Old Missoula

Pioneer’s Funeral To Be Held Today

Body of Sam Clem, Vigilante And Placer Miner, to Be Sent to Deer Lodge.

Funeral services for Sam Clem, 88, vigilante and pioneer Montana placer miner, will be held in the Lucy chapel at 10 o’clock this morning, under the auspices of the Society of Montana Pioneers and the Sons and Daughters of Pioneers.

Mr. Clem, who last year completed 66 years of continuous placer mining in the gulches of Montana, died at a Missoula hospital early yesterday. Monday the body will be taken to Deer Lodge, his old headquarters, where a second funeral will be held at 2 o’clock. Many pioneers from over the state are expected to be present to pay their last respects to one of the oldest of their members.

Mr. Clem leaves no near relatives, but he has two grand nephews and two grand nieces who live nearby, Braydonne Curry and Leslie Curry, the nephews, live at Arlee and Wallace, Idaho, respectively. One of the nieces, Ruth Pierce, is a Missoula resident, and the other, who is married, lives in Ovando. Sam’s sister, Mrs. Mary Lowe, who died about a year ago, is buried in Deer Lodge and her husband still lives there.

“Dying for 88 Years.”

“Yes, Sam Clem is dead. I am not at all surprised, and probably Sam isn’t either,” James M. Brown, former president of the Sons and Daughters of Montana Pioneers, commented yesterday.

“He told me last week that he had been dying for 88 years,” Mr. Brown went on. “And thereby hangs a bit of personal history that proves the human body is hard to destroy once there is the will to live. “The day I was born,’ Sam told me with a chuckle, ‘the doctor took one look at me and said, “He won’t live.” At the age of 22 he told me I had about six months more to go, so I headed West with another idea about it. But Sam had what the early day placer miners termed ‘plenty of leather in him’ and he pulled through. For 33 years thereafter he suffered continuously with stomach disorder from which he ultimately recovered. “Just wore it out,” he asserted.

“Sam Clem never married because, as he said: ‘Never could stand a woman’s cooking. Tried it once and my stomach gave out. Women are fine but I had no use for one.’ Rising from his seat at the luncheon given in honor of the Pioneers by the Silver Bow club in Butte in 1928, to respond to the same question asked many of the old timers present, ‘To what do you attribute your success in living so long?’ he electrified those present by answering, ‘Never married. Always lived a natural life,’ then sat down leaving his hosts to draw any conclusion they saw fit.

Alder Gulch Pioneer.

“Thus the simple, unadorned philosophy of Sam Clem, Territory pioneer, born in Warrentown, Indiana, April 17, 1842, emigrating to Montana by bull train, arriving at Alder Gulch, September 12, 1864, and four days later joining the Pioneers as a matter of self respect, and the very next day assisting in the hanging of John ‘Hart Hat’ Dolan for the crime of stealing gold, which, according to the Vigilante law, was a crime equal to murder. Life at Alder was too much for Sam, so he started to move and thereafter followed the excited seeks in and out of all the famous old gulches – Alder, Gold creek, Silver Bow, Confederate, Last Chance, Henderson, Bear, Cedar and, lastly, Elk creek, which runs down past Greenough, in Missoula county, where last year he completed 66 years of continuous placer mining.

“Generosity towards their fellowmen causes most old time placer miners to die broke. Economists may disagree as to its wisdom. Gold seekers do not. Sam Clem long ago decided he would die ‘almost broke.’ Fifty years ago he sewed up in the lining of his coat one ounce of fine gold panned out of the Gold creek diggings, value about $18.00 – which in the early days was the price of a decent funeral with just enough left over for a drink for the pallbearers, the undertaker and the preacher, if he felt so inclined (the value of a funeral never increased, according to Sam’s idea) – so that when the country doctor’s diagnosis proved true he wouldn’t ‘enter the upper country on bedrock.’

Ready to Die.

“Last Monday Sam handed me his pouch of gold, pure, clean, virile looking stuff, which, when poured into a pile, looked to be worth $150 instead of $18, and said, “Here, take this for expenses. If there’s anything left after you get through with me, give it to the next old timer who happens to need it,’ and thereupon calmly proceeded to await the arrival of the last stage coach to the Far West. Whatever may be said of pioneers, they never die afraid, a philosophy acquired through many, many years of toil and strife. A lot of money seldom smiles on these empire builders. A long, contented, hard-worked life and plenty of friends is their measure of recompense.

“Sam Clem added dignity to the science of living. He was not only a gentleman, but a virtuous gentleman as well, salt-of-the-earth type, picturesque with his immaculately clean, long white whiskers, clear smiling blue eyes, mellow, low pitched voice and calm manner. His last words were typical of the man; ‘The only mystery of my life is how I ever lived so long. Kinda strange, too, that after all these years you and I spend my last days together. Well, it’s up to you young fellows now,’ and in this manner did he unshoulder any further responsibility for the safety and proper conduct of affairs on this earth. Shortly after he proved the old time physician’s diagnosis to be correct, and died.

“At his request he will be given a Pioneer’s funeral entirely paid for with the ounce of pure gold valued at $18, that he saved for half a century in order ‘to head off the county, if necessary.’ He will be taken to Deer Lodge Town, on the road to Bear, where he will be buried, facing West, as are all Montana placer miners.”

The above obituary appeared in The Daily Missoulian on June 14, 1930.