I sat at the feet of my Granddad with wide-eyed wonder and hung on every word. As he recounted his tale, the Montana prairies came to life. The northern winds blew snow and whistled through the stubbles of dry grass. I imagined every scene as he told his story.
By 1915, there were many homesteaders staking claims in Montana. By that time, the amount of land deeded had been increased to 320 acres per homesteader. The allotted time to “prove” their homestead was decreased to three years. A homesteader would file a claim, build a cabin and live there. Witnesses gave written documentation as to the validity of the homesteader’s claim.
One homesteader from the East staked his claim and built his house on the Montana prairie. He wasn’t too anxious to spend winter on the open prairie so left to go to the city or back East to spend the winter. This left his cabin empty all winter. Like other cabins in homesteading country, this one was left unlocked. According to the code of the west, one’s home, no matter how humble, was open to others. The drawstring was left on the outside of the door to welcome passing travelers. Whatever meager supplies were in the cabin could be used. A passerby could stay and leave whatever he could for others and replenish the woodpile.
A family with a little boy moved into the community. The boy was sick with “consumption” and the doctor thought the cool Montana air would help him. It did for a while, but when the flu made its rounds, the boy’s life was taken from him. It was a bitter cold winter and the ground was frozen solid. The undertaker sent his crew to the community cemetery on the hill. Without the cover of snow, the ground was frozen hard and deep. The grave diggers couldn’t even dig a posthole, much less a grave. On a frigid January day, they placed the boy’s casket in the empty homesteader’s cabin. Flu claimed the life of another and soon a second casket was added.
Winter continued to be bitter cold. Along in February as the evening shadows lengthened, a traveler turned into the homesteader’s cabin. It was a welcome sight as the day was ending and the cold wind whipped down his neck. He pulled the string and entered the cabin. He got a fire going, melted some snow for a pot of coffee, got a pan of beans on the stove and then lit a lamp and set it on the table. Upon a further survey of the contents of the cabin, he noticed a wooden box that looked suspiciously like a casket. There was another beside it. He found a hammer, pried off the lid and dropped it back down quickly. He left the drawstring hanging as the door hit his heels on the way out.
Unbeknown to him, postholes weren’t the only thing that couldn’t be dug that winter.
I stood on the hill among tombstones hiding in the tall grass and wildflowers of the old Silver City Cemetery. Helena could be seen in the distance just to the southeast. Though the streets of Helena were busy with the comings and goings of all kinds of folks, the little town of Silver City wasn’t much more than a name. Had events taken a turn years earlier, she would have won the right of being the capital of Montana. But that wasn’t to be.
The cemetery was quiet except for the kind gentleman who pushed a mower to try to clear the memories of weeds and to deter rattlesnakes, I would venture. With my boots on, I walked around and snapped a few pictures of forgotten names on stones that had been so worn away no inscription could be read. Sunken places in the earth whispered stories of those whose remains lay all but forgotten.
As I stood there pondering the tales that would never be told, wondering about the lives of those who had come to this harsh and beautiful land, a van came up the trail. It slowly made its way up the hill. A young lady got out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the other side of the van. Out stepped an elderly gentleman with a cap on his head. His elbow lay in the palm of the young lady’s hand, her other hand placed gently on his arm. He spoke to the man who had turned off the mower. “I just came to put a flower on her grave.” He spoke of the grave of his wife. In the elderly man’s hand, he held a purple flower on a single stem.
The lady guided him through the newly chopped clumps of grass and into the weeds yet to be trimmed. “Watch out for rattlesnakes, Grandpa!” They made their way to the grave of his beloved. He bent down, pulled a few weeds from the front of the tombstone to reveal her name, then stooped lower to place the purple flower on her grave. A warm gentle breeze blew as yellow wildflowers danced to the song of memories. I turned and walked away to allow them the sacred magic of the moment.
Among the tombstones was that of my great aunt, Georgia Ann Hunter Brannin, 1879-1923. “Old Moss”, a Mexican man who came with the Brannin family from New Mexico to Silver City, is also buried there but the wooden marker that once marked his grave is rotted and scattered among the weeds.
My Guest Author today is my lovely aunt as she shares her passion of family and keeps their memories alive.
I never knew my brother, Jack. He was born nearly 20 years before me and he died when he was only 14 but he lived a life that affected many.
Mama and Daddy were married on the 4th of November 1916. It was a mild fall day, gathering up for a full-fledged winter in the Melville country. They were married at my Uncle Ed’s. There is a little piece of Mother’s wedding dress in a treasure box. It was white wool with blue flowers.
I have to make up details to suit myself, but they had a nice lunch there and then loaded a few donations and gifts in Granny’s wagon. They would ride their horses along with the Uncles and Granny up country towards the Sweet Grass Canyon, some eight miles into the mountains. Granny Brannin and the bachelor uncles lived there on homesteads they had acquired. There often were a few who also went along just because they enjoyed the company, but in that group was Ernest Parker who was a partner with my Daddy in the sawmill business. They had bought the sawmill from Uncle Ed and were ready to get into business. No need to figure Mother in as camp cook as she had learned horse wrangling but not the skill of cooking, however Ernest had been on his own since he was 12 so he would instruct the feisty little gal.
The logging camp was set up a couple of miles beyond the Brannin homeplace, a rustic cabin, bunkhouse, and the sawmill on the side hill. There are still the remnants of the cabin, a rotted out log or two or at least I claim there is. As they settled in, so did winter and in March baby Jack decided to be born right there and then. Ernest was enlisted to get on his long-legged horse and plow through the drifts to get Granny, but in the meantime, my Daddy, Bud Ward was stoking the stove, sweating and boiling water for whatever reason and Mother and God were delivering her firstborn baby boy. Tiny little guy, he fit in a shoe box and when he wasn’t in my Mother’s arms he was near the warming oven of the stove.
An old Chinese proverb says that a child much loved has many names, or maybe one of my uncles said that. John Carrington Ward, carried the full array of English names that represented my Daddy’s family he had left at 16 years earlier to explore Canada and USA. But he was called Jack, Dyke, Montgomery Ward, Wardie or Baby Jack, doted on by his family and extended family.
By the time they could plow their way out of the Crazy Mountains in June, the Doctor pronounced him a genuine baby boy and by the time he was one year old, he weighed 12 pounds and could run without ducking under the table. I can see my Mama packing him on her hip down to see Granny or snagging him off a stump to ride with her on Spider. She always loved dolls and now she had her very own.
Winter in the Crazies
That next years were the years of WWI and Daddy, an enthusiastic American, gathered Ernest and my Uncle Barney and Uncle Sid and enlisted, going to France as an engineer in the sawmill division and Mother took little Jack to live with Granny. Many times, the little man got in trouble for something his Uncles taught him, but he was well loved and learned confidence, a little mosquito, a favored companion to everyone.
Jack with Peaches the bear
No sooner was the war over, and the men returned when they fought another war. Fire raged along the side of the canyon, an insult to their home, but God turned the beast back on itself and life went on. I see pictures of Jack squatted down playing around under the feet of a horse, riding on a pet bear or a pig, playing in mud puddles though Mother kept him a safe distance from the sawmill. I know he perched on Daddy’s knee and rode “a cock horse to Bamberry Cross to see a fine lady upon a white horse.” And he trusted Ernest’s growly instructions.
Even tiny boys grow up and though Mother, an avid reader had only managed, off and on, six years of school, Daddy was a strong supporter of education; so little Jack was left with the Evangelical Preachers family to stay in Big Timber, at least three hours away, to go to school. (I don’t know how my Mother could let him go.)
Being a fearless gregarious fellow, he enjoyed the fellowship and company, I don’t know about the academics. Because I lived the same way to go to school, I know it would be a long time before Mother and Daddy would get to Big Timber to see their school kids and in Jack’s case a much longer time; so what is a guy to do, but pack up and head for the hills. It was forty miles to the sawmill, twenty miles to Melville and twenty miles on from there. Jack caught a ride with the mailman to a few miles beyond Melville, now Perry Anderson’s. (Now how do you suppose this little kid talked the mail man into that?) He would hoof it over the hills home from there. Remember he is little in stature and few in years.
Jack
During the night, the Uncles saw a campfire up on the hill by the Lone Pine and figured it was a hunter but the next morning little Jack showed up at the ranch. That is a long and lonely trip, but that little boy could.
He went back to school and participated heartily, at one time taking a very hard blow to his head as he had put a bucket on his head and another boy hit the bucket with a bat. Whether this was the start of the tumor or not, who knows, but Ernest noticed Jack losing his balance and they took him to the Doctor to find out he had a tumor on his brain. Mother would take him to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and they would use radiation. Ernest generously used his Spanish American War retirement to finance these treatments. Gradually Jack was confined to home and by now he had sisters, Ellen and Barbara and brother Buck.
Guest Author
Men regularly came to the sawmill to buy lumber and they almost became family as they were invited to eat and stay over, and they quickly took to the spunky boy. One man, a bit infamous, made a special trip to see Jack and left in tears at the sight of the crippled in body but not spirit, lad. Mother would massage the cramps out of his limbs. He would talk about his confidence in heaven and wrote out his will, leaving his cow and watch etc. to his brother and sisters and one day God relieved the little boy who could, and a community of admirers wept.
Jowell was a handsome likable fellow. In fact, women swooned when he walked into a room. He was eloquent of speech and pen, able to sway the pendulum his way. One article described him as “uncommonly good looking, and doesn’t look to be a man of hardened criminal tendencies.” In May of 1912, Mel Jowell began serving a 22-year sentence at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge for the killing of Deputy Sheriff Joseph Brannin on the streets of Melville, Montana in November 1911. He and S. P. McAdams, both serving time, were transported to Livingston, Montana, as witnesses at the trial of Walter Waymire who had been charged with assisting in the murder of Brannin. After the August trial the two men, under guard, were put on the Northern Pacific No. 41 for the return trip to Deer Lodge Prison.
The train pulled up the steep grade at Pipestone Hill near Hell’s Canyon in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains foothills. Fuel was added to the fire in the belly of the beast as the engine belched steam from the slow-moving train. Two men, joined by chains attached to steel cuffs, slid out of their seats to go to the toilet. Jowell was first to go in with McAdams still attached on the other side of the slightly opened door. He opened the toilet window and somehow managed to get his feet out. In one short movement with a jerk of his hand, the toilet door flung open. McAdams’ coat caught on the door knob but was torn loose as Jowell jerked. McAdams shot out the window behind Jowell. They jumped from the train moving at 30 mph, rolled down the hill and disappeared into the rocky hills. The commotion broke loose so quickly, Sheriff Killorn, only three feet away, was helpless to act. He grabbed and pulled the bell cord, yelling for the trainman to pull the air. The train stopped in short order but before Killorn could alight, the train started moving. By the time it came to a complete stop again, they were a mile away. Jowell and McAdams fled into the rugged wilderness of rough cliffs, rocks and timber.
It was evident the men had assistance in their escape. Jowell had such brash confidence that he would have help along the way, he left a note at the home of Earl Flynn on Trout Creek informing Flynn that “the writer of the note” had been there.
In the note he added, “Tell Fallang that he will have a harder time catching me than he did before.” He openly signed it “M. B. Jowell.” (Fallang was the Sheriff of Sweet Grass County, Montana who pursued him after the killing of Deputy Sheriff Brannin and picked him up in Phoenix, Arizona in December 1911.) One of the men who supposedly assisted their escape was a man by the name of Harvey Whitton.
Pipestone Pass railroadold train bed at Pipestone Pass
It wasn’t long after their jump from the train that McAdams was seen at Pipestone Springs freed from his shackels. Jowell was seen at Fish Creek and in Wyoming as he escaped south heading to Texas or Arizona. He took up company with Whitton. The two headed into Nevada, leaving a trail of at least 18 stolen horses along the way, each to replace their spent mounts. Although they had eluded posses and authorities, they were soon pinned down near Elko, Nevada. A shootout ensued. Before Jowell was taken, his stolen horse was shot out from under him. Jowell was dismounted and opened fire on the officers. He failed to hit his target and seeing he was outnumbered, he surrendered. Jowell and Whitton were taken into custody October 14, 1912.
Mel Jowell used the alias of Rex Roberts when he was arrested in Elko. In December 1911, when he was picked up in Phoenix for the murder of Joseph Brannin, he used the name of Dalton I. Sparks. His partner, Harvey Whitton was arrested using the alias of Jim Ross. He was also known by the alias of James B. O’Neal as noted in California records. After serving some time in Nevada, Jowell was returned to Deer Lodge in 1915 under the alias Rex Roberts.
Rocky rugged wilderness near Pipestone Pass
Joseph Shelby Brannin’s life was taken from himNovember 16, 1911. He left his widowed mother, seven brothers and five sisters to mourn his loss and future generations of nieces and nephews to carry on his legacy.
Daddy was so proud of himself. There on the counter were some green muffins. He grinned and said, “Try a muffin. They’re good.” I had no desire to taste his green muffins. They reminded me of the green kerosene biscuits I loathed as a kid. I pinched off a very tiny piece and that was too much. I said, “These are terrible. What did you make them out of?” He said, “Well – there was some left-over Split Pea Soup in the refrigerator…..” I like good Split Pea Soup, and though his muffins were not good, they were memorable.
About the only time daddy cooked was when Mama had surgery or was sick. When I was a kid, Mama had back surgery which also entailed having a bone removed from her leg and put in her back. She was out of commission for some time. Daddy cooked. Well, that term is used loosely. He attempted to cook. One day he decided to make biscuits. When his mom had started keeping house years earlier, she tried her hand at making biscuits. She used a mouse for target practice and killed it when she threw one of her biscuits at the little furry critter. I think Daddy inherited those skills. When my oldest brother smarted off about Daddy’s biscuits, he chunked one at my brother and it raised a welt on his arm. We were ecstatic when my grandmother came for a few days and took over cooking!
I fixed Daddy green pancakes with green eggs and bacon for St. Patrick’s Day breakfast
In later years, Daddy had to take up kitchen duty when Mama was sick. Even after she got better, he continued to do the cooking. She was just happy not having to plan meals after doing it all those years. Daddy would ask me how to make certain things. He would taste something and then quiz me on the ingredients. He liked to experiment with seasonings and other things. Though he never was the best cook, he did improve somewhat. He always knew when his food was done because the smoke alarm would go off.
I saw some strange things on his kitchen table. Green Split Pea Muffins were one of them. If something was unidentifiable, it was a good idea to ask, “What is it?” Who knows when you might be served Split Pea Soup Muffins!
The wagons rolled to a stop. The travelers must have felt overwhelmed as they came into Virginia City on September 7, 1864. This boomtown had sprung up almost overnight. Prospectors and those seeking their fortune flooded the area. Along with the wealth of the discovery of gold came a wealth of crime. Just ten days after their arrival, John “The Hat” Dolan was hung on the town gallows for stealing $700 from a roommate.
The Brannin wagons left Boonville, Missouri, in March of the same year, traveling with other pioneers headed west along portions of the Oregon Trail. Stanton Brannin was among the wagon train members with some of his relatives – Andrew & Ann Brannin Gibson, William & Sommerville Brannin Gibson with sons Henry & George, Elnora Brannin, Balsora & Dr. George Stein, Sarah Furnish, Bob Brannin and William Brannin. Mary Furnish planned to make the trip but had to postpone until the next spring due to sickness.
The wagon train followed the Missouri River, through Platte River Valley, Ft. Laramie, Sweetwater River, Landers Creek, Bear River Mountains, into Portneuf Canyon near Pocatello, Idaho and Fort Hall. Elnora added that they came by way of “Sanders Cutoff, which was considered a very dangerous route at that time,” and passed by the foot of Blue Mountain. They traveled through the Bear River Mountains of which she said, “the road was so steep and rugged we had to walk the greater part of the time.” Aunt Elnora gave a written account of some of the atrocities they saw.
After camping at Fort Hall, Idaho, the wagon train split up. Cousins Bob & William Brannin traveled on to Oregon. The other Brannin relatives took the road north to Virginia City, Montana.
Virginia City, Montana
They were soon part of the raw, tough and tumbling Western boomtown. The Gibson’s ran a boarding house on Idaho Street for a couple of years. The newspaper recorded the grand parties they hosted in December of that same year. William Anderson Clark, the Copper King, described as “the most powerful, influential, and ruthless of the 19th century American robber barons,” was a visitor at the boarding house before he rose to such power and wealth.
Some of the family remained in Virginia City until the Spring of 1865 when they went to Blackfoot City and spent the summer. They moved on to Helena in December and stayed the winter. Sarah Furnish married Wilson Redding. He discovered the Hot Springs at Alhambra. He and his bride, Sarah Furnish, opened the Alhambra Hot Springs & hotel. It was a flourishing business for several years.
It wasn’t long before the Gibson’s moved closer to Helena at Gates of the Mountains where they managed the King & Gillette Toll Road that led from Ft. Benton to Helena through Prickly Pear Valley. Naturally, the Gibson ranch was a perfect stopping place.
Horses run near the site of the Gibson Ranch in Prickly Pear Valley
The Gibson ranch was described by some its guests: “Just at the mouth of the canyon, on this side, we found a spot that all, even the grumblers, were in love with. For a great distance on both sides of the stream, a thick growth of trees and underbrush presented its dark green foliage to the view, while on either side the beautiful valleys hills and mountains caused many an exclamation of admiration from those just from the States, who had never seen the like before. Here is Gibson’s ranch which we must say, is the neatest place in the country. As one sits down to the table there, and luxuriates on sweet milk, nice butter and Dutch cheese, and sees the elderly people about him, trying to do all they can to make him perfectly at home, he goes back in memory to the days of childhood when he used to disturb the cream on the milk in his grandmother’s pantry, and not get much of a scolding for it either. Fishing and hunting are “in order” near Gibson’s and we know of no better place at which to spend a few days or weeks for summer rustication.” Post, June 29, 1867
Gates of the Mountains
“At a time when they expected it not they seem to have “passed through Switzerland,” as some of them have pointedly expressed it. And here, in this connection, we will remind our friends that they can find no better place at which to spend a few hot summer days than at this same Little Prickly Pear Canyon. Gibson’s ranch, at its mouth a combination of neatness and good cheer offers a convenient stopping place for all who would enjoy the pleasure of hunting and fishing amidst the grand towers and groves of this mountain nook.” Montana Post, June 26, 1868
By 1870 the Gibson’s were back in Missouri. The return to their home state did not deter Stanton Brannin from his adventures. He made his way to New Mexico where he married and started a large family. It seems that the Montana mountains continued to call his name. In June 1896, on their way to Marysville, they arrived in Helena just in time to witness the hanging of William Gay who claimed innocence with his dying breath. When the wagons rolled to a stop, some of the family may have felt just as overwhelmed as the Brannin relatives did when they arrived in Montana the first time thirty-two years earlier.
1864 seemed promising. Horses stomped impatiently. They were harnessed to the loaded wagons waiting for the command to pull out. Excitement hung in the air as the travelers made final preparations for their journey west to a land of opportunity. They faced the unknown, unaware of the hardships they might face on the trail. They didn’t know how long the trip would take or if they would even survive.
Balsora, her husband Dr. George W Stein, and Balsora’s daughter, Sarah Furnish were among those traveling with their Brannin relatives. As the wagons pulled out from Boonville, Missouri, headed west, Mary Furnish was left behind. She suffered from sickness and was not able to travel. She promised to follow the next spring and bring their other belongings.
Sarah Furnish Redding in later years
True to Mary’s promise, she did follow in the spring. Along with other pieces of furniture, she also brought a piano. It wasn’t just any old piano, but an 1863 square rosewood Steinway Grand Piano that had taken first prize at the St. Louis Exposition of 1863. Mary took the boat up the Missouri River to Ft. Benton, Montana, then took the piano by ox team overland to Virginia City, then later to Helena. It has been said that the Steinway was the first to be played in Helena.
1863
The piano made its way to Alhambra to the home of Sarah Furnish Redding and her husband, Wilson Redding. They owned and operated Alhambra Hot Springs which served as a medical and recreational resort. The hot springs attracted travelers and the elite. Movie stars, high ranking political figures and professionals were guests at this “sumptuous retreat.” Sarah was a gracious hostess and a charming entertainer, playing the 1863 Steinway and dancing for their guests.
Alhambra Hot Springs Hotel
The Steinway came into the possession of Sarah’s daughter, Sarah Redding Cramer. After being in Butte for a time, Sarah Cramer donated the piano to the Montana Historical Society in May of 1930 with the intent of being placed on display. It was in the main room of the Historical Society quarters in the capitol building for a short time.
Today you can find the piano in pieces in the graveyard of historical relics in the basement of the Montana Historical Society Museum in Helena, Montana. We were told that funding is not available for the piano to be exhibited. I am intrigued at the passion and determination the Furnish girls had to haul this heavy cumbersome piano across the country by boat and ox drawn wagon. It is amazing that it has survived all these years. Though some of us would love for it to be displayed, that probably won’t happen without an advocate to intervene on behalf of our family’s rich history.
Adventures are often found in the simplest of places. I found them in the lap of my grandfather.
He loved to sit down to a meal and linger over a cup or more of coffee. He was a dunker. He let us grandkids sit in his lap and “dunk” in his coffee, too. He put sugar and cream in his coffee and dunked almost everything. Bread, biscuits, cake, pie, and pizza was dunked in his coffee. Whoever sat in his lap added more sugar and cream and took a sip. If he dunked, we dunked.
Sitting in his lap, I imagined being with him on one of his adventures as he told story after story. We traipsed across the plains together following the harvest all the way into Canada. We traveled by horse, train or rode in a horseless buggy. He tied the bedroll and fiddle on the side of the saddle, hoisted me up behind him, and we rode cross country to an old homestead where he played for a dance at the end of the harvest.
My granddad and his team – Mae & Jim
I peeked out the back of a covered wagon and watched Indians following from a distance as we trailed from Oklahoma to Montana. My granddad rode alongside the wagons on Old Bill. Nights were filled with the music of fiddles being played around the campfire.
Family wagons headed north
His tales came to life as he recounted his batching days. They were so vivid, I could almost the mouse tail hanging out from between a stack of pancakes slathered with butter and syrup when he played a trick on his batching partner, John. I could almost smell “Old Stink” outside his cave near Zortman as my granddad told the story of the old man.
By the time he was done with his coffee, the cup was half full of dunking dregs. He would take a spoon and eat what was left. His cup was soon empty, but my cup of memories was full.
Old Montana Territorial Prison, Deer Lodge, Montana
Unmanned stone turrets stood like silent sentries at each corner of the stone barrier that encircled the prison walls. Foreboding formidable buildings bore the battle scars of shattered bricks that threatened to fall to the ground. Remnants of the tails of sheets tied to prison bars hung from windows. Twisted wires with sharp barbs were wound around each other forming a tangled lethal web along the tops of fences and stone walls. An uneasiness crept from the dark recesses. Shadows’ bony fingers motioned for us as we walked inside. Just being behind thick doors and iron gates brought a sense of claustrophobia and uneasiness. Even though windows lined the outer walls of the large rooms, only a pinpoint of light seemed to penetrate the oppressive darkness. Every foot fall and whisper echoed from cold concrete floors and stony bare walls. Stepping into the women’s quarters sent a chill through my body. Relics inside the cells were reminders of those who once were locked within those stark walls. The unspeakable crimes of the women who resided there were rarely matched by any of the men who lived beyond in the other quarters.
inside the women’s quarters
The walls began to close in around me. The hallways seemed to narrow and pulse as we went further into the heart of the prison. Nothing was able to penetrate the thick stagnant stifling air that got heavier by the minute. Open cell doors gave evidence of those who were once housed behind locked bars. There was a presence of restless invisible eyes of ghosts lingering, staring from dark corners or peering from under empty cots. Signs along the way recounted the horrific crimes of many of the inhabitants. It’s no wonder the restlessness of evil lurked there in the black retreats.
Mel Jowell lived here once, twice, three, four times. He killed Deputy Sheriff Joseph Brannin in 1911 on the dusty streets of Melville, Montana. Horse stealing, thievery, prison breaks, murder and evading capture were among other offenses. He skirted the law, managed to escape and lived the remainder of his days outside prison bars. I cannot say if he was tormented by ghosts of his past or if his soul found peace in life and in death.
Stepping into the prison yard, a rush of air filled my lungs. The day was bright with blue sky and fluffy white clouds. A soft breeze was interrupted with whispers that seemed to echo within the prison yard. Reminders of evil lurked in the shadows that moved along the ground. I turned and walked out the stone gate breaking free of the oppression that clung to me and tried to hold me captive. The breeze chased away the stagnant air. The light of day grew brighter as we drove away.
