John and Olive Pickering Rankin – Missoula Pioneers
John Rankin Ends Notable Life – 1904
Succumbs To Fever After A Week’s Illness – A Missoula Pioneer.
John Rankin, one of the honored citizens of Missoula county for 34 years, died at his home in this city last evening about 8 o’clock of fever. His illness dated from Wednesday, at which time he was at the sawmill on Grant creek, a few miles from the city. The following day he drove to his home here and medical assistance was summoned, but he failed rapidly and the end came peacefully last evening.
The funeral arrangements have not yet been made, awaiting the arrival of his son, Wellington, who is a student at Harvard college in Cambridge, and his daughter, Miss Harriett, who is attending a normal school at Winona, Minn. Wellington will arrive in Missoula Friday evening and his sister will get here the night preceding.
Two brothers of the deceased are living. One of these is Angus, who resides in Fairhaven, Wash., the other is Duncan, formerly of Missoula, who is now in Santa Fe, N. M. A sister, Mrs. Agnes Washburn, is a resident of Dollar Bay, Mich.
Mr. Rankin was recognized as one of the progressive citizens of Western Montana, having been in active business life here since his advent into this part of Montana in 1870. He was a man of sterling worth and integrity and his friends numbered all who knew him. During the early part of his residence here he acquired property on Grant creek, which is one of the best ranches in this part of Montana, and there he lived with his family until his eldest daughter, Miss Jeanette (sp), reached a school age, when the family moved to this city and occupied the family home on Madison street, in which they have ever since resided.
Sketch of Mr. Rankin’s Life.
The following biographical sketch of Mr. Rankin is taken from Joaquin Miller’s history of Montana, published in 1894:
John Rankin was born in London, Canada, October 21, 1840. His father, Hugh Rankin, was born in the highlands of Scotland in 1804 and came to America when a boy and located at Prescott, Canada, East, where he was reared and where he was married to Miss Jenette Stewart, a native of the lowlands of Scotland and a daughter of Angus Stewart, the Stewart family having located in Canada about the same time that Mr. Rankin came to America.
Some years after their marriage they settled on a tract of wild land near London, which at that time was covered with heavy timber and which, after years of hard labor, Mr. Rankin developed in to a fine farm. He died there January 1, 1878, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. His wife survived him until 1893, when she passed away at the age of 74. They had seven sons and four daughters, of which John was the fourth born and is one of the seven survivors.
Came to Montana in 1869.
He was reared on his father’s frontier farm where educational facilities were meager, his only schooling being obtained in the primitive log school house near his home. When he was 19 years of age he began to learn the carpenter’s trade and continued to work at that trade in Canada in 1869, at which time he came to Montana. He was two months and a half on the voyage up the Missouri river. At Crow Island the boat grounded and from that point he made the journey on foot. This was the year in which General Baker punished the Indians so severely for so many atrocities on the settlers. Mr. Rankin then worked for a short time in Helena. Then he went to Unionville, where he and his brother, Duncan, built a quartz mill. After this they bought a team, went to the Cedar creek mining camp and prospected in the mountains, and, in the fall of 1870, John came to Missoula, then composed of only a few little houses. After this he was engaged in contracting and building bridges. Many of the first bridges in Missoula county were built by him. The first was called the Buckhouse bridge. It was five miles south of Missoula and was 250 feet in length. Afterward he turned his attention to building houses, many of the fine business blocks and residences in Missoula are the result of his handiwork. While working on the first stone building erected in the town he met with an accident, by which he came near losing his life. At some political meeting the town people were having, a cannon was fired. It was heavily loaded and wadded with an old gunny sack. He came around the corner just as it was discharged and was hit in the head by the wad, being knocked senseless and remaining so for ten days.
From the effect of that shock his hearing has ever since been slightly impaired.
Built First Missoula Church.
To Mr. Rankin belongs the distinction of having built the first church edifice in Missoula – the Methodist church, erected in 1872. About that time the purchased a sawmill on Grant creek. Fort Missoula was established soon after and he furnished most of the lumber for it. After this the town began to grow rapidly. In 1884, he built Mr. Kennett’s fine residence and the following year he built his own beautiful and attractive home. They were among the first good residences built here. In 1891 he erected the Rankin block on Front street. He still owns his sawmill and is also the owner of a ranch of 1,480 acres, where he is raising hay, grain and some stock.
In 1879 Mr. Rankin married Miss Olive Pickering, a native of New Hampshire. She is a daughter of John L. Pickering of Portsmouth, N. H., and a niece of John W. Berry, Missoula’s noted pioneer. Mr. and Mrs. Rankin have six children, all born in Missoula. Phila, they lost in her ninth year. The others are Jenette (sp), Harriet L., Wellington D. Mary F., and Grace and Edna.
Mr. Rankin is a member of the A.O.U.W. and the I.O.O.F., and the Independent Order of Foresters. He held the office of county commissioners for one term. Little of his attention, however, was given to political matters; as his extensive business operations have claimed the greater part of his time.
The above obituary appeared in The Daily Missoulian on May 4, 1904.
https://www.newspapers.com/image/348655579/?terms=%22missoula%2Bpioneer%22
Olive Pickering Rankin
Mrs. J. Rankin Dies at Age of 93 – 1947
Mrs. John Rankin, early-day Missoula school teacher and widow of a pioneer Grant creek rancher and Missoula businessman, died Saturday afternoon at Helena at the age of 93.
Her eldest daughter, Jeannette, was elected to congress in 1916, the first woman to win a seat in the national legislature. She served two years as a representative at large from Montana, and was elected to the house a second time in 1940, from the First Montana district.
Wellington D. Rankin, only son of Mrs. Rankin, is a Helena attorney who has served the state as attorney general, supreme court justice and the federal government as United States attorney for the district of Montana.
Funeral services for Mrs. Rankin will be in Missoula at 2 o’clock Tuesday afternoon at the Lucy chapel, and burial will be in Missoula cemetery beside the grave of her husband, who died here in 1904. The body is to arrive here Monday.
Came to Missoula in 1878
Mrs. Rankin was born in New Hampshire on December 12, 1853, and came to Missoula in 1878. The last lap of the journey, from Salt Lake City, was by stage coach.
In 1879 she married Mr. Rankin, who arrived in Montana 10 years earlier, as a lumberman and contractor. For a number of years he owned and operated the Rankin hotel, on the site of the present Rialto theater. Until recent years Mrs. Rankin resided at the family home on Madison street. Since then she had spent the summers at the Helena valley ranch home of her son, and the winters with a daughter, Mrs. Thomas Kinney, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Mr. and Mrs. Rankin were the parents of a son and six daughters. Of the seven, six survive. In addition to Jeannette, Wellington and Mrs. Kinney, they are Mrs. Herbert O. Bragg, San Marino, Cal.; Mrs. John McKinnon, Chicago, and Mrs. Harriet Sedman McGregor, London, England, a former dean of women at the State University. The other daughter, Phila, died at the age of nine.
Mrs. Rankin was a member of the Rebekah lodge.
The above obituary appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on July 27, 1947.
https://www.newspapers.com/image/349171110/
Charles W. Berry – Mrs. Rankin’s pioneer uncle (1827 – 1897)
Mrs. Rankin likely followed one of her uncles, Charles W. Berry, to Montana. He was a fascinating early Missoula pioneer who, like Mrs. Rankin, was born in New Hampshire. Berry traveled the west extensively. He went to California in 1849 and was early on successful in both gold mining and freighting. His career followed a path like that of many other early California miners in that he trekked to Idaho when the stampedes occurred there in 1862, and like many of them he moved on to Alder Gulch, Mt. in 1864. His career eventually included several stints as a Montana placer miner (Bear City, and Cedar Creek) and later as a freighter/hunter/trapper/gardener/lumberman/whipsawyer/and rancher. He was nearly killed by Indians and robbed of over $1,000 while in Idaho. He finally moved into politics, becoming a sheriff of Missoula County in 1882, and later a county assessor. He was a Master Mason since 1857 on the Scott River in California.
Too bad he didn’t take the time to tell us more about himself. A short biography for him appears in Joaquin Miller’s ‘Illustrated History of The State of Montana’, published in 1894 – available on the internet – see link below: