Remember the Pioneers – Correctly – Missoulian Letter by Mrs. Parker – 1966
Right Person, Marker But Wrong Father
Mrs. Rutledge Parker
In your fine article concerning Granville Stuart you mention that his daughter, Mary Morony, erected the monument at Gold Creek.
So she did, but she was the daughter of another prominent pioneer of Montana, Capt. James H. Mills of Deer Lodge, in Territorial days the editor of Deer Lodge’s Northwest newspaper. Mary Mills married John G. Morony, an official of the Anaconda Co. in charge of the smelter at Great Falls at the time of his death.
Mrs. Morony also had erected a monument at the Philipsburg graveyard, marking the place of burial of three placer miners, named on the stone as Joy, Hayes and Elliott, who were massacred at McKay gulch on the west fork of Rock Creek in July, 1878, by a Nez Perce band returning secretly from Canada after the Chief Joseph War.
My father, Frank D. Brown of Philipsburg, Historian of the Society of Montana Pioneers for many years, interested wealthy pioneers, of which Mrs. Mary Morony’s father was one, in marking historic spots. They furnished the capital and the society placed the markers, some of which were: Seven along the Mullan trail highway, (which extended from Mandan, N. D. through Montana, Idaho, and as far as Walla Walla, Washington). We have two of them in Missoula, one at the Northern Pacific depot and one at the intersection of Front and Main St., West.
Other markers were: One at Hendersonville placers, about midway between Drummond and Philipsburg, on a bluff overlooking the placers where the grave grounds were; one marking the Gold Creek discovery of gold; one along the Bozeman trail at Livingston, and one in Bozeman marking the grave of Comstock, the discoverer of the famous Comstock silver mine at Carson City, Nev.
There were others, also erected by Montana pioneers who were able to and cared enough to keep alive the memory of their comrades’ significant accomplishments.
I mention this only because the records in the Hall of Fame should be accurate.
The above letter to the editor of The Missoulian on June 1, 1966
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