The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1899-10-12
ROMANCE OF CLARA LARKIN
PATHETIC TALE OF A BUTTE
PIONEERS WRECKED LIFE.
While of Unsound Mind He Sold
Mining Property Worth Millions
For Song.

In a recent issue of the Portland Ore
gonian P. A. O'Farrell writes from
Eutte telling Of the bitter fight in the
Montana courts between the Boston q
Montana and the Butte & Boston Min
ing companies for possession to dis
puted ground of enormous value and
for recovery of worth CT ore extracted.
Lately the Snohomish and TramWay
| claims, through which the Anaconda
! st. Lawrence Rarus lode runs, has cut
quite an important figure in this great
litigation. Five years ago an interest
in the Snohomish and the Tramway
were bought from James Lark1n, an Old
! timer in Butte by the Butte ~ Boston
! company for a mere tritie compared
VITA their real value.
| The story of Larkin'S connection with
! the case, his misspent life, the long
search fer his only heir, a daughter,
and the prospect of her coming into
possession of the wealth that belonged
| to her dead father, a pathetic tale in
terestingly told by Mr.. O'F'arreil, who
! writes
when the Butte & Boston acquired
Larkin's interest in the SnohOmish and
Tramway, the loafers around town re-
jOiced. For Larkin would be generous
WIlll6 IT'S collars IdSIeu. DuI, al llIIlC
later, poor Jim was sent to the in
sane asylum, as hopeless lunatic and
when the Bostonians made war, August
Heinze the audacious young copper
mine operator of Montana, recollected
all about Larkn and resolved to get the
deed. He Immediately bought the other
interests, and then hunted up the heirs
of Larkin.
LARKIN'S DOMESTIC AFFAIRS.
"Heinze discovered that Larkin, be-
fore coming to, Butte had married
dancehall girl at Silver City, Ida. Bish-
op Gloria had celebrated the marriage,
and girl was the fruit thereof. After
Larkin's advent in Butte, he supported
for a time his wife and child, but as
his love for whisky waXed strong, his
remembrance of them waned The wife
grew tired of waiting for him, so she
got a divorce and married a man
named Hess. Hess and the wife OF
Larllin's child then DISAPPEARED, as COM
pleteiy as if the earth had swallowed
them. But Heinze resolved to find the
girl, and he sent detectives to chase
her from Mexico to the Klondike.
THE story of the hunt for Clara Lar /
kin is a comedy in itself. A dozen times !
he had kilograms announcing success, ;
and then others would follow declaring
it was the wrong girl. Finally one of
Heinz's sleuth hounds swOoped down
on a lonely ranch in southeastern Ore .
gon, where one Clara Larkin had taken
up a homestead This place was nearly .
200 miles from railroad and close to |
the California line, and at the other
side of that line was another ranch, |
owned by Hess and Larkin's former
wife.
WHAT NIGHT HAVE BEEN.
And so there, in one of the ioneliest j
spota Of the continent, the child of
poor Jim Larkin had grown up. Had
her father let the demon drink alone
this young girl would have been reared
in affluence and luxury and would have
been the heiress to a great estate. He
might have had the smiles, the caresSes
and the love of his child, as she grew
from infancy to womanhood, but he
chose the carousal and debauch. The
curse of his race had set an impassa-
bic gulf between them; and while he
burned out the little spark of life left
him as a hopeless lunatic, his child
grown to vigorous Womanhood, was Gre
ating a home for herself in the wilder
ness, utterly ignorant of the fate of
the man who was the author of her
being. There, in the bright and sunny
regions of southeastern Oregon, she
would have lived and died had not Au-
gust Heinze needed her to deal deadly
blow at his foes.
THE HEIRESS IN COURT.
Miss Larkins was brought to the
smoky city of Butte, there to listen to
hundreds of witnesses. telling the story
If her fathers ruined life. He had
lied while she was en- route, and all
she ever saw of him was his wasted
'emains, ere they were consigned to
heir last resting place. And for this
she was torn from solitude and placed
lpon a stage, to be gossiped about and
,aZed at, and to listen to the story of
Ter fathers folly and shame. All this
rgeday, for tragedy it is, is played, be-
.ause c. S. Batterman, an attorney in
he case, was ambitious and fond of
volving theories.
of all the scenes in the varied drama
which is being played here, the APP
of this young girl appears to
ne to be the most dramatic in its
and its pathos If she wins
Ter suit for the annulment- of her
ather's deed, on the ground that in
anity rendered him incompetent, she
iill become an heiress and a woman of
Importance. But she will never again
aste happiness like that which she left
ehind in the SolitudeS of her oregon
ONE. If the deed be annulled, the
'oston companies will lose a. half-in- =
crest in mine worth many millions.
--s-<rD<