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[montana]
[Biographies]
[Disasters]
[Politics early]
[Politics women]
[Politics Senate]
[Politics4 House Leg.]
[Politics 5 Gov]
[QUERIES]
[MT charts]
[MT. Constitution]
[Volume 1 families]
[2 Volume families]
[History]
[Womens Clubs]
[UDATES]

 

Famous  Montanans

Dorothy Baker author,  Missoula

Dirk Benedict actor,  Helena

W. A. Tony Boyle labor  union official, Bald Butte

Dana Carvey comedian,  Missoula

Gary Cooper actor,  Helena

Chet Huntley journalist, TV  newscaster, Cardwell

Will James writer, artist,  Great Falls

Evel Knievel daredevil  motorcyclist, Butte

Jerry Kramer football  player, author, Jordan

Myrna Loy actress,  Helena

David Lynch filmmaker,  Missoula

George Montgomery actor,  Brady

Jeannette Rankin first  woman elected to Congress, Missoula

Martha Raye actress,  Butte

Michael Smuin  choreographer

Lester C. Thurow economist,  educator, Livingston

 

THE HONORABLE SAMUEL McLEAN OF MONTANA and Summit Hill, Carbon County, Pa. Samuel McLean was the  prosecuting attorney for  Carbon Co., PA in the period 1855-1860. He was born at Summit Hill, PA on August 7, 1826, he attended the select schools of Wyoming Valley, PA and then Lafayette College in  Easton, PA,  where he studied law. 

In 1849, he was the first Carbon County native to be admitted to the Pennsylvania  Bar after which he established a practice in  Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), PA.  He read law in the offices of Andrew H. Reeder. In 1852, he moved briefly to California, then returned to  marry Jane Gray Wilson of Easton on January 23,  1855.   They settled in Mauch Chunk  on November 27, 1857.   After his term as  prosecuting  attorney for Carbon Co.,  he moved west and in 1860,  Samuel  McLean  was  the  attorney-general  of  the   provisional Territory  of Jefferson (later Colorado),  and it is believed  he resided in Denver [Wolle (1963), pp. 61].

In 1862, he moved to Bannack, Montana where he joined the Montana Territory  gold  rush.   According to Wolle (1963),  it  was  the discovery   by John J.  Healy and George Grigsby in 1861  of  the placers on the Salmon River near Florence,  Idaho Territory, that brought men to the area, including Samuel McLean, who at the time was in Denver, then part of the Jefferson Territory. He organized a party of men and set off for Idaho by way of the Overland Trail and Fort Hall. Another party, organized by Captain Jack  Russell, also left Denver about the same time, and eventually met McLean's  party at  Fort Hall. The two parties went together to Fort Lemhi, Idaho  Territory,  and while they were still more than 125  miles from Florence they discovered that the Salmon River was too  wild to use to go downstream to the placers.  Thus they joined about a thousand other miners who were also stranded in the Lemhi Valley.     

 When Montana entered statehood in 1864, Samuel McLean was elected as  a  Democrat  to the 38th and 39th Congresses of the U.S.  and served  from  January 6,  1865  to March 3,  1867.  He was not  a candidate  for re-election in 1866.  He was president  of  McLean Silver Mining Co.  in 1870,  and after expiration of his term  in Congress,  he returned to Easton,  PA seeking local investors  in his McLean Silver Mining Company. After living in Montana several years,  he moved to Virginia in 1870  and settled on a plantation near Burkeville, Nottoway, Co. He died in Burkeville,  VA on July 16,   1877   at the age  of  51  years,  and was interred in  the churchyard of  the Presbyterian  Church there.  [U.S.  Government Printing Office, House  Document No.  442,  (1961),  BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY  OF THE AMERICAN  CONGRESS,  1774-1961,   pp.1310-1311; Lavelle, John P. (1996) "The Hard Coal Docket," pp. 203].

A review of the map of Burkeville, VA shows a street named McLean         as  well as a street named DIMMICK.  There is a Dimmick  MemorialLibrary in Jim Thorpe, PA where Samuel McLean practiced law. While in Montana,  Samuel McLean lived in Bannack and in Virginia City  where he was known as "Colonel"  McLean.  James  Knox  Polk Miller, in his diary, edited by Andrew Rolle (1960),  includes an entry for September 1, 1865:                   

"For  five hours last evening I wrote a copy of the Montana Territorial Laws Regulating Elections, without intermission finishing at one o'clock this morning, for which I received  from Col.  McLane  [McLean],   the Democratic candidate for  Congress, 7th District, $7.00 in gold dust." [Rolle, Andrew  (1960)  THE ROAD TO VIRGINIA CITY:  The Diary of James Knox  Polk Miller, pp.80].        Spence  (1889)  claims that as  a member  of the  39th  Congress, Samuel McLean was known as Montana's "Talking Delegate,"  a hard-drinking, fun-loving, and "gay old boy." He was reported to weigh 300 pounds.  [Spence,  Clark C. (1975), 

TERRITORIAL POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN MONTANA, 1864-1889, pp. 41-42. Dimsdale, in Chapter 12, in discussing the settlement of Virginia City and the  discovery  of gold  at Alder Gulch  says:  "Colonel McLean brought the first  vehicle to  the Gulch."  He doesn't say what kind of vehicle, however. Samuel  McLean  may  have been connected with the McLeans of  the Dunboe District, Co. Londonderry, Ireland through James McLean of Summit  Hill,  PA,  who is believed to have been a brother  or  a cousin to Alexander McLean, founder of the First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre. As  a  young  man,  Alexander McLean emigrated  from  the  Dunboe District of Co.  Londonderry,  Ireland ca.  1820,  and settled at Summit Hill,  PA where he joined the First Presbyterian Church of Mauch Chunk, then under the leadership of Rev.  Richard Webster.  Alexander  McLean was an early contractor of the Lehigh Coal  and  Navigation Company (LC&N) and before the advent of the Switchback Railroad,   Alexander  McLean hauled coal by mule team  from  the mines  at  Summit Hill to the Lehigh River at  Mauch  Chunk  (Jim horpe)  where  the coal was floated downstream to markets south. He eventually became a mine operator under contract with the LC&N and became wealthy as a result. He retired to  Wilkes-Barre where he and his sons founded the  First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre.   One of his sons, James McLean, was elected the first president of the bank,  but he served only a short time before being killed in  a  railroad accident between  Summit  Hill  and  Wilkes-Barre  in January of 1864.  He was succeeded  by Alexander Gray  of Wilkes-Barre, who also had coal interests [Harvey, (1930)].

Jane Gray Wilson, wife of Samuel McLean, may have been related to Alexander  Gray,  second president of the First National Bank  of Wilkes-Barre,   and  to  Rev.  John  Gray  pastor  of  the  First Presbyterian Church of Easton 1822-1866,  and of long time  elder of  the Church,  James  Wilson  of  Easton [Records of the  First Presbyterian  Church  of Easton,  PA].  She may  also  have  been related to Rev.  Thomas McKeen Gray, pastor of the Bridge-Hampton Church. She is listed in the records of the Brainerd Presbyterian Church, Easton, PA, and those records indicate that she transfered to the Presbyterian Church of Burkeville, VA. in 1874, so that'sprobably when Col. Sam also moved to Burkeville.

Obituary

The  following  obituary on Samuel McLean appeared in the  HELENA WEEKLY HERALD, May 29, 1879.       

   "Col.  Samuel McLean,  our Delegate in Congress from 1864-68,  died in Nodaway county,Virginia, August 16, 1878.  It  is  a strange comment on the mutability of  human  affairs  and  a striking example of the tireless whirl and restless activity  of the American People,  that the First Delegate  from  Montana,  who represented it for three years in  the  Congress  of  the United States,  should  have  passed  so utterly  out  of the sight of our people in four  or  five years,   and whose death ten or eleven years later  should remain  unknown to our _____[illegible] for  months  after that event occured.

 Col.  McLean was a native of Pennsylvania,  whence he came to Colorado,  and in 1862  to what is now Montana.  He was widely  known among the early settlers of  the  mountains, was  engaged  in  various mining enterprises, and  by  a fortunate turn in affairs was elected in 1864 and again in 1865  to Congress.  Without great mental activity,  he was  nevertheless a genial,  kindly man with a noble impulse(?) and  his  death  will  come to the knowledge  of  his  old  friends with sincere regret.  He had become the owner of a considerable  tract  of  land about thirty miles  west  of Richmond, where in recent years he resided,  and where his  estimable wife and children now are now.

 REFERENCES

Davies,  Edward J.(1985). THE ANTHRACITE ARISTOCRACY: leadership       and social change in the hard coal regions  of  northeastern       Pennsylvania, 1800-1930. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois Univ.    Press, pp.56.     Dimsdale, VIGILANTES OF MONTANA, pp.59, 63.   Harvey,  Oscar Jewell and Smith, Ernest Gray (1930). A  HISTORY OF   WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, Volume VI.            

 

  Johnston Robertson (Joe) Boyd

Republican State Senator from Big Horn County:

Big Horn County, Wyola,MT. Joe came to the U.S.A. from Glasgow, Scotland, when he was two years old.He was the youngest of four boys. They settled in Johnston, P/a. He survived the ill famed "Johnstown Flood" May 31, 1889 by being wrapped in the American Flag and clinging to a church steeple as the church was washed two blocks down the street. The family's two story home was filled with silt, and fine, fragile glassware remained on the shelves,undamaged, surrounded by tons of silt.

Young Joe attended N.Y. Military Academy, there met and courted MissCecile Kissam Phillips from Albany, N.Y.

In 1905, Joe came to Sheridan, 1joeboyd     WY by train. He worked at the KendrickRanch, broke horses for a Mr. NcNabb. Later he went to work for Mr. GeorgeTschirgi, where he made a life long friend of George's son, Matt Tschirgi. At the Tschirgi ranch, he met a wolfer named"Buck" Smith, a brother of Bob Smith who ranched near Wyola, MT many years.He went into partnership with "Buck" Smith. They became such goodtrappers and expert marksmen, they were allowed to hunt on the Crow Indian. White men were banned from the reservation without a permit. He showed his son “Sonny” Boyd  the hole in the Little Horn Canyon near the entrance-where Buck and Joe had their "dug out" and spent the winter--keep in mind the temperatures dropped to 40 below zero!!)

The partners build a cottonwood log cabin on the Little Horn. In 1910 Joe purchased some Indian Land on the Little Horn. He owned a few cattle, a grizzly bear and a wolf he had chained for pets.  In 1909, he left for Albany,NY to marry Miss Cecile Kissam Phillips, but made Buck Smith promise to get rid of his pets as he deemed them a little dangerous for an Eastern bride.

 They were married Nov. 17, 1909 and moved onto the ranch on the Little Horn. There was no post office nearer than Parkman, WY . (40 miles)An engineer by the name of "Bill Toy: would pick up their mail at Parkman, put it in a sack and throw the sack from the engine into a choke cherry patch on certain days.  Joe would pick up the mail as he came by while running a trap line.

 A son and a daughter were born to Joe and Cecile Boyd. Johnston Phillips was born Feb. 24, 1914 and Mary Anna was born Aug.28, 1917 both atSheridan , WY.  sonnymaryanna  

In 1923, a fine new home was built on the Boyd ranch, a place that later became famous for the quality of flowers Joe raised. Some of his dahlias were as large as dinner plates. Exceptional gladiolus receivedprizes at many flower shows when displayed.

The Chinese Pheasant was introduced as a wild game bird in this area by the efforts of Matt Tischirgi and Joe Boyd. In 1926, Cecile underwent an appendectomy, followed by a stroke on her left side.  hatgramm She passed away June 27, 1927.

  In the early twenties, J.R. Boyd and Henry Stevens of Sheridan formed a ranching partnership called "Boyd and Stevens" which lasted until Joe;sdeath, Dec. 23, 1945. H.C. Steven then formed a partnership with Joe's son J.Phillips Boyd which lasted until Steven's death Jan. 5, 1951.

J.R. boyd ran cattle on the ridge between the main canyon of the LittleHorn river and the West fork of the Little Horn before there was a forest reserve.When the forest preserve was created, J.R. Boyd was the first permittee on that range. The range is know on the forest reserve maps as the Boyd range.

Joe Boyd served in the 29th Legislature of Montana as Senator from BigHorn Country, from Jan 1945 until his death. jrboydsmallverysmall

He as a Mason, thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Consistory member and a Shriner.  Since 1938, Joe occupied top position for production and improvement of Poland China Swine,. He was President in 1944-45 of theMidland Empire Swine Association, also instrumental in getting the SouthSide Livestock Yards in Billings, underway. He as director for the CentralLivestock Exchange. He also raised excellent Percheron horses.

Joe and Cecile are buried in the Sheridan WY cemetery. Joe said, as he bought the cemetery lot, "Here he would feel at home, as he could rear up on one elbow and see the elk in the Sheridan Park across the valley. (the elk can still be viewed-(not the same ones of course, it is a beautiful spot).

 

Senate  Years of Service: 1923-1947 Party: Democrat

WHEELER, Burton Kendall, a Senator from  Montana; born in Hudson, Middlesex County, Mass., February 27, 1882; attended  the common schools; worked as a stenographer in Boston, Mass.; graduated from  the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1905; admitted  to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Butte, Silver Bow County,  Mont.; member, State house of representatives 1910-1912; United States district  attorney for Montana 1913-1918; resumed the practice of law in Butte;  unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor of Montana in 1920; elected as a  Democrat to the United States Senate in 1922 for the term ending March 3, 1929;  unsuccessful candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1924 on the  Progressive Party ticket; reelected to the United States Senate in 1928, 1934  and 1940 and served from March 4, 1923, to January 3, 1947; unsuccessful  candidate for renomination in 1946; chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs  (Seventy-third Congress), Committee on Interstate Commerce (Seventy-fourth  through Seventy-ninth Congresses); resumed the practice of law; died in  Washington, D.C., January 6, 1975; interment in Rock Creek Cemetery.

Senate Years of Service: 1934-1961 
MONAGHAN, Joseph Patric
k, a Representative from Montana; born in Butte, Mont., March 26, 1906; attended public and parochial schools; graduated from Mount St. Charles (Carroll College), Helena, Mont., in 1928; member of the State house of representatives 1929-1931; studied law at Montana State University at Missoula; was admitted to the bar in 1931 and commenced practice in Butte, Mont.; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1930 to the Seventy-second Congress; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1933-January 3, 1937); did not seek renomination in 1936, but was unsuccessful both as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator and for election as an Independent candidate for the same office; resumed the practice of law; unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination to the United States Senate in 1964; was a resident of Butte, Mont., until his death there on July 4, 1985; interment in Sunset Memorial Park.

http://genealogytrails.com/mon/assets/images/line.gif 

Senate Years of Service: 1934-1961

Party: Democrat

MURRAY, James Edward, a Senator from Montana; born on a farm near St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, May 3, 1876; attended the public schools of Canada; graduated from St. Jerome’s College, Berlin, Canada, in 1897; came to the United States in 1897, settled in Butte, Mont., and was naturalized in 1900; graduated from the law department of New York University in 1900; admitted to the bar in 1901 and commenced practice in Butte, Mont.; also engaged in banking; county attorney\ of Silver Bow County, Mont., 1906-1908; chairman of the State advisory board f the Public Works Administration 1933-1934; elected on November 6, 1934, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Thomas J. Walsh; reelected in 1936, 1942, 1948 and 1954 and served from November 7, 1934, to January 3, 1961; was not a candidate for renomination in 1960; chairman, Committee on Education and Labor (Seventy-ninth Congress), co-chairman, Joint Committee on Labor-Management Relations (Eighty-first Congress), chairman, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (Eighty-second Congress), Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (Eighty-fourth through Eighty-sixth Congresses); died in Butte, Mont., March 23, 1961; interment in Holy Cross Cemetery.

http://genealogytrails.com/mon/assets/images/line.gif State house of representatives 1929-1931

MONAGHAN, Joseph Patrick, a Representative from Montana; born in Butte, Mont., March 26, 1906; attended public and parochial schools; graduated from Mount St. Charles (Carroll College), Helena, Mont., in 1928; member of the State house of representatives 1929-1931; studied law at Montana State University at Missoula; was admitted to the bar in 1931 and commenced practice in Butte, Mont.; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1930 to the Seventy-second Congress; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1933-January 3, 1937); did not seek renomination in 1936, but was unsuccessful both as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator and for election as an Independent candidate for the same office; resumed the practice of law; unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination to the United States Senate in 1964; was a resident of Butte, Mont., until his death there on July 4, 1985; interment in Sunset Memorial Park.

 (special note, if any one wants to include an obit, feel free to add a picture, e-mail Jo Ann for details.)