Old Missoula

Hamilton Says He Put Up Cabin in 1858

William T. Hamilton, plainsman, mountaineer, trail-blazer, Indian fighter, scout and empire builder, probably was the first white man to build a home on the present site of Missoula, although some say his claim to this distinction has never been substantiated.

This two-room log cabin reportedly was constructed about 400 feet west of where the Rattlesnake Creek flows into the Clark Fork River. This would be just east of the north fill for the Madison Street Bridge.

Hamilton was born Dec. 6, 1822, in Scotland. He was brought to the United States by his father in 1825 and spent his early years in St. Louis. He became interested in the West when his father sent him on an expedition to toughen him up after he had been subject to attacks of chills and fever.

On Scouting Trip

It was while on a scouting trip in the fall of 1858 for the U. S. Army from Ft. Walla Walla, Wash., that Hamilton first saw the Missoula Valley. He said of this experience:

“We camped one night where Missoula, Mont., now stands, and I noticed many Indian trails converging. It struck me as an ideal spot for a trading post and I told McKay (another scout) that if we got back alive from this trip, I would return and establish a trading post there, which I did that fall.

“We crossed a rolling prairie, a beautiful country, about 11 a. m., and arrived at a beautiful creek, now Rattlesnake, where we camped. We saw no Indians, but signs in abundance. We laid over one day and I explored the section for several miles.

‘Splendid Place to Trade’

“It was manifest by the convergence of the trails that it would be a splendid place to trade on account of its centrality. All these trails showed signs of being constantly traveled by different bands of Indians. We were aware of being in the Flathead country and thought we could not be over 30 or 40 miles from Ft. Owen.

“I was acquainted with many of the Flatheads. They were always looked upon by all mountaineers as being the bravest of Indians and mountain men’s friends in every circumstance. Flatheads never missed an opportunity to render assistance to a mountaineer; hence the friendship between the two.”

Hamilton returned to Walla Walla on Nov. 22, 1858, with the information he had been sent to get.

Moves to Ft. Benton

It apparently was late November or early December of that year when he came to what is now Missoula to locate. The house was built during the 1858-59 winter. He lived in this house until 1864 when he sold out and moved to Ft. Benton.

At the first election in Missoula County, then a part of the Territory of Washington, Hamilton was elected sheriff in 1861 but he did not qualify. At Ft. Benton he was sheriff and U. S. deputy marshal. In 1869 he went from Ft. Benton to the Yellowstone Valley. As a scout he was in service in all the Indian wars in the eastern and southern parts of Montana until after the Custer battle in 1876. He then settled at Stillwater (now Columbus) where he died May 24, 1908.

Three years before his death he published a book, “My Sixty Years on the Plains”*, devoting much of it to his first three years as a frontiersman.

The late Will Cave, who met Hamilton when he visited Missoula in 1897 to testify in a Grant Creek water rights case, said of him: “Of the mighty and intrepid pioneers of the great West, who by their heroic and far-reaching endeavors blazed the way to the development and enjoyment of this magnificent empire, there was not one more deserving of veneration, more worthy of having honor done his memory than was that first builder of Missoula – William T. Hamilton.”

[Hamilton’s book is available online at the following site: http://archive.org/stream/contributionstohvol3hist1900rich#page/n45/mode/2up]