Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1930-11-27

The quartz lodes lay in % lodges,
prospected by six major companies.
Charles Hendrie's Sample mill vas
running strong; the Heating and
Blacker ten-stamp and fifteen stamp
mills were utilizing steam, instead of
mule power for hosting, and handling
ten tons of ore a day. Heating de-
posted bullion at the bank every ten
days, for shipment to Helena by stage.
The partners carried their gold in a
sack, went unattended and unprotect-
ed at any time of day or night, and
never met with loss. Their big run
came between the years when the first
road agents had been disposed Of, and
the advent of the gangs of the middle
Dos.
But in all the turmoil of activity,
| Tommy MoOre's earliest memory is that
| of standing at a ~neighboring house, a
block from his home, watching the ex-
citing arrival of another child, a play
mate for him; and his next recOllec-
ton is their fearful search, together,
for a beaded velvet cap his mother had
made him, lost forever in the recesses
of a pile of cordwood. winnie" Wells,
Lavinia Oatman Wells, was the daugh-
ter of Frank Wells, for four terms clerk
and recorder of Jefferson county. With
his wife and daughter he came to
Radersburg from Clancy, after a des-
perate journey some years before, from
Connecticut. On starting west, they
had joined an emigrant train Of 100
wagons at Lake Pepin, crossed the
Missouri at Fort Rice, and travelled
along the Cannon Ball river to the
Little Missouri. Here they were at
tackled by 5000 Sioux, who gave battle
for three days before they retreated.
The emigrant train moved back to the
mouth of the Yellowstone for greater
safety, and came up the Missouri to
Benton (Fort Union) on their way to
Last Chance gulch. They arrived at
Helena, Sept. %, 1864, and shortly aft
erward Mr.. Wells "a elected to office.
What playmates the two children be-
came, with a friendship deeper than
love that sometimes springs between
boy and girl. For years their lives
were interviewer, and either house was
home to either child.
The first houses in R~adersburg, as
elsewhere In Montana, had dirt floors
and dirt and straw roofs. When 1T
rained there was a tremendous sour
rying for pots and pans and tubs to
set under the leaking places in the
ceiling. Floors were a mess in rainy
weather, in spite Of precautions and
housewifely attempts to keep them COW
cred with clean sand or shale. A white
floor was a housewives pride, even
when the floor was dirt.
Newspapers were in great demand to
cover the walls. They were scarce,
especially eastern papers, full of advice
and warnings to those thinking about
starting west, and it was a lucky wom-
an who had all her walls papered.
Eastern papers sometimes cost as much
as IS, including carriage. For their
floors, women used the heavy burlap
sacking that came around slabs Of ba-
con freighted In from Salt Lake.
Fortunately, since freight charges
prohibited the hauling in OF much
furniture, there were two excellent
cabinet makers and carpenters in town,
Johnson and Suderburg. Their shop
wa under what became later the Ma
sonic hall. They made furniture that
could withstand usage, and moving,
and the ravages Of time for years. Mr..
Moore's family has a wash stand they
made, now beyond price, as good as
1t was 10 years ago. They used cedar
from the foothills, and whipsawed their
logs over a sawyer's pit. They turned
their lathes by hand power, and made
furniture that was beautiful in its sub
stantial simplicity.
Not only freight rates were high.
With uncertain supply, prices varied
violently. What was excessive in price
one year might be unstable the next,
after the dearth was over. For a peri
cd in 1865, q sack of flour brought SllO
in gold dust; old iron, SO cents a
pound; sheet iron, 10 cents: copper, 81;
lead, 40 cents to 10 cents; and money
from 10 per cent a month to 6 per
cent a week; newspapers, from 81 TO
81 in gold; carriage on letters, So;
and pets were sought at almost any
price. But the next year, when these
prices had brought about a supply OF
these commodities, men freighting
them in from Salt Lake could sell them
for only a fraction OF what they had
paid. Wages were IS a day. But in
spite Of the obvious h~ardships Of ad-
justing wages to expense, men we're
firm in their conviction that some