The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1934-09-21

long time, and is good to eat with
meat.
Meagher's party crossed the Flatheae
river, Wild Horse creek, and the "vio-
lent and treacherous Jocko," and visit.
ed the st. Ignatius mission. The gen.
eral says, 1.-The Sisters of Charity have
done more to reconcile the Indians than
all the Indian agents, superintendent
traders, interpreters and the rest, that
have come to the country"
The artist, Toffts, sketched the cur
ious lodges of the Pend d. GRIZZLIES, built
IN platforms like the Indian huts OF
Maracaibo; the twin falls. Elizabeth
and Alice cascades; and the tremend-
GUS peaks of the Rockies.
Meagher tells the Indian legend OF
the little stream, La Course des Fem
mes. The story told him was that long
ago some young women were running
a foot race. Suddenly a woman,
radiant as the stars, descend
ed from heaven and outran the field
Then she assembled, again, in a chariot.
"A less poetical version informs us"
Meagher says, that two old, desperate
squaws, inflamed with the desire for
Honey-dew and Cavendish, not to men
ton Niggerhead, ran a race for a plug
Of tobacco to Frenchtown, twenty-one
miles, over a rasping country"
At the time Of General Meagher's
visit, the Flathead agency embraced
5000 square miles. Streams were
abundant, wheat yielded from 20 to SO
bushels to the acre; rye, oats, buck
wheat and barley were prolific; and
the agency was cultivating beans, peas,
potatoes, beets, onions, parsnips, mel
ons, cucumbers, turnips and pumpkins
in abundance. There were nutritious
wild grasses for stock; pine, cedar,
spruce, birch and cottonwood lumber
in quantity; there was large and small
game, with trout, whitefiSh, and sal
mon in the streams; and there were
saw and grist mills on the upper Jocko,
turning out $500 feet of lumber and
$50 bushels of flour daily.
1t outraged General Meagher's soul
that such an "~extravagant franchise
should permit this prepoSterouS eStab-
lishment, by which the land is mis-
chievously converted from the use of
the white man. He condemns the
Benign Spirit of the Age" which lets
such things take place, and asserts that
two-thirds of the land should be turn
ed over to white settlers at once.
His party made their way past the
battle field of the Pend d. GRIZZLIES and
Blackfeet Indians, through Corriacken
defile to Frenchtown, visiting there a
rightful Baron O'Keefe.
At Frenchtown, the oldest settlement
in Montana, General Meagher visited
the first house erected, built by Mr.
Moses Reeves. He rode past the farm
of Mr. Upton of Kentucky, with SOC
fruit trees already bearing. He saw
the farms of Mr. Spencer of Tennessee
and Mr.. Miller of Pennsylvania; and
the sawmills of Messrs. Campbell ano
Van Dorm, and Mr. Simms.
The Missoula Mills proved to be both
flour and lumber mills, belonging tc
Worden and Higgins, erected at a cos,
Of $4,000. The machinery had beer
brought all the way from st. Louis
The national flag floated over these
buildings, (which were turning out 1e
bushels Of flour every hour, and miles
Of lumber every month"
"Col. Cornelius OKeefe' admired
the handsome stores close by, owned by
the same proprietors and rode away
ito refit for another trip"