Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1940-09-21
BY WALTER E. TAYLOR

1t was just few years before the
dawn of the nineteenth century
that there arrived at the port OF
Cork, Ireland, a vOyager from
France who carried as part of his
baggage a sack of potatoes. Nobody
bothered to record the name of the
gentleman but history does relate
that the unsung hero carried
treasure for which the Irish will
be forever grateful--he carried the
first potatoes residents of the EN-
erald Isle ever laid eyes on. Now,
the potato, discovered in South
America by Spaniards, was long
time being accepted as a staple
food by the people of continental
Europe, but the Irish knew a good
thing when they saw it.
The Irish made the potato their own
for it yielded large amount OF food
from small acreage and within a dec
ade the farmers of Erin had given
over their land to potato culture, TO
the exclusion of almost all other crops
This. they learned by bitter lesson, was
an error in judgment, and although
the priests went through the fields and
blessed every planting, there was sure
to be an occasional crop failure. When
disease ruined the potato crops for
several years in succession IN the
middle 18th century, there resulted one
of the greatest famineS in Irish his
tory. The Irish had long since stopped
c1lltivating other food crops and when
the potato fields failed to produce,
ireland was without food. Peasants
died from starvation by the hundreds
and to escape the famine thousands OF
Irishmen migrated to America.
Mark Twain said all these migrating
IriShmen came to Boston and joined
r<r1fna hIIf of least one came
to New York His name was Marcus
Daly and he arrived in the summer
of 1856. Like thousands of other young
Irishmen he had tired Of starving on
a tenant farm and had resolved to try
his luck In the land of the free and
the home of the brave. His luck was
to prove better than that OF most
Irish immigrants, for he was destined
to play star role in the development
of the mineral riches of the Pacific
slope of the Rocky mountains. He was
destined to become one Of Montanas
copper kings.
The Gypsy's Prediction
In later years Marcus DAILY liked
TO tell about the gypsy fortune teller
who happened to be one of the first
persons he spoke to in New York city.
The gypsy told the young Immigrant
that she saw great riches coming to
him, and If he would only cross her
palm with a silver coin she could tell
him much more. Young Marcus did not
cross the gypSy's palm with silver be-
cause he needed the few pieces OF
silver he had to get a meal before he
started out to look for job. If he
had been able to cross the gypsy's
palm with a coin, and if her crystal
was any good at all, she might have
told him that he would build cities
In a far wilderness, that he would be-
come the father-in-law of a Hun
garian count and an American am
baSSador to Germany, and that his
statue in bronze would one day look
down upon a Montana city that would
be known, at various stages Of its ca
reer, as Perch of the Devil, Jewel
Box of the Rockies" and THE Vaca-
ton Capital of the Old West"
Persons who have troubled them
selves to delve into the story of Mar
Gus Days rise find that while there !
is a vast amount of material available, |
it is difficult to separate the fiction !
from the facts. An excursion to the |
haunts of Butte old-timers reveals |
that Marcus DAILY, like Elsa Maxwell, |
must have had about 500 most init
mate friends" and practically anyone |
In Butte who has passed his 40th |
birthday will tell you that he knew
Marcus DAILY well and then launch