Old Missoula

Judge Woody Carried Many Titles During Long Residence in Area

One of Missoula’s earliest residents, Frank H. Woody, was a judge, attorney, store clerk, auditor, editor, postmaster, probate judge, clerk and recorder, historian and politician.

In the county’s first election in 1861 he was named auditor while serving as a store clerk for Worden & Co. at Hell Gate. He was named postmaster for Missoula in 1867, and was probate judge as well as county clerk and recorder from 1866 to 1880.

The pioneer resident was elected to the Council (equivalent of the Senate) of Montana territory in 1869.

Editor of Missoulian

He served as editor of the weekly paper at Cedar Creek (near Superior) in 1872 when editor W. J. McCormick was called east. Woody changed the name from the Missoula Pioneer to the Montana Pioneer. In 1873 he went into partnership with T. M. Chisholm and together they bought the paper, moved it to Missoula and called it the Weekly Missoulian. They sold it a short time later.

Admitted to Bar

In 1876 Woody wrote what one old-time resident said was the first accurate history of Missoula County. He was admitted to the bar the following year.

He became the Democratic nominee for the office of district judge in 1892 and was elected, serving for the next eight years. On retiring from the bench in 1900 he opened a law firm with his son, Frank, under the name of Woody & Woody. At one time he was president of the Montana Historical Society.

In 1871 Woody married Elizabeth Countryman, who came to Missoula the year before to teach school. For many years they resided in a beautiful white house with old colonial pillars – reminiscent of the mansions in the old South – on West Pine street in the 300 block. Judge Woody died there at 83.

Native of North Carolina

The judge was born Dec. 10, 1833, in North Carolina. He supplemented his academic education by teaching school for a time.

At 18 he began to work his way west. He was a grocery store clerk at Annapolis, a small village in Indiana, for a time, and in 1855 arrived at Ft. Laramie with a freighting train. He joined an emigrant train headed for Washington territory, but became ill and ended up in Salt Lake where he worked at odd jobs for a year.

He reached the Bitter Root Valley in 1856, went to Ft. Walla Walla in 1857, then two years later returned to western Montana. He and another man made a plow of pine and planted vegetables in Hell Gate Ronde, but a blighting frost killed the crop and he returned to Walla Walla.

In 1860 when Christopher P. Higgins and Francis L. Worden started east across the mountains with their merchandise, Woody accompanied them to become head clerk of their store at Hell Gate.