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HISTORY: Walking to the Montana Gold Fields
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| Early Pioneers of Montana |
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| By Wm. W. Whitfield |
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In a previous article I mentioned a man by the name of W. B. Harlan who was sent out by the county commissioners to study the possibility of building a wagon road up past Jim Hell Rock on the East Fork of the Bitter Root. As it turns out, the story of Wilson Barber Harlan is quite interesting in itself, especially concerning his early years in the territory during the boisterous days of the Montana gold rush. The restless young Civil War veteran from Minnesota had heard rumors of a rich gold strike at Last Chance Gulch, and when he learned that a wagon train would be leaving soon for the Montana Territory, he knew he had to sign up and join the expedition. Bob Fisk, one of five brothers, led the wagon train, and it was the fourth and final of the Fisk Expeditions to Montana. Many prominent early pioneers of the territory first came to the Rockies with the Fisk Wagon Trains, which began in 1862 when James L. Fisk successfully escorted eager prospectors to the fabulous gold discoveries at Bannack.
Harlan was barely 18 years old when the procession left St. Cloud, Minnesota on the morning of June 6th, 1866. The wagon train was relatively small, with just a few families accompanying a large group of ‘Hundred Dollar Men’ who had each paid Fisk $100 in return for safe passage to the gold fields at Helena. Most of the men were mounted on horseback or rode on heavily loaded wagons, but a few, including Harlan, made the journey entirely on foot. The train was scheduled to rendezvous with another group of emigrants, where they would combine their forces before entering the oftentimes-hostile environment found on the empty prairies of North Dakota and eastern Montana. When the two wagon trains finally joined up, it consisted of 120 wagons, 300 well-armed men, and a fair number of women and children.
Harlan kept a journal during his long overland trek, and from it we are able to experience just what it was like to be a young adventurer heading west at the end of the War Between the States. In one early entry dated June 20th the teenager related with youthful enthusiasm that he had seen his first mirage on a high tableland they were crossing. “In the morning I walked ahead of the train for a few miles, and upon looking back I beheld the train as if it were coming through the clouds. On one side there seemed to be lakes and rivers studded with islands and covered with trees. Upon the whole it was a beautiful sight.”
Just a couple of weeks later Harlan says that the travelers celebrated the 4th of July after “shooting twenty-five buffalo, and seeing tens of thousands of them. A herd of several hundred came within a few rods of the train. The boys stood alongside the wagons and shot many of them. We had all the fresh meat we wanted and that of the first quality, while thousands of pounds lay on the prairie, food for coyotes and wolves.” For two solid weeks they were forced to make their campfires with dried buffalo chips. There wasn’t a single stitch of firewood to be found anywhere on the barren prairie. Fresh potable water was also becoming scarce, and when it was found, it was often either strong with the taste of alkali, or putrid and stagnant. Our youthful diarist says that one night they stopped beside “a pond of animalcule with a little water mixed in.” On July 11th they were fortunate enough to camp beside a fine spring of clear bubbling ice water, and by digging just two feet below the surface of the ground they discovered solid cakes of ice!
By August 2nd the company had finally arrived at Fort Union, a trading post on the Missouri River, near the mouth of the Yellowstone. At that time the Great Northern Fur Company was operating the fort, and their primary trade item was buffalo hides. Technically, the fort was located in the Dakota Territory, but the Montana line was situated just 500 feet to the west, and nearly all the commerce at the fort was conducted with those whose livelihood was made further up the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers.
While resting for a day at the frontier outpost, Harlan had a chance to write a letter home, and a portion of it reads as follows, “Dear Mother, by the time you get this letter there will be probably an interval of nearly three months between my letters. But you must not be anxious and worry about me. I am in good health and am enjoying myself to the best of my abilities. I have not been sick a day or hour with the exception of sore feet.” Remember, the teenager had been walking along with the train for almost two months at this point! The letter goes on to say that “Some of the party are discouraged, homesick and consequently, in the worst of humors, cursing the country, the Expedition, etc. I am glad it is not in my nature to get discouraged easily or to look on the dark side of every picture. We have six weeks yet to travel before we reach our destination. I can see the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers from the door of my tent.”
By late August the slow moving caravan had worked their way through immense herds of buffalo, and across a multitude of muddy streams, to the vicinity of Fort Benton, which was the head of navigation on the Missouri. A portion of the train separated here and headed into Benton, while the main train laid-over for a day of rest and relaxation six miles north of the fort. Our young adventurer walked to the fort during his layover and examined the adobe walls and the battery of cannons mounted in the parapet. He described the town of Benton as “quite a lively little place” and counted “half a dozen stores, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop and about thirty or forty houses.”
A couple of days later the party met their first batch of gold miners coming from the rich diggings near Helena, to seek passage back to the States from Fort Benton. Harlan relates that, “some of them gave a hard account of the mining country they have just left. Most of them, however, have considerable money. One party of six had twenty-two hundred pounds of gold which they had taken out of Confederate Gulch in six weeks. This is no exaggeration, but the plain truth.” In fact, the shipment of gold Harlan is speaking of was delivered to Fort Benton under the watchful eye of a tenacious little rascal known as X. Beidler, a well-known Montana Vigilante.
On the following day the party camped on Sun River, where Harlan got his first taste of the type of danger that lay waiting on the lonely trails linking the rugged gold fields of Montana. He and some other members of the expedition had been traveling on foot ahead of the wagons hunting for game. As the men neared the Sun River Crossing they saw some strangers coming towards them on foot. As the immigrants neared them the strangers all drew their pistols and skirted them to the right, keeping them ‘covered’ as they passed. The immigrants thought their actions were highly unusual, but figured that the strangers must have been carrying a large amount of gold with them and feared a holdup. The travelers continued on, looking for a suitable place to bathe, when they suddenly discovered the body of a murdered man weighted down with rocks in the river. The victim had been shot through the back of the head, and had nothing on him that could help to identify him. When Harlan told this story to Wilber F. Sanders twenty years later, Sanders believed that the victim was a man named Thompson, who had “mysteriously disappeared” around that same time, while he was returning to his home in Wisconsin with all the gold from his placer diggings.
Soon after this unsettling event, Harlan and some of the other ‘Hundred Dollar Men’ separated from the wagon train and set out on their own to do some prospecting. The whole month of September was spent scratching around the hills north of Helena, with very little to show for it in the end. The main portion of the wagon train arrived in Helena on the 9th of September, but Wilson B. Harlan didn’t see the bustling activity of Last Chance Gulch until twenty days later, when the youthful fortune seeker finally reached his destination after nearly four months afoot, and travelling an estimated 1,035 miles!
For the next two years Wilson Harlan worked on several mining claims, dug ditches, and even hired out as a ranch hand, generally doing whatever he could to eke out a living. Frustrated by his meager returns in the gold fields, Harlan packed up and moved to Missoula in July of 1868. For a number of years he drove freight wagons on the road between Missoula and Butte. Eventually he married a young schoolteacher from Corvallis and the couple settled on a ranch east of Lake Como, establishing a Post Office there in 1882. At his Como Ranch, Harlan planted the first large-scale commercial apple orchard in the state, and helped gain international fame for Montana produce when he took a large exhibit to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Although McIntosh apples made up the largest portion of his orchards, he still managed to display fifty-six different varieties at the County Fair in Stevensville the following year. As a young man Wilson Barber Harlan had really only expected to stay in the Montana gold fields for a couple of years, but he actually lived here for twenty-five years, before he finally returned to visit his hometown in Minnesota.
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ROADSIDE CHATS: Blood, Sweat and Tears
| Hamilton Eagles Boxing Club |
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| By Rod Daniel |
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When the Hamilton Eagles Boxing Club lost its training facility at the Hamilton Armory last year, Coach Howard Skaw turned to a scene from one of his favorite movies for inspiration.
A former boxer himself and a lifelong boxing enthusiast, Skaw remembered the famous scene from “Rocky,” in which Sylvester Stallone pounded a beef carcass in a Philadelphia meat cooler. Though not quite as dramatic (and far more sanitary), Skaw and the rest of the club’s coaches turned the wild game cooler at North American Foods into a make-shift training facility.
“The game cooler is empty this time of year anyway,” said Skaw, who, along with his wife Rachel, owns the meat processing business, “so we built a ring and hung some bags and turned it into a pretty darn good gym.”
Three nights a week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the well insulated, concrete-floored locker comes alive with upwards of 25 athletes training for their day in the sun, or their night in the ring in this case.
After an initial 2-mile run on a nearby hill, the athletes, ages 8 to 34, pack into the soon-to-be steamy cooler and train hard for about two hours, often under the guidance of personal trainer Jamie Mathias
“We exercise the kids for at least a half hour doing push-ups, sit-ups and stomach crunches,” Skaw said. “The personal trainer really works ‘em out. Then we put some kids on the punch mitts and some kids on the heavy bags.”
It was the workout, rather than the boxing, that initially lured Skaw’s 34-year-old daughter Angel Holloway into joining the club.
“I’d been around boxing all my life, but I’d never really done it,” Holloway said. “My daughter Whitley joined this year, so I started coming down with her just to get in shape. After a few weeks, I decided to learn to box.”
The new kids, Skaw said, (Holloway included) often spar with the more experienced boxers in a controlled atmosphere.
“We don’t ever put two new kids in the ring together,” he said. “We try to get the more experienced boxers to mentor the new ones.”
On this particular night Holloway was receiving guidance from her younger brother Matt Skaw, 16, who in his eighth year boxing has 55 fights under his belt.
The club operates under USA Boxing, the national governing body of amateur, Olympic-style boxing. A non-profit organization, USA Boxing is responsible for the administration, development and promotion of Olympic-style boxing in the United States.
Three of the club’s coaches, Howard and Rachel Skaw and Mike Sherrill, are USA boxing certified instructors, and Howard Skaw is a certified referee.
Outside the box
Howard Skaw boxed as a teenager in Hamilton when the sport was much more popular. Growing up, his heroes, he said, were Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard
“Back in the 70s there was a club in every town in the Bitterroot,” he said. “But we lost a lot of folks when Tai Kwon Do and kick boxing started getting more popular.”
The sport hit bottom about three or four years ago, he said, when there were less than five clubs in Montana. Since then it’s been getting more popular.
Skaw gave up boxing in 1975, the same year he started his meat processing business. But he started coaching five years later, he said, because he wanted to give something back.
“I think the most important thing boxing taught me was how to not quit,” Skaw said. “When I was young, and my mom was raising me it would have been easy to quit, but I stuck it out. That’s what I got out of it.”
Formerly a sport reserved for men and boys, boxing crossed the gender barrier less in the last decade.
“I first saw girls come on the scene about seven years ago,” Skaw said. “I thought, you gotta be kidding. I was not in favor of that. But now I think it’s great – a lot of these gals are tough.”
Carly Jean Conley, a 12-year-old from Victor, has been boxing for three weeks and will have her first match in a week in Helena.
“A lot of my friends were doing it and I thought it would be fun,” she said. “You have to work hard. It’s a great workout.”
Fight nights
In addition to training and coaching the kids, Skaw and his cohorts also serve as promoters, lining up bouts with other clubs based on a boxer’s age, size, level of experience and gender.
“Eight-to-11-year-olds are pretty easy to match up, but the girls are pretty tough to find fights for,” he said. “There’s not a lot of girls boxing in the state.”
But where there’s a will there’s a way, and last year he was able to find 10 matches for his 14-year-old step-daughter, Connie Ortiz-Skaw. This year, however, Connie has yet to fight.
Mike Sherrill is a certified coach who got involved with the club three years ago when his son Terrell joined. Terrell Sherrill, now 12, recently lost a match by two points to a more experienced fighter whom he upset last year. He was thrilled, Mike said, to have gotten his first bloody nose!
Soaked in sweat after working out with the team, the elder Sherrill said he’s noticed a real change in the kids who have stuck with boxing for a couple of years.
“You’d think it would make them cocky, but just the opposite is true,” he said. “The more they learn (as a boxer) the more humble they get.”
Andy Hughson agreed. “Two kids get in the ring for a match and afterwards they hug each other and become friends,” he said. “They’re not adversaries – they have something in common.”
While not a certified coach, Hughson, has been helping out this year at the make-shift gym. He’s also one of the club’s trustees. His stepson, Jace Webster, began boxing last year and competed in seven matches.
Even though boxing is an individual sport, Hughson said Jace gets a lot out of being a part of the team.
“The team aspect is something I didn’t expect,” he said. “There’s so much support from the rest of the team. And Howard is just awesome with all the kids.”
Skaw said he’s built real friendships over the years with the kids he’s coached.
“These kids become part of our family and they pick up on what our values are,” he said. “Most of the other coaches in the state are real stand-up guys, and I know they build the same kind of friendships with the kids they coach.”
Pounding the pavement
Unlike many of the sports kids have the opportunity to participate in, boxing is relatively inexpensive. And for a lot of families, that’s its appeal.
“Really, boxing is kind of a poor kids’ sport,” he said. “We get a lot of kids who might not be able to do other sports because they just cost too much.”
Managed by a board of trustees made up mostly of parents and coaches, Hamilton Eagles Boxing Club cost $40 to join, and for the most part, Skaw said, that’s all that’s required.
“We work really hard so the parents don’t have to spend any money,” he said. “But we really depend on our sponsors and members of the community.”
All of the trustees for the club are actively involved, and all have an equal say as to how the club is run.
“We’re trying to run it the right way and get as many kids involved as possible.” Hughson said.
Going to other towns, like Butte or Helena, for weekend matches is expensive, Skaw said, but when the matches are in Hamilton, the club usually comes out ahead.
“When we put on a fight here at the Eagles (Lodge) we get all the gate receipts so that helps,” he said. “We also have raffles at every match, and you don’t have to be present to win.”
This year, the Hamilton Eagles Boxing Club has three home matches – January, 31, March 28 and April 25 – at the Hamilton Eagles on North Second Street.
Skaw encourages people to come out and support the team.
“It’s good, inexpensive entertainment, and it really means a lot to the kids,” he said. “It’s cheaper than going to the movies.”
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BUSINESS: Blacksmith Brewing Company
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A great watering hole that pours the best frothy brews in the region.
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| By Shannon Selway |
Stevensville’s Blacksmith Brewery hasn’t even seen an annual anniversary, but it will no doubt see many. The pub opened its doors on October 25th, and has quickly become the “it place” for Bitterrooters to slosh down a cold one and take in some live entertainment. It’s situated at 114 Main Street in a building loaded with a hundred years of history and character. Past businesses are eclectic and range from a wagon and buggy salesroom to a bank to a Chinese laundry business, then a Ford automobile agency and a blacksmith shop - the brewery’s namesake.
For owners, Eric Hayes and Pamela Kaye, coming up with the name, Blacksmith Brewery, was a synch. The blacksmith, Bill Snedigar, who ran his shop there for decades, has his “mark” at about every conceivable place in the building. Every time Snedigar fashioned a brand, he’d find a wall section and burn the brand into it. He left behind hundreds of brand marks; they are everywhere in Blacksmith Brewery, ever so enhancing its rustic décor. The pub boasts many historic branding marks, including State’s oldest brand that was made for St. Mary’s Mission. But, new brands are finding their way into the elite walls because from time to time folks come in to burn their mark. No one owning a brand wants to be left out! Blacksmith Brewery even had a branding party to accommodate that demand.
Virtually everything used to complete the construction of the pub’s 3,600 square feet is green, earth-friendly. Over 80 percent of materials used are from salvage, which not only added up to savings, it also made sense for the intended rustic look. The bar is constructed from the building’s old office floor joists; there are many well-worn chairs purchased from the Bombay Bar and Grill from Ventura, California; the sinks and walls are salvage; and even the brewing tanks are reused. The use of salvage materials definitely adds to the pleasing aesthetics of the brewery.
Pam worked for Bitter Root Brewing for a few years, and the appeal of running her own brewery took over. It was fortunate she worked there because that is how she met Mike Howard (his friends call him “Mikie”), a brew master, and a man who would ultimately become the key to the reality of Blacksmith Brewery.
When the opportunity to purchase the old building arose, Pam’s dream started to take a bend into reality, but that was just the “tip of the iceberg” of things that needed to be done. Pam and Eric had the funds, had the place, had the hard working ethics, but needed one very important thing to occur: getting a brew master. Pam and Eric approached Pam’s old co-worker, Mike, who possesses a wealth of experience.
Mike worked at multiple breweries, including Bayern Brewing, Kettlehouse Brewery, Bitter Root Brewery, and even a brewery in San Diego, the Stone Brewing Company. With all that experience behind his belt, Mike has developed his own yummy recipes, and was definitely the man for the job.
The business recipe was complete.
“I’m the sweeper, Eric is the banker, and Mike is the brewer,” Pam explains.
It took a lot of elbow grease, as the building was in nasty shape. They spent seven months of cleaning, renovation, and much vision for the end result to be realized, but wow! It is one cool pub!
“We got our production equipment from a brewery in Cleveland, Ohio. It was a 10-year old system that was dismantled and put on a flatbed truck,” Mike said. “I was amazed it all fit on the truck.”
“We had so many inspections and details to deal with that when I got the call from the State that my license had gone through [October 24th], I was stunned, and not quite ready. I had to go out and buy four cases of glass mason jars for the unexpected opening day,” Pam said.
Blacksmith Brewery has been “hopping” ever since, serving up the tastiest beer one could hope to find.
Their Brick House blend, an American-styled hefeweizen, is a delicious concoction that is made from Montana honey. Then there’s Montana Amber that Eric dubs as “the oldest beer in Montana” (referring to the Stevensville reputation as being the oldest community in Montana); Mike’s personal favorite is their P.D. Pale, a 5.5 alcohol content brew that is made with ample hops and crystal malt (P.D. stands for “panty dropper,” a named coined by Mike); Cutthroat IPA (India pale ale) might be up your alley as a tasty light amber ale; and their fifth beer product, what Mike terms as “the best porter in the State,” the Pulaski Porter, a beer that wallops a 7.0 alcohol content, is a must to try when visiting Blacksmith Brewery.
“The Pulaski Porter is by far one of our better beers,” Mike brags. (I’d have to agree with him.)
“Mike also makes an amazing root beer; we’re always running out of it; people just love it!” Pam adds.
The brewery offers free one-ounce sampling glasses, so there’s no reason not to see what brew fits your mood.
So, sorry folks: Blacksmith Brewery doesn’t yet have the capacity to keg their beers for retail sale yet, so after a wonderful time patronizing the brew pub, you might want to take home a reasonably-priced growler of brew. It’s only $7, and can keep unopened two to three weeks.
Blacksmith Brewery is open Sunday – Friday 3 – 8 and Saturday 12 – 8.
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| Lowering Expectations |
| By Jim Wilson |
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The sky is falling around the world as we prepare for the economic Armageddon before us. Economic slow down, recession or depression looms over our heads, not just nationally, but globally. We haven’t seen times like this since the great depression. I wasn’t around for the great depression, but I must admit this is far worse. The folks of the great depression didn’t have to think about giving up so much prosperity. During the great depression there were no computers, 42” flat screen TV’s, microwaves, two car families, DVD’s, fast food restaurants, cell phones, texting, Jacuzzis, vehicles that speed along at 80 to 100mph and still last 300,000 miles with little maintenance, 10 movies in a single theatre, e-mail, huge homes, riding lawn mowers, snow blowers and the list goes on. When you think about it they had very little to give up when times got tough. They lived in a modest home, spent most of their time working long hours and ate meals as a family. The expectations of the great depression amounted to carving out a living and having food on the table.
Recently I took a trip to South Africa and spent several days in a small village documenting one of their celebrations. The village was a small collection of Randoval huts 20 ft. in diameter and made from clay. Several families would share the small hut sleeping on mats laid out on the dirt floor. There was no furniture other than the blankets they used to keep warm at night. With the exception of a few, all the children and adults had no footwear. Water was carried in five gallon buckets from the creek several hundred yards downhill from the huts. There were no bathroom facilities; everyone just squatted when the urge arouse. Meals were prepared once a day unless there was no food. The meal was the same everyday and consisted of a white pasty looking substance made of maize. The kids made a soccer ball from a glove stuffed with plastic grocery bags. Everyone in the village had an obligation to do certain jobs around the huts. The young girls would look after the children and carry buckets of water from the stream. The older women would cook the meals and clean the huts. The men would work in the fields or tend to the animals and the boys would herd the sheep. The people of this village lived as simple a life as humanly possible without complaining. They laughed and danced with the children, sang songs and told stories. Weddings and other celebrations would carry on long into the night and whoever had money for the spirits would supply the beer or the provisions to make it. Everything was cooked on a fire from wood supplied by the surrounding hills. If you wanted to go to town it was a 20-mile walk unless someone picked you up on the highway. All the villagers walked to neighboring villages for celebrations even if you were 80 or 90 years old. There were no expectations that even came close to a 42” color TV.
While shopping in an appliance store I passed a TV with the Oprah show in full swing. A woman was explaining to Oprah and the audience that we need to cut back our spending. She explained to the horror of the audience that we should stop going to restaurants, eat at home, walk instead of drive, stop buying junk food, shop less and change our habits in a variety of ways. The audience could not believe what they were hearing. How could anyone suggest that we change the American way of life? Our expectations as Americans are huge, so much so that we feel we need a computer and cell phone for every member of the family, unlimited texting, two or three cars, a large house, an entertainment center, movies every second night, eat lunch at a restaurant and travel to some exotic destination for our vacation. Often times we determine success as our ability to purchase, own and possess material opportunities. Even in the depression people killed themselves when they found out that their wealth was gone. Success is different for all of us. In the African village success may be measured by an opportunity in education or the ability to feed your family. The generation that lived through the depression may have measured success as the ability to have a job and a roof over your head. However we determine success we cannot have it without some fundamental criteria. Success is nothing without good health, faith, love and thanksgiving for the things we do have.
There is a good analogy between backpacking in the wilderness and the way we live as Americans. On a recent trip I made everyone in the party weigh his or her packs, then took out absolutely everything that wasn’t essential. We only took one knife instead of five. Cell phones were left behind. Extra clothing, food, utensils, pots and anything that was not vital for our existence was taken out of the packs. Members of the party would often say that some items they were asked to take out didn’t really weigh that much and it wouldn’t make a difference to the weight of the pack. We then planned the meals and discarded all the packaging that came with the food. When we had done all of this we weighed the packs again and found that we had saved 20 – 30 pounds per pack. I explained to everyone that we only get to do a trip like this once a year. Our purpose for the trip is to enjoy the great outdoors. If we pack a heavy load we will burden ourselves throughout the trip and it will take away from the experience we originally wanted. We did the trip and everyone was amazed at how light the packs were and how much it added to the overall experience. All of those items they had thought would not make a difference in weight added up to 20 lbs.
As we begin to look at what we can cut from our budgets, it is the little things that add up to a whole lot. The cumulative effect of saving $10.00 twenty times is $200.00. The 30 cups of espressos per month can be cut to 1 a week. That one a week can be a reward for making other cuts. This alone would save you $75.00. With that savings you could make your own coffee in the morning and still have saved $65.00. Pick a special night for watching a DVD and make it a family affair. Cut out all the unlimited texting your kids are doing and save $10.00 on your cell phone per child. They may learn how to have a conversation with you in the absence of texting. Turn the heat down and wear a sweater. It may take a month to acclimatize to the house, but you will sleep better and save yourself $100.00. Walk or take the bus and save yourself a tank of gas every week. Depending on the vehicle this could save you $80.00 to $160.00 per month. Plan meals and make lunches instead of eating out. Make a trip to the restaurant a special event once a month. There are a lot of things in our lives that we can cut that won’t affect our happiness. We have cluttered our lives with these expenses because of our expectations and these expenses are the weights that burden down the backpack that makes the trip so stressful.
If we lower our expectations and change our lifestyles we would never have to continually clean out the garage or basement, rent a storage unit, drive a big SUV to pack all the junk we think we need and scream and yell at the kids to clean their rooms. We would have more time for each other and our families if we could unclutter our expectations.
I bought the kids of the small African village a real soccer ball. After four days of use a young man with tears in his eyes brought the soccer ball to me. It had been ripped apart by a broken piece of glass and was now useless. Everyone in the surrounding area had played the soccer ball continually during the four days and it had lived the life of five American soccer balls in that four days. The young man’s expectations had risen with the new ball and now that it had been taken from him it would be hard to go back to the glove packed with grocery bags. Maybe that explained the tears.
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