History of the Boulder
transcribed from a taped oral interview
of Lora Bruffey Beckman
courtesy of the Park County History Museum - Livingston, Montana
contributed by Jessie Edwards - 10/3/1997
My sister, now Neda I.
Bruffey, taught school at the Elton school house, which is still there, in 1893.
Now on weekends Mother would drive to bring her home and some of us younger ones
would go with her. I remember the old adobe building at Mission Creek, on the
hill above the...above the road, I don't know how long it had been since the
Crow Indians had gone from here, but there was a family named Hicks lived in
one, his sister and her husband, Major Chittenden in one, and the other was used
for a store house.
The Crow Reservation reached from the Yellowstone River to I don't know how far
down, I remember Major F. B. Pease, who was in command of the mission when the
Indians were there. The Montana Pioneer Society met here in 1917 and the Major,
with father and several other pioneers went to see the place where the mission
had been, but I'm not sure, but think they had told me the buildings were gone.
I'm not sure, but I think it was an Indian school.
I remember when we used to go to Mr. Cady's, just below section house. The road
was up near the hill, and just below the road was the open grave where Bozeman's
body was intured until the remains were taken to their final resting place in
Bozeman...at Bozeman. This is the story the old timers told of Bozeman's death.
He was gambling with some Indians up this way, and gone back...had good
luck...excuse me, and took all their money, or whatever they were playing for
and started down the road. Now, the Indians....and the Indians followed him and
killed him there. I remember father saying that this was...there was a
Protestant in charge of this mission. ..Well, it was unusual anyway, as most of
them were Catholic. But I looked that up in the history and I found it. But he
was only there a short time.
Once when I went with my
mother to bring my sister home, we were invited to dinner at the home of a...a
house on Mission Creek. It was an Englishman lived there. His name was Alexander
Ballantine Hook Pemberton. That same year my father had a contract to build
bridges across Mission Creek, there and at our place, which is now the Triangle
Seven. We had always crossed on the foot logs.. .and for portage...the team.
My oldest sister Marjorie stayed at the Pembertons and cooked for the crew. The
timber for the bridges were sawed up at the Bebbons mill by a German named Gus
Shiram, who owned it at that time, it is now the Sixty Three Ranch. They hurried
and got through so they all got home to spend Christmas. Marjorie was married to
M. T. Cady, May 9, 1894. Oh, father took up that place in '90, we come over in
'9l...where from...from over in Madison country,.. Madison. After the railroad
come in, why that was... they all went broke and there was a big drought, and
cattle,...Oh, they had so many cattle and horses, and father started east with
some horses and got as far as Mission Creek, and found the grass was good there,
and he come back for them to bring the cattle. And my sisters, two of my sisters
and my brother come with him and they said they were so weak they could just
hardly drive them,...they was just starved to death. They got them over here
though. And then they bought a place up on West Boulder, but it was so far out
of the way to sell butter like they...ah-huh-...he sold that and they moved over
to Mission Creek in May.
(sounds like Fred
Martin...)
Well then you were
the...most of you were born on the Madison...or over there...before you came
here?
We were all born there except my little sister, she was born here. And my oldest
sister was born in Jefferson County about three miles from where they started
the stage station. And then, she said she'd always remembered she wasn't born in
the same county as the rest of us...in Madison.
(Fred Martin)
Well were there any other
settlements out that way...l mean settlers out that way when you came here?
Towards Mission.
" Oh, yes, there was some, there was quite a few. I don't know but there
was more than there is now. There was an awful lot of old batchelors, most
Englishmen, that used to be out there. And then there was...Oh, there was quite
a few families too. Seems like there was a lot more people than there is now.
(Fred)...uh-huh...right
when you first came there, I think if your father was still...telling about a
bunch of Indians that went down the creek they thought were about the last
Indians. I heard this story when I was a Kid and I can't remember how it was.
But anyway, they dug their potatoes and these Indians went out and picked up
little potatoes and...in the field where they left the small ones, you know. I
can remember him telling that story but I can't remember...
Well, you know when we lived over there, oh it was a long time ago, I can hardly
remember, but the Indians would go up around Wilsall to Battle Ridge, in fact,
one tribe tried to fight another, and they...and then when they got through
they'd come back and father let them stay...camp in the field for a while. And
they used to camp down there. And I can just remember how they used to come to
the store and hang around there. You see we had the only store for miles around,
until the railroad come in.
Where was that...?
Over here between the...Whitehall and Silverstar...12 miles above Whitehall.
Some time ago I read an article in a mag...the Park County News by a Mrs,
Kaufman...That was awfully good...
Did you know her?... It
was really good...
Yes, that was awfully good, she had a very good writup...
Can you remember anything
about her, when she was a girl and lived up in that country...
Yes... I can. They lived up on West Boulder, oh, what they called the hill
between the West and the Main Boulder, and they used to...and he was...her
father and his brother, Willy McMite...and when they first come there, well they
took up these places and her husband died.. .and...the brother still lived there
for years...and... after while she moved to town and she married a fellow named
Knight. Her first three children were McMite and the rest were Knight.
Well...did she happen to
have a boarding house...
You mean... uh... Mrs, Knight...Well, In town you mean...Yes...Now I don't know
for certain whether she did a while or not, but I know she used to go back and
forth to the Boulder every year.
(Fred)
And then one of Knights
married a Moon...Yeh....Yes, that's what they did...some strange thing.
You come here to find out about Calamity Jane, Well, I said if I told what was
supposed to be true about Calamity Jane, at the time, why, they'd make an awful
fuss...She killed two or three husbands in Billings and then she was down here
at the time of Bensons Landings...Yes...and she was here quite a long time. And
the year after we come here...why...of course we were out at the ranch, but she
come back here and stayed a few days, not but a while, that winter. And she
stayed down there with some people named...well, the boy used to ride back and
forth to the Boulder... on a little black horse...to work for Mr. Colly, you
know...that old batchelor over there...
lt wasn't Dory...
No...it was long before that...their name Was...Dorset. Bob Dawson his name
was...and he was about 18, and he used to go to work. And while he was over
there, why he was out at the cattle, one day, and he saw a rattlesnake and he
reached back behind him to get a rock to throw at it and another snake bit him
in the finger, and he had heard that you should suck that to get the poison out.
And so, he got on his horse and rode home as fast as he could and he sucked that
all the way and swallowed it, And he didn't know enough to spit it out and oh,
he was awful sick a long time about that. And I remember father had been bitten
twice when he was young, and he went to see him. And he got over that though.
And then he met Calamity Jane when she was about 50 and he married her. And they
went away and the family was so disgusted and shamed they got right up and moved
away from here...and...I think they went to Missoula or something. And I never
heard of what's happened. They told about her death and everything but they
never mentioned ever about that at all. It never was spoken of.
(Fred)
I did read in
her...history about somebody that she took care of that was sick here...yeh...Was
that Dorset or,,,
No, that was somebody else. I read that too. There was somebody she took such
good care of...and they said she was so kind. That's what they said when she
died, about how good she was, Yeh, she did take care of...but this... they
never, ever have spoken about him at all...that she ever was married...and I
know that because my sister remembered especially. She said she remembered the
day they were married.
(Fred)
Well, she had a child
that was born here at Benson's Landing, didn't she?
Yes, that and...she lived in Billings for a good many years. Her name was
Canary. Yup, she lived in Billings, at one time. Then she was married to that
old Hickock. I guess she... she had Hickock...
(Fred)
Yeh, that's the one she
made the biggest fuss about that she was married to but...
They used to say that she just...they got in her way, she'd just kill them.
Yeh, I wouldn't doubt it.
That was one way of getting rid of these nasty husbands...
(another woman's voice)...some didn't like it...
And I just discovered
what brave and...individual, you see... they thought what they wanted to. Now
when they started the stages here, years ago, the stations, Why everyone had
liquor and they had gambling, and Father said they'd neglect the horses if they
gambled. And that...mother was very much opposed to liquor, and so they just
started in without them...and theirs never had to be...and one time there was a
boy up at one of the places, and he was an orphan and he was living with his
uncle. And so he sent word to father and said he was an awful good boy but he
wouldn't let liquor alone. He said there was no place to send him but to our
place. So he sent him there. And mother said that was...that she never had
anybody that she thouaght as much of as she did.. .this was years before I was
born...way back...as she did of him. And he stayed there for a long time, with
them, and never got anything to drink, and, finally he...one time father went
away and left him to clean the cellar out under the store. And he found some
Jamacian Ginger and he started to drink that and they could never tame him down
again. And finally he went away.
And Livingston had just started here, in '83. And he came over here. And he got
married. She never knew it, but after she found that out why, she used to,
always seemed like she...oh, she got awful close to mother and father, and she
come out there so much.
And what was this boy's
name?
That's what I'm hunting up here...His name was Gravley, he was French.
(Fred)
Alright, what year was
it, do you remember, that Fields killed a man out here?
1894, killed him on the 20th of April....the 20th of April, it happened, in
1894.
(Fred)
And do you remember, was
Fields hung that year?
Yes, they...they reviewed three times, you know, and then they hung him, at
last. And I remember when Judge Henry sentenced him, and he said. On the night
of the 20th of April you fired a shot that sent Mr. Pierce on to another world,
oh, he give him an awful talk. And then they finally decided, well, she wanted
to get him out because he was under age, but they said that if she ever did, she
had to move away from here and never let him come back. So they took him...she
went away from here and was gone for years. I don't know whether he ever did get
back or not. I don't know whether he's living, he'd be an old man, cause he was
17 when he killed that man.
bad place in the tape—gap
...at all...you mean the way they dug him up...
Because that grave yard was given to the city...yes to the city.
(Mans voice)
If we have a chance we
could, sometime go back into the files of the papers and find out, or even go up
to the courthouse, and find out what that.. .who was..what actually happened
there. And its too bad that apparently everybody that had somebody there, that
was living at the time, they picked those up and moved them, but somebody that
didn't have anybody, relatives or anything, well, they just left them there...
Tape goes bad again
(mans voice)
Can you tell us where
your grandfather and grandmother were buried.
They were buried on a hill, just off of little Mission Creek, on the ground that
now is inclosed in the Keith Nelson place. There was a discussion at the time,
whose ground it was on and it supposed that it was on my grandfathers homestead,
but after it was thoroughly surveyed, it was determined it was on my mothers
homestead. It was just above the old school house that used to be on Little
Mission Creek. And my grandfather wanted the place dedicated as a cemetery for
the whole family, so when his younger daughter, Ruth was killed by a bull, in
1906 she was the first one buried there. And when his wife died, I believe that
was in 1910, my grandmother Bruffey, buried her there. A little later on my
uncle, Frank Skillmans family had gotten whooping cough and several of them had
pneumonia and two of the little girls died. And they were buried there.
I believe that Memorus Bruffey had a little infant daughter buried there. Then
when my grandfather Bruffey died he was buried there, and when my uncle Frank
Skillman died, he was buried there. His grave and the two little Skillman girls
graves are a little bit to the East of where the Bruffey graves are all in a
line, right at the brow of the hill, facing west, or heading west are the
Bruffey graves, and there is a monument there, I Can' t remember just what it
looks like.. but there is a stone monument there, marked with the names of the
Bruffey's.
Was the cemetery fenced?
Yes, It was fenced at one time, with a good wire fences I'm not sure now what
condition the fence is in, but it would somewhat be there yet. I don't know just
who fenced it, but it's been fenced real good.
(older Ladies voice)
You said you'd remember
it better than anybody else so we all went around........
I know that mother approved of it being dedicated as a cemetary and I feel sure
that the records will show that she made a deed and her and father signed it to
that effect.
(Fred)
Do you remember about
when that was?
No!
Would it be about the
same time that your grandfather died?
Yes, somewhere about that time...
Be, what, in 1922 along
in there? Somewhere in the '20s?
Transcription ends
here
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