Old Missoula

AN OLD SET OF BOOKS.

A Flood of Light on Conditions and Prices in Hell Gate Back in the Early Sixties.

Missoula, Nov. 26 [1897]

Henry O. Worden of the firm of Murphy & Worden has in his possession a set of day books and ledgers that were kept by his father, F. L. Worden, during the latter’s business career in Walla Walla, Hell Gate and Missoula Mills, the first town on the site of this city. The books are in an excellent state of preservation and are of great interest, especially as they show the change in prices form the early days when Walla Walla was the port for all of the business of this section. One of the day books was opened in Walla Walla in 1860 and the entries contained in it are of transactions carried on at that place until May, when the business was moved to the then thriving town of Hell’s Gate, three or four miles below Missoula. The headings of the day-book pages until July are dated “Hell’s Gate.” On the 1^st of July, 1860, the possessive form is dropped and the town is called “Hell Gate.”

Both at Walla Walla and at Hell Gate the customers of Mr. Worden’s firm included many men who are now well known in local circles. F. H. Woody bought an outfit of clothing from underwear to boots and hat at the Walla Walla store in March and paid for his style about $50. The prices at Walla Walla are very reasonable, this being before the war and without the added expense of the overland packing that added to the cost in Hell Gate later on. The prices charged at the Hell Gate store after it was opened show that the cost of packing was considerable, although it is not until after 1861 that the prices became very high. The entries in the day books after the opening of the war show that it was an expensive matter to live out here in those days. A can of cove oysters in 1860 cost the man who indulged in this luxury $2 a can. Two years later the price was $2.50 and the article was not always easy to get at that price.

In the early days of the Hell Gate store F. H. Woody is charged with so many cans of cove oysters at $2 a can that the curiosity of a party of men who were looking over the books the other day was aroused, and they questioned him as to his large appetite for the leathery creatures that are contained in these cans. The judge explained it by the statement that in those days, the young men used to play freezeout for oysters and, as the coves were the only ones that could be obtained, it cost a man $2 to lose a game. From the entries that are contained in the book at this time it is evident that Judge Woody did not know much about the game, for he seems to have bought three cans to one for the others. Two years later, however, the entries change and the cove oyster entries are not made as frequently to him. Jimmy Reinhard and Angus McLeod and others contributed oftener than anybody else in the later days of the oyster game, the inference being that the judge had learned considerable about the game in the time that had intervened.

In the later days of Hell Gate business the prices were the highest in the history of the business. Sugar was 50 cents a pound and whiskey was from $10 to $20 a gallon. Syrup for hot cakes was $20 a keg, and it was not the best kind of syrup either. Clothing was especially high, and it is noticeable that many of the customers of the Hell Gate store bought moccasins. One of the customers whose names appear on the book during the first years of the Hell Gate business was Major Owen, the Indian agent, whose purchases for the agency and for the employes at his place were large. The Mullan road was being built through here at that time and the men employed upon its construction were good customers, both at the store and the boarding house. They paid promptly, too, and the construction and the winter camps must have helped out business at the new settlement to a great degree.

There are several books filled with the entries made during the time that Hell Gate was the booming settlement of the valley and until the mills were started at Missoula, the store of Worden & Co. seems to have done a thriving business. With the opening of the new industry at the town which has since become Missoula, then called Missoula Mills, it became necessary for the firm to remove the store to a point nearer the mills. Accordingly the date line of the day book is changed to Missoula Mills, and in 1867, the handwriting of Mr. Worden is replaced by that of Jimmy Reinhard, who for years was the bookkeeper of the concern.

At the head of several of the pages in the early part of 1867, evidently when the weather made business so dull that there was little else for him to do, Mr. Reinhard made notations regarding the weather. In the latter part of February and the early part of March, the record shows that the thermometer ranged very low. In the second week in March it was 14 below zero, and in April of that year there were six inches of snow. The ice in April was a foot and a half thick on the river. The books form an interesting bit of history for the student of early times in Montana and are well worth examination.

Another relic of interest that Mr. Worden possesses is an old square clock that rests upon the desk in his office. It is of the familiar old Seth Thomas pattern, known as the “kitchen clock,” and is believed to be the first clock brought to Montana. Mr. Worden had it shipped up the Missouri river in 1862, and it was brought over to Hell Gate in the same year on a mule. For years it was the only clock in the settlement, and it still keeps good time. It shows that it has been well cared for, as it ticks away as industriously as it used to in early days.

Another old clock is one that is owned by Mrs. F. H. Woody. It is now in regular use, after having kept time for her family for 30 years. The old time-piece has traveled extensively, much of the distance that it has traversed having been on the back of a pack mule. The clock was bought by Mrs. Woody’s father, Horace Countryman, in 1864. He then resided at Carson City, Nev., and for a year the clock did service there. In 1865, Mr. Countryman’s business took him successively to Washoe City, and Reno, Nev., and to Virginia City, Mont. Mr. Countryman was engaged in the erection of mills and remained at Virginia City a year, going in 1866, to Philipsburg, where he superintended the construction of the old Hope mill at that place. This work completed, the family returned to the South, remaining for a year at Salt Lake City, from which place Mr. Countryman returned to Montana, stopping at Deer Lodge for a time and then coming on to Missoula. The clock has been here ever since, it having been given to Mrs. Woody at the time of her marriage. Since then, the clock has done good service in the family of Judge Woody and it is still keeping good time. It was an eight-day timepiece and was an excellent timekeeper when it was new. It still keeps good time, but it has to be wound every five days.

The above article appeared in The Anaconda Standard on November 27, 1897.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/354589038/?terms=hell%2Bgate