Glacier County chief., 1939-04-07
By BETTE EISELEIN

THIS is the story of Rufus
Buell. Thompson, great
mountain of a man whose
philosophy of life was his happi-
ness and his success, and who dug
his grave with his teeth. A pc
culiar man, Rufus had notions. He
figured-if a homesteader settles
on your land which you have
wrested from the Indians and the
elements-laugh! It's joke on
you, and there's plenty more where
that came from. If this same home
steader comes borrowing flour or a
team or your only pillow, tell him he's
welcome, and just shake your head and
grin when they tell you he's taken a
saddle, too. And if, one day, a big
sheep shed over the hill is gone and
a new house has gone up on the
familiar looking lumber, just tell your
friends about it and laugh. It's all just
joke-on you!
Thus he thought, and thus he lived
set upon by hundred leeches who
could not even annoy him, much less
destroy him. He was big man when
big men we're needed in the west-a
big man big enough for a man-sized
job.
The story Of Rufus Thompson reads
like a Horatio Alger success yarn Of
the young hero who rises from poverty
to wealth by his own pull on his own
boot straps. Too fun-loving and human
for Horatio Alger hero was Rufus
Thompson. but his success was no less
remarkable.
He was born June 16, 1857, in Essex,
30 70 fa y,,i1t- 1onavy
with New England tradition and COM
plete with family Bible and album and
a geneology which entitled its women
folk to front rank membership in the
D. A. r. Marion Buell. Thompson, his
mother, was famous for her cooking
throughout the states of Vermont and
New York, where her pastries often
won first prizes at fairs. Her three sons,
all we'll over six feet tall and averag-
ing about $50 pounds on the hoof, were
testimonials of her culinary profici-
ency A mammoth woman with good
humor as abundant as herself, she
weighed more than 500 pounds. She
did her cooking sitting in specially
constructed chair in the kitchen, with
an assistant to fetch and carry. At
her death, the story goes, 1t was nee
essary to remove double windows to
get the casket out of the house.
The most adventuresome of the
tracks westward when he was % years
old, and arrived at St Paul, MINI, an
outpost of civilization, in 1880, stimuli
taneously with herd of Holstein milk
cows which Colonel Broadwater had
ordered to start dairy at Fort As
sinniboine Young Thompson, a sturdy
lad, feet inches in height, agreed
to deliver the cows. He drove the herd
to Bismarck, N. D., and transported
them the rest of the way by steamer
up the Missouri and landed job with
the COWS in the creamery.
Rufus showed up, rather inexplica-
bly,, the next year at Maiden, wide
open gold mining camp near Lewis
town, got job and spent year just
shopping around and getting his bear
ings. And in June, 1882, James High
tower, the first settler on Willow creek
in what is now MusSelshell county,
woke up one morning and saw tent
pitched down the creek. Just what
Hightower, a cattleman, thought of the
young upstarts announcement that he
was settling there and would raise
sheep, he has not said. But it is safe
to say that his opinion would have
made little difference to Rufus Thomp-
son, who knew good thing when he
saw it. and who had brought supplies
for year with him in his oxen drawn
wagon. Later that year he got band
of sheep from Smith Bros. of Martins
dale on shares built log house and
settled down for the winter.
He evidently wintered well, for James
Hightower. who had moved to the
Musselshell river and established the
NE ranch in the meantime, recounts
that in April, 1888. Rufus came hob
bling in on foot, and Hightower, an
able judge of beef, calculated his
weight at about 800 pounds. Unable to
fathom any reason why the man
mountain should foot it so miles across
the prairie, Hightower learned the sad
story of a fierce blizzard which had
taken Thompson's oxen, his only means
of transportation, and drifted them
God only knew where. Since the spring
roundup was at hand. would Hightower
be good enough to have his men look
out for the Thompson oxen and would
Hightower please lend him horse to
get home on? On the second day of
the roundup Hightower's men found
the oxen on Currant creek and a rider
returned them to their distraught and
footSore owner.
But Rufus Thompson was to see
many hard winters before he could
settle back into the comfort of his
own bulk. In the spring of 1887, he
was short between 500 and 600 sheep.