Hide Article Text (OCR)
MRich CameH1To State Over 75 Years Ag/*By WALTER E. TAYLORIn the Fishtail country south of Columbus, along the upper reaches of the Stillwater river, lives one of the few surviving Montanans who came to the state with the pioneers of 1864. This pioneer is Mrs. Elizabeth Rich, and although she has been in Montana for 75 years, she still looks young and has a sparkle in her eye. She is a handsome woman with silver-white hair and her speech is colored by a trace of a southern accent; Her memories of more than 77 decades in the Treasure state would fill volumes for she has been a spectator and a participant in the great pageant of Montana history from thesixties on.She has watched the building of an empire in the wilderness and her recollections include portraits of Curly, the Crow scout of the Custer cam-^rmmpaign; Sim Roberts, early day gunman, and “ Nelson Story and other notedcharacters of the frontier. She saw several of the great Montana gold camps at the height of their glory and she has known the privation and hardships of the early settlements.Mrs. Rich is a daughter of the famed pioneer Montana physician, Dr. Andrew Jackson Hunter, for whom Hunter's Hot Springs in SWeetgrass county areinereclaprcMe1covcaiorsmebelt;UlfitioWMRS. A. J. HUNTER*Mother of Mrs. Elizabeth Rich of Stillwater county. The Hunters came to Montana by covered wagon in 1864.Wgraphs published as portraits of himnow.) iriiia1rvdyieiteMrs. Rich does not agree with the popular opinion that the Crows were always friendly to the whites. “The Crows were as bad as the Blackfeetand the Piegans,” says she, “but they were cunning and did their best toklththMOacstGthhlt;sitehiviifcfolehlt;ruWiininDR. A. J. HUNTERFather of Mrs. Elizabeth Rich. Dr. Hunter was the founder of Hunter’s Hot Springs at Springdale.named. It was the destruction and ruin of the Civil war that drove the Hunter family west. Dr. Hunter was a gentleman of the old south and when the Union and Confederate ar-preserve the legend that they would do no harm.” She believes that many of the depredations which were laid to other tribes were actually the work of the Crows.Surrounded by Indians ,Mrs. Rich knows what it is to be surrounded by hostile Indians for during the first years her family spent at Hunter’s Hot Springs they were bothered continually by marauding tribesmen. On one occasion she and her mother stood guard at the window with guns while a troupe of hostiles circled about it.On the first journey up the Yellowstone'river in 1864, Dr. Hunter saw|ce the giant hot water spring which now pi bears his name and he determined to return to the sight some day. He real- rr ized the commercial value of the bub- ^ bling waters for he had visited the Ir celebrated hot springs of Arkansas. He tv returned to the springs in 1870 and ^ took squatter’s rignts to the land and j later filed a claim. He erected a house on the spot and began to farm, all the while making plans for a health resort. On several occasions the Hunter family had to flee to the protection of Fort Ellis at Bozeman when Indians drove them from their home. Once Dr. Hunter and his son were attacked by a force of 60 Indians while planting ~ potatoes. They succeeded in holding ~ the hostiles off but all their stock was 01 stolen. i«When the Northern Pacific railroad | Jj was built across Montana, the railroad | company laid claims to Dr. Hunter’s ^ajclt;eiirU11e:mies surged back and forth over his land and started ejection proceedings | f.* native state of Virginia to leave death against him and a law suit which ended 1 and destruction in their wake, he, like i before the supreme court of the United grefkfs8many another southerner, decided to take the western trail. When asked in later years how he had the courage to start the long trek to Montana with his young wife and three small children, he replied, “I had no alternative. There was nothing left for me in Virginia.” je;teStates ensued. In 1881 the high court decided in favor of Dr. Hunter and gave him title to the land he had fought Indians to hold.Early in the present century, Hunter's Hot Springs became a famous health resort. A fine hotel, plunge and hospital were built and visitors fromt]e]1£_ Mrs. Rich has no recollection of the far and wide came seeking health at journey to Montana for she was a the healing waters. For two decadessister, Mrs. Mary Doane of Bozeman,babe in arms at the time; but her the resort flourished. Then a declineMaryremembers it well. She was 6 years old was destroyed by fire. The springs stilltne reson, nourisnea. men a aeenne pset in and a few years later the resort t,when the journey to the west was flow as abundantly as they did when,tdddisbegun.Left “Nebraska Coast”The Hunters started from Nebraska City, then a frontier outpost, in April, 1864. There were 30 wagons in their train and Mrs. Hunter was the onlyt;*iessewoman in the party. There were few dians erected there.Dr. Hunter first saw them in 1864 spouting up 90,000 gallons of water per hour. Experience has proved that the waters do have medicinal qualities and t a move is now afoot to have the pro- 11 jected tuberculosis hospital for In- J adcVeaeL-nlt;ar►eisfirieyiedyaIswomen in Montana at that tiirie outside Virginia City. The first portion of the journey was accomplished with 11 mules and horses but at Omaha these ] were traded for oxen because Indians 1 were less likely to steal oxen. The lt;] party followed the famous Bozeman trail and Mrs. Doane recalls several events of the trip, including a skirmish with Indians and long nights of vigil around campfires of buffalo chips. The party reached Bozeman in August, 1864, after four months of travel. The first building in the town was just ud and the Hunters moved on a City, then the capital of Montana territory.For the next few years the Hunters moved about among several Montana mining centers of the day and Mrs. Rich recalls that everyone had gold fever in those times. Newcomers arrived daily, goggle-eyed and expecting to pick up gold nuggets in the streets. Anyone who went in for anything so prosaic as farming in those days wasconsidered insane. Everything the settlers used had to be brought overlandnnffrom the east and as a result foodstuffs were unbelievably high in price. For a time the Hunters lived at Helena and later at New York gulch,where Dr. Hunter paid $110 for a sackluck!rhof flour and was lucky to get it even at that price.“Life in early day Montana was hard,” says Mrs. Rich. ‘i.‘There was little that was romantic about it then, for houses of that day were mere huts and many who had come wished they were back in their old homes in the east. Only the organization of Vigilantes kept down crime, and I rfc-a I member seeing two robbers hanging by their necks in Bozeman.” Dr.t;nn Hunter was a member of the Vigi-it | lantes.Lived at Old Crow AgencyAt the time of the Custer massacre, Dr. Hunter was employed by the gov-- emment at the old Crow Indian agen-is cy in the Stillwater valley, near the present site of Columbus. The Hunters knew of the massacre almost Immediately after it occurred, for the Indians brought word of the catastrophenisisto the agency within a short time. It *v xhim was at the agency that Mrs. Rich saw. n the famous Curly and she says, “He; r. I didn't look anything like the photo- *-
Newspaper Details
Thompson Falls Sanders County Independent Ledger
Thompson Falls, Montana, US
Wed, Oct 25, 1939
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
MT, USA 13 Feb 2022
Other Publications Near Thompson Falls, Montana
Thompson Falls Sanders County Independent Ledger
Thompson Falls Weekly Montanian
Thompson Falls Sanders County Ledger
