Old Missoula

Few of the old timers have had more varied and useful experiences in Montana than William H. Brennan, of Missoula. He has been in the great west nearly fifty years. Montana has been his home the greater part of this period. He has been a prospector, gold and silver miner, has taken out several fortunes from the lodes of Montana, has been a contractor in the construction and equipment of railroads and industrial plants, and even now, though well able to retire and enjoy leisure, is giving his daily supervision to a prosperous mercantile business at Missoula.

Mr. Brennan was born in the province of Ontario, Canada, November 29, 1856. His father, James Brennan, was born in County Carlow, Ireland, in 1813, and at the age of eighteen came to Canada and spent the rest of his life as an Ontario farmer. He died in 1905, at the advanced age of ninety-two. He was a conservative in politics, but had no desire for office, though he once served as reeve in Howland Township. He was an active member of the Catholic Church. His wife was Clarissa Keys, who was born at Prescott, Ontario, in 1824, and died in that province in 1900. Thomas, the oldest of their children, was a Western Union telegraph operator, received a sunstroke while at work in Arizona, and then went back to Canada and died two years later, in 1887 ; Margaret, whose home is at Owen Sound, on Georgian Bay, Canada, is the widow of William Malone, who was a farmer; William H. is the third in age ; Eliza is the wife of John Vasey, a blacksmith at Newark, California ; John is a lumberman in California; Edward is in the bakery business at Missoula ; Mrs. Ellen Fogarty is the wife of a plasterer and contractor in Ontario; Marcella is the wife of Thomas Coffey, a mine operator at Oakland, California ; James [Al] is a farmer in the Bitter Root Valley of Montana ; and Nathaniel lives at Winnipeg, Canada.

William H. Brennan attended the separate schools of Ontario and lived at home until he was fourteen years of age. Two years later, in 1872, he went to California. A year and seven months he worked as a ranch hand, then entered the service of Governor Latham at Menlo Park, California, operating the governor’s gas works for the manufacture of gas, and also pumped water for the lawns a year and seven months. This experience enabled him to take a position in the San Francisco Gas Works for seven months. He drove a horse car nine months and was a street railway conductor for nine months in San Francisco, following which he was superintendent of the horse car lines of that city for two years. He did his first mining in Bodie, California, working in the mines there for eight months, then spent four months installing machinery at the Silver King Mine. After a brief stay at San Francisco Mr. Brennan came to Silver Bow, Montana, in 1879. He prospected over a large district for the next several years and in 1882 went with the Gloucester Mill, near Helena, and under the boss process was engaged in amalgamating silver and gold for fifteen months. After a vacation of three months spent at Helena Mr. Brennan took a contract for the Helena Mine to sink a shaft two hundred feet and run a fourteen hundred foot level. This contract required a year, eight months and one day for its performance. While engaged in this work Mr. Brennan kept his horse picketed four miles from Helena. A party of Indians coming along scared the horse, so that it jerked out its picket. On examining this picket Mr. Brennan discovered evidences of gold and silver in the dirt that clung to the stake and he immediately made a claim there and began taking out ore. Three carloads were shipped to the Wicks Smelter and it assayed seventy-two ounces of silver per ton and $18 in gold. This claim accidentally thus discovered gave Mr. Brennan a start as a money capitalist.

In 1887 Mr. Brennan began contracting, furnishing all the bridge timber to be used by the Montana Central Railway between Butte and Helena and also the timber for the section houses and snow fences. During two years he furnished more than four million feet of lumber to that road. He entered the field of lumber manufacture by the purchase of two sawmills, one at Philipsburg and one at Ellison (sic). He also invested $8,000 in railroad grading and construction outfit. He sold a third sawmill to Harry McLaughlin. His first sawmill at Clancy Gulch was the first saw milling machinery shipped into Montana. His business as a lumber producer continued with prosperity from 1887 to 1891. In the meantime he also used his railroad outfit for building the Pipestone road. Mr. Brennan came into the Bitter Root Valley with Marcus Daly, and for more than a year had a contract to furnish the Anaconda Copper Mining Company 1,500,000 feet of timber per month. The mill he operated for this contract he later sold to the Bitter Root Development Company.

Mr. Brennan has the distinction of having erected the first house in the present thriving town of Hamilton, Montana. That was in 1892, and he was engaged in an extensive business as a stonemason contractor, with Hamilton as his headquarters, until 1891. One work he did at that time was the construction of the dam across the Bitter Root at the mouth of Sleeping Child. Mr. Brennan, with a partner, Joseph Farrell, erected a mill at Pony, Montana, in 1901, also established a lumber yard there, conducting both plants for two seasons. About that time he was seized with the mining fever, and did some prospecting and spent a year as shift boss in the Garnet mine and was then promoted to foreman. After eight months the mine shut down and was never opened again. In the course of his prospecting Mr. Brennan went up into the Boss Tweed district of Madison County, discovered a body of gold ore, and getting a lease on the property for three months with his partner, Ed Smith, he took out $25,000 worth of gold, the dirt assaying at $80 a ton.

Among the many varied experiences of Mr. Brennan he has been a successful rancher. After the mining venture just noted he bought a ranch two miles from Harrison, Montana, his associate being his brother-in-law, Joseph Farrell. They paid $19 an acre for 920 acres, and when they sold the property in 1918 the purchase price was $70 an acre. In 1918 Mr. Brennan moved to Missoula and bought the O. K. Trading Company’s property, consisting of a general store and residence at the corner of South Fifth and Arthur [probably Higgins] streets. This is the business to which he now gives his time and attention.

Mr. Brennan is an independent democrat. While living at Hamilton he served as town marshal. He is a member of the Catholic Church and is a third-degree Knight of Columbus, being affiliated with Missoula Council No. 1021, and is also a member of Pony Camp, Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1889, at Helena, Mr. Brennan married Miss Rosie Ferrell, daughter of Brown [Bruno] and Elizabeth (Denning) Ferrell. Her parents live at Pony, Montana, her father being a retired farmer. Brown Ferrell is a real Montana pioneer, having located at Virginia City as early as 1863. For many years he was a pioneer prospector and placer miner, and later went on a ranch. Mrs. Brennan has the distinction of being one of the oldest native daughters of Virginia City, where she was born March 22, 1866. Clarissa, the oldest of Mr. and Mrs. Brennan’s children, is the wife of Fred Carman, a rancher near Harrison; James is with the Interstate Lumber Company at Whitehall, Montana ; Francis, who is now assisting his father in the store, spent fourteen months overseas with the 248th Aerial Squadron, being trained as a mechanic in England for eight months and for six months was in France, and he has a record in the air of sixty-eight hours; John, who also assists his father in business, enlisted, but the armistice was signed before he was able to get into active service; William is a student in the Loyola High School at Missoula; while Rose and Mary Alice, the youngest, are pupils of the Sisters Academy.

The above profile of William H. Brennan was taken from the book, “Montana, Its Story and Biography” by Tom Stout. This book is available digitally on this website.

https://archive.org/details/montanaitsstoryb02stou/page/596/mode/2up?view=theater

William H. Brennan died Deer Lodge, Montana in November, 1930. His short Missoulian obituary stated that he had lived in the Bitter Root, moved to Missoula, and then moved to Deer Lodge, where he had lived 2 years.

Mrs. Rose A. Ferrell Brennan died in Missoula, March 15, 1940. Her obituary below appeared in the Sunday Missoulian on March 17, 1940:

Rose A. Brennan

Funeral rites for Mrs. Rose A. Brennan, 74, who died at a local hospital Friday night after a month’s illness, will be at 10 o’clock Monday morning at St. Anthony’s church. Very Rev. D. P. Meade will be in charge. Burial will be in the Deer Lodge Catholic cemetery. The body is at the Marsh & Powell funeral home.

Pallbearers will be D. W. Firtzpatrick, Martin Burke, George Morris, Lee Bordeau, Carl O’Loughlin and William Gleason.

Rosary services will be held at 7:30 Sunday night at St. Anthony’s church, the same hour and place which similar services will be held for Dan B. Currie.

Mrs. Brennan was born as Rose A. Ferrell in Virginia City March 22, 1866. She spent her girlhood in Boulder and Helena, and on December 17, 1889, the year Montana became a state, she was married to William H. Brennan at Helena, and went to Hamilton to live, thus becoming one of the first to establish a home there. They move to Pony in 1901 and later to Deer Lodge. She had lived with her daughter, Mrs. W. J. Marion, 101 North Avenue west, for the past five years.

Survivors are seven children, four sisters, three brothers, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

The children are Mrs. Marion, Mrs. Fred Carmin of Harrison, James J. Brennan of Deer Lodge, Francis P. of Missoula, John V. of Salinas, Cal., William M. of San Jose, Cal., and Mrs. C. B. Kaa of Hamilton.

Lon Brennan, the famous Missoula pilot, was a nephew of William H Brennan.