The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-04
AN |NGERSOLL STORY
Told by a Man Who Knew Little
About 1t.
ON HIS VISIT TO BUTTE
What Too Vivid Imagination Will Do
to a Man Whose Ignorance of
Facts Is Equal to His Ability
to Guess.

Here is a story about the late Col
onel Ingersolls connection with the IA
nous Davis will case and his visit
to Butte that will be read with amuse-
ment by thousands of readers of the
STANDARD who know more about the
facts than the man Frank H. Brooks
who wrote the story for the Chicago
| Tribune:
Colonel Ingersoll was one of counsel
| in the celebrated Davis case Millions
of dollars We're involved. Family ties
were strained and broken in the eff
| forts of contestants to come into pos
| session of the dead mans accumula-
| tons. The charges and counter charges
brought to the surface illegitimate is
| sue, forged names, Photographic and
| counterfeit wills, interlineated codicils
and other things that enter into a law
suit to make or break a declaration.
THE litigation had been in the courts
| for years. 1t began, / think, in Chi
cago. 1t travelled West. 1t covered
| the state of Iowa, for at one time near
| ly 100 witnesses were called from sew
| eral sections of that state to TESTIFY
| pro and con.
This litigation finally reached the
| heirs, a son of Jacob z. Davis, dece-
| dent, was banker.
There was a man from the East
| who spent much time about the
| Auditorium hotel and a certain club
| in Chicago who instituted the last bit
| ter contest of the will. He had found
| a family of his kin in Massachusetts,
| whose dispositions made an ugly legal
| complication in the contest, and he
| went into the action with Colonel In
| gersoll as chief counsel, assisted by
| John S. Woolson now United States
| district judge of Iowa, and the other
| lawyers of the same state. Besides these
| there We're consulting attorneys in
| New York, Boston and Chicago and
| Montana, and few lynX-eyed sleuths.
Every precaution was made for the
| last stand at Butte in 1894 Trains of
| witnesses We're there. Learned coun-
| sell too, and from the mountains and
valleys of Montana there came a throng
of miners and stockmen and all sorts
and conditions until the price of board
went up at the hotels; rooms in private
houses Were rented for accommoda-
ton; bigger games of faro opened up;
the saloons sold whiskey at 40 cents
a shot, a shave was a quarter of
dollar, and the bootblacks-how few
there were in that country-iemanded
% cents a shine and took what they
could get
For while, at least, Butte City
gated it's rival, Anaconda, and the
town had every appearance to the
stranger of a young metropolis. The
litigation itself would have brought
out the people, for there is sort of
| innate fondness in humanity for law
suit, and If man cannot have one
of his own he enjoys the sensa uon of
| jamming into a court room where
other people are disputing. But the
| 4
Colonel Ingersol. 1t was his first visit
to the town, if my recollection is not
warped News had gone into the
| canyons and gulches that 1ngersoll was
coming to town. 1t acted like
charm.
There were two special cars in the
train which took the party from St.
Paul to Butte. In a compartment car
were Colonel Ingersoll and Mrs. In
gerSoll and daughter. In the other Spe-
cial car were the Iowa lawyers,
stenographer, the Tribune correspond
ent and a detective, who guarded inn
pOrtant documents.
after a train passes Grand Forks
on the Red River of the North, until it
is beyond Fort Buford on the upper
Missouri, on the sunset line of North
Dakota, there is not much more to
please the eye, except when the train
stops at an adobe station, where In
BILE for coin thrown from the train,
than there is in that monotony of des-
olation which one sees from an ocean
liner, "a hours out. Such was the con-
dition along the line of the Great
Northern at that time.
The first day across this waste,
when the engineer seemed to be look
ing for a place to stop, after a long
run, Colonel Ingersoll came into the
car occupied by his co-counsel / re-
member some of the incidents of that
visit He had been looking from a
window when he said: Nothing but
horizon-everywhere horizon. Just
horizon. with here and there an In
dian that the government is trying to
civilize by giving him a gun, bottle
of whiskey and the Bible
Devils Lake is station on the
Great Northern in North Dakota. 1t
was mentioned incidentally, and some
one said the Indians named it,
Not bad looking place. said In
gerson You wouldn't find a white
man giving that name to a place like
this. The white man, with all his
knowledge, has more fear of the devil
than has the Indian
The train stopped at Fort Buford
late in the afternoon of a Sunday
Away off to the left the Missouris wa
tiers, almost red at that point. flowed
between treeless banks. Beyond,
horizon The station for the fort
was built of logs and grass. Nowhere
shade tree. The Indians were in
their paint and feather. They out
numbered the whites. The train was
delayed here beyond schedule time
Passengers got out to stretch their
legs. Colonel Ingersoll and his folks
stood upon the forward platform of
their car. A band of young Indians
mere boys, had been told to go to the
1ngersoll car. They did so and dane
ed and shrieked. Colonel Ingerson
threw out a lot of coin. The Indians
fought for it. Then they danced and
shrieked again. The train pulled out.
We have not made any further
advances in some things said Colonel
lhgersoll, after the train was under
mead, than these Indians, In fact, we
nave gone backward White men
struggle and Sroan to get money. These
indians earn theirs by what to them
is a plea sure