trunk
 containing it, did not reach Washington till
 after the adjournment of Congress and was
 never ratified.
 During my three or four weeks stay there,
 before the treaty was concluded and annul-
 ies distributed, saw Indian character in it's
 fullest development in nearly all it's phases
 Tribal chiefs in gay attire, with eagle
 feathers and wampum, in war paint
 with their bows and arrows and
 trophies of war. Saw them on the warpath,
 heard the war whoops, saw them in the war
 dances, saw them in pow-wow around their dead brave, saw them in the camp and in the tent, and declare to you that among them all in every condition of life, the hu- man mind cannot escape the conviction that they are degraded, indolent, treacherous race, with no manly attributes of character worthy of poetry, song or tradition.
 Over and against this question of their
 character, something should be placed to their credit. This was their country, the land of their fathers where sleep their brave dead. The Great Spirit had presided ever their councils and had given them an abund- ance of game at all seasons of the year. They were happy and contented in their se- clusion and in their prosperity. But
 the Chinese walls of protection were country by the thousands from all directions and they felt the situation keenly. These poor Indian wards of the nation, de- ceived, defrauded, cheated and wronged by the government, it's officers and people, have gone down before the waves of civilization and like the buffalo will soon be extinct. The
 problem of dealing with the remnants of
 these poor people, which is all that is left of
 once powerful tribes, is humane one and the
 government cannot too promptly awake to
 it's importance In climate division Monta na is classed with Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Hli- nois with a mean annual temperature at Fort Benton. The observations made at Benton by government officials from 1872 to 1877 revealed an average of 291 fair days each year, just 100 more than the average at Chi cago. The snow fall except in the mountains is less than in Michi- gan, New York or New England. The seasons are substantially divided into summer and winter, summer beginning in April and ending in November, when winter sets in and holds sway until April again. During the early summer months the hill sides and valleys are decked with most beau tiful flowers, as delicate as the tints and ! shading of the rainbow, I have never seen anything in the whole floral kingdom exceed | ing their beauty and variety, though think \ them less fragrant than those which adorn | our New England homes. The air is dry. | invigorating and healthy. No fatal epidemic has ever visited Montana; and the cholera \ will never frighten the people from their mountain homes. Every breath of the pure \ invigorating air, perfumed with \ the odor of pine and spruce, is a conscious inhalation of new life and ! strength. With all of these fascinating | realities this marvellous country lay buried in distant seclusion destitute of all the