Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1930-07-31
(By w. w. CHIEFLY


WHEN the late Frank H. Woody Of
w Missoula, for many years n OF
" Montana'S leading attorneys, came
into the Bitter Root valley in the fall
of 1856 with a party of traders from
the transcontinental road known as
the "Emigrant trail" he found already
living there, Neil Macarthur, a former
Hudson's Bay company man, engaged
In the livestock misunderstanding both
horses and cattle. Macarthur was not
alone. With him were Henry Brooks
and L. r. Maillet. who had helped him
bring his herds in from the Columbia
river region to the west, and Thomas
Adams. who had entered the country
in 1853 with Governor Stevens party
searching for a transcontinental rail-
road route, and who had elected to re-
main.
Again, when James and Granville
Stuart and Rein Anderson came north
into the B~eaverhead valley in the fall
of 1857, from the head of Malad creek,
Utah, they found already living there
a colony of whites which must have
surprised them. And when, the follow
ing spring, they ventured farther and
explored the Deer Lodge valley, they
found living at the mouth of Flint
creek, John M. Jacobs, engaged in
raising cattle on shares with John F.
Grant.
Granville Stuart tells us in his Forty
Years on the Frontier" that his party
came north because the Mormons had
blocked the roads east, west and south
and there was therefore no place else
for the Stuarts and Anderson to go ex-
cept north. They had never heard of
the Beaverhead valley, but were invited
to make the trip with a trader named
Jake Meek, to whom they had rendered
some service and who told them that
he had wintered there the year before.
Told of Mild Winters
They had his assurance that the win
tiers there were not severe, that the In
dams were friendly and that there was
an abundance of game. IT they had
expected to spend a winter in isolation
they were %agreeably disappointed, for
at the mouth Of Black Tail Deer creek
they found a man named Robert
Dempsey and his Indian wife, a man
named Antoine LeClaire and his Indi-
an wife and two grown sons, all living
in elk-skin lodges.
Fifteen miles farther down the Bea-
verhead at the mouth of the Sinking
water, they found Capt. Richard Grant
and his wife and family; John F. Grant
and family, James G.. Grant, Thomas
Pambrun and family, L. r. Maillet,
whom Wood found in the Bitter Root
the year before; Robert Hereford and
family, John w. Powell, John Saun-
derS, a man named Ross, Antoine Pou-
rier and several other men who were
in the employ of Hereford and Grant.
Still farther down the river a mile were
Antoine COurtei and his family and
two Delaware Indians, Jim and Ben
Simonds, who lived as white men and
engaged in trading with the Indians for
q livelihood.
To add to the congestion in the
Beaverhead valley at that early day.
Mr.. Stuart records that on Jan. l, 1858,
there arrived on the river 10 men who
had been teamsters with Johnston's
army marching to subdue the Nor
mons, and who had been sent north
from winter quarters at Fort Bridger
to buy cattle for subsistence. They
were commanded by n B. F. Ficklin,
and guided by Ned Williamson. They
were unable to buy cattle on terms
suitable to them, and, fearful of at
tempting to return in midwinter, they
elected to remain in the Big Hole coun-
try until the following spring.
Another Cattle Ranch
In the spring of 1858, Mr.. Stuart
records that when they went into the