Contributed and Written by Joseph R. Cone "Rod"
BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH HAMILTON CONE
I have two favorite Cone ancestors, one is my father, Joseph L. Cone,
and the other my grandfather, Joseph H. Cone.
Here is the story of my grandfather's life as pieced together from
information supplied by my father, my uncle Leo Cone, my cousin Dixie
Cone McCabe and my research.
After my granddad married and started a family, he became known as
"Pop" to both family and friends and in this biography that is what I will
call him.
Pop was born Joseph Hamilton Cone on a plantation (or farm) near
Belmont, Hamilton County, Florida. His parents were James Barnard Cone,
born November 21, 1829 in Camden County, Georgia and Ada Hart, born
October 28, 1845 in Pinellas County, Florida. Ada was James' second wife
and a school teacher who had been brought to the plantation as a tutor for
the children of James and his first wife, Sarah Lee. Sarah died July 25,
1867 and ten months later, on May 31, 1868, James married Ada. They had
four children: Emma born on April 5, 1869; Joseph Hamilton born on July
22, 1870; Mary born on January 20, 1873; and Barnard born on November 30,
1876. Pop was close to his sister, Emma, and apparently stayed in contact
with her the rest of his life.
First, I will recount a few of the anecdotes Pop told about his
ancestors and early life. One of Pop's grandfathers was Captain William
Cone (son of William and Keziah Barber Cone). A story he passed down
about William was the time when he and some other local settlers were
chasing a band of marauding Indians. They had stopped and made camp for
the evening. William was eating some food from a "trencher" (which I
believe is a plate or bowl made from a piece of wood) when a shot rang out
and the trencher was knocked from his hands by a bullet. He grabbed his
rifle and spotting a puff of smoke from high up in some nearby trees, he
guessed about where to aim and touched off a shot. After a moment's
silence, an Indian, shot dead, tumbled out of the trees.
Pop said his father, James Barnard, was a powerfully built man who
supposedly could lift a mule off the ground. James Barnard was the son
of the "Indian Fighter" Captain William Cone. According to my cousin,
Dixie, he was a soldier in the Florida-Indian Wars of 1849 and 1857-58.
He was also a member of the Florida 2nd Calvary during the Civil War.
As a boy, Pop had a hound dog named Peter Cooper and a .32 cal. rifle
with which he used to hunt deer and cougar. Also on the farm were a
couple of shepherd dogs and a Bull Mastiff dog named Ben Butler.
I don't know who Peter Cooper was named after; however, Ben Butler
was a Union political general who was the occupation governor of New
Orleans and was much hated by southerners who referred to him as
"Beast Butler."
Pop told of a pond on the farm where he used to fish for bass and of
another favorite sport, catching wild hogs that roamed the local woods.
The shepherds would "bay up" or corner a pig until the "catch" dog, Ben
Butler, could arrive and catch it by the nose and hold it until men on
horseback could rope it. The shepherds, in the meantime, would keep any
other wild hogs from attacking. The shoates (young pigs) would be penned
and raised for food.
Pop also recounted a hunting trip he took with a black foreman from
the plantation into the Okeefenokee Swamp. They came across a small "poor
white" farm in a remote area and the children there thought the black man
was a bear. They had never seen a Negro before. Pop went to the house
and got something for them to eat but the foreman stayed back near the
edge of the woods as the white family was very suspicious.
Pop's father died March 24, 1882 and two years later on May 24, 1884
he lost his mother. I do not know who finished raising his brother and
sisters, but Pop went to live with an older half-brother (probably
William S.Cone) whom he couldn't get along with. My father said Pop also
spent some time, possibly one or two summers with a relative in commercial
fishing around some islands near Charlotte Harbor, Florida and farther
south.
Pop later attended the University of Georgia and graduated with a law
degree in 1891. He then went into practice with a lawyer in Lake City,
Florida. I understand that about this time he suffered a partial hearing
loss and had to quit the law practice.
In 1893, Pop decided to take Horace Greeley's advice and "go west."
After arriving in St. Louis, Missouri, he enlisted July 3, 1893 in the US
Army. He served in Troop B of the 8th Cavalry and was stationed at Fort
Meade, South Dakota. His Cavalry unit's primary job was to keep peace
between the nearby Cheyenne Indians and the local ranchers and miners.
He was discharged at Fort Meade on October 2, 1896.
After spending the following winter in or near Deadwood, South
Dakota, he and two other men headed west across Montana with a team and
wagon. They were headed for the Alaska Gold Rush. He spoke of killing
several antelope for food along the way in eastern Montana. After
crossing the continental divide, they followed a wagon road (the Mullan
Trail) down the Clark Fork River, and Pop remarked about the numerous
times they had to ford the river. Arriving in Missoula, Montana, they
sold the team and wagon and built a boat out of the boards from large
packing crates and floated nearly 300 miles to Metaline Falls, Washington,
portaging around Thompson Falls in Montana and Albeni Falls in Idaho.
For some reason, they abandoned the Alaska plans and Pop spent that
fall and winter in the Metaline Falls area and around Priest River fishing
and hunting for a meat market in Spokane, Washington. He would send the
deer meat, grouse and fish by train to Spokane.
For the next several years, Pop apparently drifted around in Idaho
and eastern Washington. During one of his prospecting trips, he
discovered obsidian outcrop in what is now the Bitterroot Selway
Wilderness in central Idaho. His son, Leo, also said he talked about a
float trip he had taken down the Snake River. It may have been at the end
of this trip that he worked in the wheat harvest in Palouse area in
southern Washington. Pop had learned to run a steam engine at a sawmill
in his younger days and was hired to run a steam-powered tractor during
the wheat harvest.
Some time after that, probably around the year 1900, Pop started
working in the silver mines in the Wallace-Burke area of Idaho. He spent
the next 10 years working in the Standard, Hercules, Hecla and Tiger mines,
starting as a mucker, then miner, timberman and later shift foreman. To
explain these jobs, the miners would drill a group of holes into the end
of a tunnel or shaft they were building, load the holes with explosive and
detonate the powder. This is called a "round" or "shot." Then, the
muckers would come in and shovel the shot rock into ore cars and haul it
away. Then, the miners would come in, drill and shoot another round.
Timbermen would follow these operations and brace up unstable portions of
the tunnel with wood beams.
During this time, he met a pretty, young Irish lass named Mary Agnes
Murphy. She went by the name of Mayme and was born August 9, 1883 in
Kansas City, Missouri to James and Margaret (Maloney) Murphy. Mayme came
to Burke to work in her aunt Mary Haney's boarding house where Pop was
staying. They were married June 27, 1905.
Pop continued to work in the silver mines for the next six years; and
during this time, three children were born. My father, Joseph Lawrence,
was born August 7, 1906 in Yellow Dog. His brother, John Richard, was
born February 7, 1908 in Black Bear and brother, James Eugene, was born
September 12, 1909 in Mace. These were small communities near Burke, Idaho.
During the winter of 1910, a massive snow avalanche swept down off
the steep mountain behind the village of Mace and completely destroyed it.
The Cone house, though badly damaged, was the only home left standing and
it came to rest on the floor of a neighbor's house. Nineteen of their
neighbors were killed.
Later in 1910 a portion of the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana
was opened for homesteading to non-Indians. The Salish-Flathead Indians
were given first pick and what was left over was allocated to those who
applied through a lottery. Pop drew a lot of 80 acres.
In the spring of 1911, Pop took my father and some of the family
belongings by wagon across the Bitterroot Mountains to the new homestead.
My Dad recalled while crossing the Idaho-Montana border at Cooper's Pass,
they encountered a big snow drift lying at a steep angle across the wagon
road. Pop cut a partial trail across the packed snow, then had my Dad
walk while Pop carefully led the team and wagon across the drift. Later,
Mayme and the two youngest boys came by train to Ravalli, Montana where he
met them with the wagon.
The Cones continued to live and farm on their homestead for the next
10 years. During this time, three more children were born: William
Edward (Ed) September 15, 1911; Mary Margaret (Margaret) June 3, 1914; and
Leo Francis May 26, 1918.
In 1918, Pop came down with the Spanish influenza and although he
continued to work the farm, he never fully recovered from its effects.
In 1921, Mayme died unexpectedly from an infection leaving Pop with
six children from 3 to 15 years of age. Mayme's sister, Lillie Murphy,
came out from Kansas City and took the two youngest, Margaret and Leo, back
with her to raise them as her own. The four oldest boys stayed with Pop on
the farm.
The following spring their house burned to the ground and they lost
all their possessions. Pop and the boys fixed up a granary on the farm to
live in until a new house could be built. However, the next summer (1923)
their hard luck continued when the Ronan Bank where they had the farm
mortgaged, found a buyer and forced them to sell, leaving them with
nothing but a wagon and team of horses.
Pop and the boys worked in the hay fields locally and the wheat
harvest that summer. Pop attempted to go back to work in the mines, but
his failed health forced him to quit. He returned to the reservation
where he leased a farm or ranch that my Dad called the "Roy" place near
Charlo, Montana.
In the summer of 1925, Pop took his sons Joe, John and Ed (Jim had
left home and struck out on his own) and horse-packed into the wilderness
at the headwaters of the Clearwater River in Idaho. They spent the summer
prospecting, hunting and fishing.
The next summer, they again took a long pack trip. From the Roy
place, they went south past Missoula and up the Bitterroot Valley to Big
Creek. There they turned west, followed up the creek, crossed into Idaho
in the Selway Wilderness where they explored and prospected. They looked
for the obsidian outcrop which Pop had founded many years earlier, but
were unable to locate it.
Upon emerging from the wilderness, probably at Lowell, Idaho, they
made their way to Kooskia where they sold their horses, saddles and pack
gear and bought a Model "T" Ford. By pushing and backing the car up the
steeper hills, they went to Nez Perce, Idaho where they worked the wheat
harvest before returning home.
In the fall of 1929, Pop, Joe, John and Ed built a log cabin at the
McGregor Lake west of Kalispell, Montana. A year later, after being gone
nine years, Leo and Margaret came out from Kansas City and rejoined the
family.
The boys became fur trappers, and every winter trapped for the fur
market. The price of furs, fortunately, stayed high during the depression
and this became an important source of income. During the summers, they
found miscellaneous work logging, ranching and piling brush (slash left
over from logging operations) for the Montana State Forest.
When World War II came along, Pop's two oldest boys and daughter had
already married and started families of their own. The three youngest
boys, Jim, Ed and Leo joined the army and fought in the war. Leo stayed
in the Air Force after the War and retired as a Lt. Col. in 1965.
Joe and John moved their families to the West coast and went to work
in the defense industries (my father, Joe, worked as a pipe fitter and my
mother
as a welder building ships).
Pop Cone passed away peacefully in Los Angeles, California on January
10, 1945 while staying at the home of his son, John. He is buried at
Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.
Rod Cone
June 22, 2000
If you'd like to email us comments or even better, to add your sources to the site, please do by emailing them!