Old Missoula

A VERITABLE HISTORY OF HELL GATE. [In 2 Parts]

By One Who has Stood in the Portals.

(The following history of Hell Gate relates to the now deserted village of Hell Gate, situated a few miles west of Missoula. It was the first town in Montana, and the writer, who is thoroughly conversant with its history, has interspersed historic facts through the quaint humor of his recital, as a simple melody is carried through the intricate Variations of an elaborate Musical Composition. – Ed. N. N. W.)

Having been informed by the oldest inhabitant about the existence of certain historical ruins, I, one day last fall, granted myself an “unlimited leave of absence” and repaired to the spot indicated, which is situated in Hell Gate Rondes, west from the City of Bridges.

I found the ground claimed by a worthy United States French Canadian, a descendant of the ancient family of the Vasseurs. He courteously pointed out the site of the ruins and said he had no objection to my examining them, as all supposed treasure had probably long since been carried off by the diggers.

A few steps brought me to a pile of rubbish that once had been a chimney, on the shady side of which I found reclining a melancholy chap who was intently gazing at a real silver quarter lying in his open palm. He was so lost in reverie that he scarcely noticed my approach, and I indignantly leveled at his head a mortal compound of nitro-glycerinated Jersey lightning[1] which brought him to his senses, and he immediately arose and surrendered his pistol hand into mine. Having shed the tear of friendship, we both settled down in an easy attitude.

The shedding of a few more tears made my new found friend communicative, and he informed me that he had found the quarter under the debris of a hog pen that had anciently been occupied as a saloon, and said it was an unmistakable relic of old times, when round metal used to be the currency. He had been “a man around town” and upon request and the inducement of several drinks, gave me the following history of what was really the first town and first commercial centre in Montana.

DRINK THE FIRST.

Once upon a time when this country was as yet an unclaimed wilderness and the lordly siwash[2] was absolute master of all he surveyed – never dreaming of a future vile Superintendent of Indians – when the dusky maidens of the forest gathered crops of camas and other nutritious roots from the unfenced prairies; when the virgin streams were unpolluted by the washings of the miner and alive with myriads of the finny tribe; when the wild game had not withdrawn from the exterminative rifle of the pale face and the scream of Caldwell’s steam thrasher[3] had not suppressed the howl of the wolf, then it was that the Great Father commissioned a two-eyed man named Stevens to survey these mountains and make treaties with the aborigines for the relinquishment of their lands. And Stevens came and kept his two eyes open. He held a council with the Flatheads and other neighboring tribes, and by a liberal distribution of gab, beguiled the innocent savages to sign over their choicest lands at the rate of a thousand acres for a blanket, which said blankets were to be paid them in annual instalments by an honest man appointed semi-occasionally by the President, and who was to reside among them and be their Agent. The Indians were also to have teachers, both mental and mechanical, who were to teach them the sighences (sic) of civilization. Alas! Poor Lo!

DRINK THE SECOND.

The two-eyed man having forwarded the bill of sale to his chief, it was submitted to the council of the nation and approved. Whereupon it was ordained that a military man named Mullen (sic) (who was a great traveler and knew all about roads) should proceed with men, money and ammunition and open up a great national highway from the salmon-bearing Columbia to the catfish-bearing Missouri so that the Webfeet and Tenderfeet could come and settle upon the new purchase.

It was in the summer of 1858 that Mullen having arrived upon his field of operations, via Panama, San Francisco and Portland, commenced work from the two Wallas by spoiling the Indian trails leading towards the country of the Palouses; but those enlightened savages not relishing the idea of having their highways cut up in such a manner, perpetrated “Steptoe’s Defeat” which inaugurated a bloody war, in which the Indians lost over a thousand lives (horse lives) and were eventually compelled to sue for peace.

The road expedition having been laid up during these troubles necessarily expended a great deal of money in making plans for the future, so that the great council had to make up another appropriation, with which aid and a large military escort Mullen once more entered upon his labors in the following summer, and headed his wheelbarrow brigade for the sunny land of the Bitter Roots.

He enjoined his engineers always to locate the road over the highest mountain peaks on the line, so that the future immigrants could have a good view of the country – and, wherever water-courses were convenient, to follow up the beds of streams, which, he said, were natural highways – and the advice of the pathfinder was kept in view and practically carried out, so that in 1860 the Indian trails over the Coeur D’Alene range were completely destroyed, and Uncle Sam’s wagons rattled through this valley on their way to meet the steamboats of the Missouri, and the great military road was declared open and free to the people of all nations.

Several members of the expedition who had viewed these delightful valleys from a high mountain grade, remained here, and it was thus that the Baron[4] became one of the first settlers and finally a member of the Legislature. He pre-empted Karriakkan Defile where his residence at present guards the pass to the Flathead Agency.

DRINK THE THIRD.

Although the national highway had been declared open, few cared to take immediate advantage of the same and venture through semi-hostile tribes into a comparatively unknown wilderness.

There were, however, at that time, near the occidental terminus of the road, two unmarried and adventurous individuals of mercantile turn of mind, who saw far ahead through the opened mountains a splendid opening for themselves and after due consultation and quickly matured deliberation they determined for the land of the Bitter Roots.

With their inborn characteristic energy, they at once gathered together a general assortment of merchandise, consisting of whisky, tobacco and bacon, loaded the same upon the backs of a few animals and started into the tracks of Mullen. After a long and weary journey through the mountains, where they would certainly have lost the way, had not the foresight of the engineers left large monumental stumps everywhere in the middle of the road to guide the traveler, they arrived one day at the western end of this valley. The prospect before them was, of course, truly magnificent, and, lost in silent admiration, they journeyed on till they arrived here where a solitary cottonwood stood sentinel over a sparkling spring. They encamped, and having turned their animals loose upon the magnificent pasturage of the prairie, they took off their elbowless coats, threw their dilapidated beavers upon the ground and rapidly prepared the accustomed meal of “Old Ned.[5]”

DRINK THE FOURTH.

After satisfying the inner man, our two travelers, one of whom was called Captain and the other Colonel, fired their red clay pipes and for awhile smoked on in silence unbroken save by an occasional yelp of the coyote, which was prevented from taking his usual evening draught out of the spring.

Suddenly, the Colonel layed aside his pipe, opened his mouth and said, “Cap!” Having thus attracted the attention of his partner, he, without any hemming or hawing, introduced an idea which had smartly struck him. He said: “As we have come a long distance without meeting any customers and as there is no likelihood of finding an open market further east, I suggest that we create a market ourselves and make customers find us, by making our present supplies the foundation of the first town in this region, to be located upon this very spot, which seems to be centrally situated for the congregation of such characters as the country affords.” The Captain expressed his delight and satisfaction at the project by shaking his partner violently by the hand and saying “you are a brick – the first brick of the town.” So it was settled and the camp declared permanent. The partners nearly quarreled about the name the new town was to bear. The Captain wished to call it “Toll-Gate” “because,” said he, “here we can collect just as much toll on our goods as we please, owing to the absence of any and all opposition;” but the Colonel scoffed at the bare idea and replied “Toll Gate be darned; might just as well call it Hell Gate and be done with it.” Not wishing to argue any longer, the Captain growled, “well, let it be Hell Gate then” – and Hell Gate thenceforth it was. Donning a nightcap each and rolling themselves up in a couple of gunny bags, they pillowed their tired heads upon a saddle and consigned themselves to the care of Morpheus, and thus was the first night at Hell Gate.

DRINK THE FIFTH.

The town once determined upon was not long suffered to remain in the embryo state; but soon a smoke which greasefully (sic) curled out of a solitary chimney, advertised to the surrounding country the place of exchange and the characters from far and near came around to barter their commodities for bacon and tobacco and also invested largely in old rye – which made the place flourish and survive the winter of 1860. The merchants were enabled to cast away their worn out suits of threadbare and don instead well smoked rigs of buckskin. The honest man who had been appointed to reside among the Indians as their agent, invited himself to try the fire water, and finding it entirely to his taste recommended the establishment to the mental and mechanical geniuses attached to his agency; prominent among whom was “Big Nick,” who was employed to teach the Indians how to dance “Yuba” and fix their instruments of war. The agent further promised to subsidize the place with “certificates of honor,” which was a big thing.

Agriculture was chiefly in the hands of a few Indianized Canadians, whose primitive mode of entering the seed caused the soil to yield but a scanty return. One successful cabbage garden was cultivated (after the method of the old masters) by the Italian missionaries at St. Ignatius Mission, and a sufficiency of potatoes and onions was produced to glut the small market at Hell Gate and prevent the scurvy.

(SEVERAL MORE DRINKS NEXT WEEK.)

Part 2

A Veritable History Of Hell Gate

By One Who has Stood in the Portals.

(The following history of Hell Gate relates to the now deserted village of Hell Gate, situated a few miles west of Missoula. It was the first town in Montana, and the writer, who is thoroughly conversant with its history, has interspersed historic facts through the quaint humor of his recital, as a simple melody is carried through the intricate Variations of an elaborate Musical Composition. – Ed. N. N. W.)

DRINK THE SIXTH.

In 1861 the Great Father hearing of the commercial center upon the new purchase, once more called into the field Mr. Mullen (sic) to repair the road that had been considerably worn by fire, water and the first emigrants. The path-finder therefore fitted out another large expedition at the two Wallas and started out to review the engineering and work of the past two years. The first important change made by him was turning the road away from the delightful and inviting; through rather swampy, valleys of the St. Joe and Coeur d’Alene, and coming around the dry and gravely country of the horse-stealing Spokanes. He made rapid progress until coming to the mountains. Here he found the natural highways no longer practicable, and much labor was found necessary to bridge the numerous crossings of the Coeur d’Alene and St. Regis Borgia, but the bridges were built chiefly by the soldiers at the point of the bayonet, and the expedition moved on regardless of the fact that the bridges might not tarry its return.

After a long summer’s work we had the boys again in the valley. They made their cantonment 10 miles from here on the left bank of the Big Blackfoot. Of course, the town was greatly benefitted by the presence of so large a government outfit, and could not help but expand. New buildings sprang up. The founders of the town exchanged the old round-log cabin store for yon large hewed log building, which looked pretty much as it does now, only more imposing and grand, for, it was the store. They no longer wore buckskin, but dressed in store clothes and even indulged in the extravagant luxury of cigars. The whisky business had become divided, it being exclusively in the hands of other parties, but everybody smiled and was happy. The town was a success and would find its place upon the maps of the nation.

A DRINK BETWEEN DRINKS.

The Legislature holding its regular session, way down in the shades of Olympia, had learned of the far away settlement in the Rocky Mountains and the fathers of the people took an interest in it. They made Hell Gate the capital of a county extensive enough for a Territory, and the county was called Missoula.

Officers of the law had been appointed, among them Frank Woody. Wild-cat Bill[6] was Sheriff and the first regular court in Montana was called to order by asking all hands to take a drink, in the winter of 1861-62. However, the court was a failure, owing to a dispute that arose as to who was plaintiff and who was defendant.[7] Old Brooks, the Judge, was declared a nuisance, Wild-cat Bill made a cavalry charge and dispersed the jury, the witnesses and spectators resolved themselves into a mass-meeting, declared law to be a dead letter, no kind of amusement for the people, and voted courts to be humbug. Thereafter the county was free for many years, people paid no tax and no rascally Treasurer could get away with public funds. The store keepers acted as arbitrator generals and settled all disputes between themselves and their customers in a highly satisfactory manner to themselves.

SEVENTH REGULAR DRINK.

The winter of ’61-62 was one of the severest that had ever been known, even by the oldest aboriginal inhabitant – and he was a very old man. It was a snow-enveloped, tree-splitting, regular whisky-freezing winter. The cattle and horses died in front of their master’s doors, and the masters froze to the fire-place. One poor fellow went out prospecting for the Mullen (sic) road in order to reach a warmer climate which he expected to find in Deer Lodge; but he lost his footing and never found it since[8] – –

While half of his bones lie moldering in the grave

The other half goes marching on.[9]

The expedition was not idle; they inch by inch combatted the frozen mountains, and by spring had succeeded in reaching the highest points practicable for the Mullen (sic) road. They built, also, a bridge over the Blackfoot, which was intended to belong to Uncle Sam, because his money and his men had constructed it, but eventually it fell into the hands of some other uncle, who saw it was good and made out of it a big thing. In the latter part of May the cantonment and expedition were broken up simultaneously. Some of the boys went East to fight for their country, others went West to fight for themselves; some few, charmed with the romantic name of Hell Gate, the safe distance from cannon balls and the country generally, remained and became some of the “old settlers,” which was again a benefit to the town, for these men had money and there was no other place to invest it. Their available means were in the shape of Treasury notes, and although there was no bank in those days, they were readily discounted. After the leaving of the soldiers nothing remarkable occurred. The new made farmers attended to breaking themselves into their chosen vocation, and the townspeople attended to breaking one another, the merchants picking up the fragments. Some time this year occurred also the first tragedy, performed by the Yuba dancer, “Big Nick,”[10] and a celebrated dramatic actor named Overlanding. No monument was placed over the remains of the latter.

EIGHTH DRINK.

’63 was the dawning of a new era. One of the partners had received a Grant[11] and the town was no longer solely composed of bachelors. Gold had been discovered in paying quantities on the Eastern slope and soon people of all nations wended their way to the mountains to prospect for their fortune. The preliminary farmers of our valley found a ready market for their little produce, in the mines, thus bringing in use two new commodities at Hell Gate – buckskin purses and gold scales – and dust was plenty. More ranches were taken up, more houses were built in town, and to see calico perambulating the main thoroughfare was no longer a rarity.

Near the approach of winter many characters, some good, some bad, came over here to hibernate, to play poker, drink whisky and eat sour kraut. This poker was an interesting game, and was played with gold dust, cards, pistols and cocktails; some of the players lost deeply thereat, in fact they lost themselves, and for safe keeping were placed under six feet of ground. The house wherein the playing was done was called “the butcher shop;” it was run by a Cook[12] who subsequently emigrated home after having discovered a lead mine in his belly.

There was no church; the only sermons preached were taken from the texts contained in the doctrines of that old gentleman, the devil, who, it seemed, abided in close proximity. The preachings were promptly enforced, in the old orthodox way, with powder and ball. There were no dissenters, and the ministers of his Satanic Majesty, who had come over from the East Side, had things pretty much their own way till early in ’64, when certain reformers across the mountains came over and stopped their wind very ingeniously by hoisting them up in the air. This proceeding put a suspension for awhile to Road Agents – but not to the collection of tolls on the great national highway. However the people breathed freer and were happy. In this year happened also the memorable Indian war, in which the town was turned into a garrison. The red men who were assembled in large numbers at St. Ignatius Mission, prayerfully preparing themselves for the approaching feast of Easter and begging the Great Spirit to save them from the wrath of the pale faces, were deemed hostile; and all the settlers of the valley, with their valuables, were congregated at Hell Gate for mutual protection. They had Captains and Corporals, but the farmers were the common soldiers and did the sentineling. The store and saloons were besieged continually by a thirsty multitude – thirsting for the contents of sundry kegs; a debt was thus created that is known as “the Hell Gate war claim of 1864.” Finding out at last that each party was afraid of the other a treaty of peace was concluded and the Indians gave a hostage which was suspended at the old corral. No blood had been spilled, but those of the garrison who did not belong to the town had been bled freely.

NINTH DRINK.

The Kootenai diggings were now a great attraction and this valley was made a regular thoroughfare for those who wished to travel in any direction. Farms increased rapidly and the farmers made the dust fly in the very faces of the merchants – good old times, those – and the two partners had the monopoly of all Missoula, till suddenly there came from the West a lean, lank Yankee named Longback, who was also a trader. He whittled his stake and set it immediately opposite the pioneer establishment. Having been born with a wooden nutmeg[13] in his mouth it came natural to him to make bargains. He was popular, too, because he could hoodwink, and, as people like to be hoodwinked, he soon had all the customers he wanted and on his books were inscribed the names of many peons. The other concern across the street suddenly discovered that it would not pay them to remain in the ancient burgh of Hell Gate any longer; so they packed up their houses, their goods and their other things and started that new town at the mouth of the canon in the fall of ’65. Progress was made so rapidly that a human sacrifice, in the person of Matt Craft, was slain before Christmas.

The old place deprived of half its population and buildings, struggled bravely on and was still a kind of a centre, but it was no longer the town. Early in ’66 one of its citizens tried to revive its old glory by shooting, but finding no other victim he fell, a martyr, by his own hand. Nothing notable thereafter occurred, except that Longback made his peons work the soil for him until he grew fat upon the products of the mine and farm. Uncle Sam still kept the post office; but when in ’69 the last calico fluttered away, Longback could not remain longer, for the rustle of a woman’s garment was music to his ear, and he departed. A White man next took the helm, only to sicken and die. After him the town fell into irresponsible hands and busted up entirely.

At this point my melancholy friend took

THE LAST NIP

And observed: Here where there once was love and murder, wars and rumors of wars, executions, seductions and suicide, is now nothing left but these broken down old chimneys, and the two partners that first came here with their loads of tobacco, whisky and bacon, are now the merchant princes of a future great city. Hell Gate is no more.

Thanking my ruined friend for the information imparted to me, I picked up my legs and artistically arranging them underneath me, walked sadly away.

THE BOTTLE IS EMPTY.

The above articles appeared in the Deer Lodge, Mt. newspaper The New North-West in March of 1874. The author of these 2 articles was unidentified. Although he never achieved the notoriety some others did, the style and substance of these articles leads one to believe the author could only have been one person. He wrote many other historical tracts that make interesting reading. Contact me if you would like to discuss it. More on him later.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/171615134

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