Paddy Ward and the Senate Mine

Published in “Gold on a Shoestring” is a poem by Rev. John G. Hay (1979) 

                                                           THE MINER 

The Senate was God’s copper rainbow 

That prospectors left behind 

High in the mountains, it exacted a toll, 

A will to believe in the sign. 

Paddy Ward said “yes” to fifty years

Of snow, cave-ins and water, 

Drilling, mucking, cursing, freezing, 

Matching the strength of the mine. 

Veins vanished-but, like old friends, 

Who leave without a good-bye, 

They reappeared unceremoniously ¬ 

Renewing the hopes that bind. 

Late, but not too late, 

The Company arrived ¬ 

 Piercing veins with diamond bits, 

 Marking every slender core; exposing 

 A giant of low grade ore. 

 And Paddy, the clown of the mountain ¬ 

 Weathered, old and worn, retired to a place 

 In the valley -not rich, but strangely warm. 

 Paddy died on Independence Day in 1979; 

 His ashes were spread where he labored ¬ 

 Near the tunnel that followed the sign 

 In the hope, that years and years from now, 

 When the copper is scarce and the price is high, 

 Something of Paddy will be waiting there… 

 Mixed with the earth when the blasting begins 

 To reopen the old Senate Mine. 

 Paddy Ward was another visitor at my grandparent's ranch during haying season and when the need to replenish his staples in the winter was crucial. His attire was in sharp contrast to Price Townsend. During the winter I doubt that he could sneak up on anyone as he had a very distinct odor that encircled his being and as a small child I made comments that were shushed by my grandmother and mother. I remember a tiny person but what sparkling blue eyes he had. He had a dream that the Senate mine had value and that someday it would pay off. How much money he put into it is anyone’s guess. 

The 1934 patent has the names Martin (Moose Lake) Johnson, Patrick E. Ward, Elizabeth Rood, and Cathie Leary as the owners. Although Paddy lived at Moose Lake, the Senate mine is located in the Pintler foothills about ten miles south of the lake. Prior to patenting the Senate Mine, Paddy had worked with his uncle at the Senate group of claims. His uncle John Ward’s obituary on May 22, 1914 stated he was: “a pioneer miner and prospector of the state, 46 years old [and]died at …his cabin at the Senate group of claims about 5 miles from Moose Lake. For 20 days he and his nephew Patrick Ward, had been snowed in and during most of this time Ward had been sick. The snow in the mountains was too deep for the nephew to get out and summon a doctor. The nearest people were at Moose Lake. Ward’s condition became serious Friday morning and Patrick left him alone, to try and get a doctor. Saturday, Ward was removed by ox team to Moose Lake, and Sunday morning medical assistance arrived from Philipsburg, but it was too late. The miner died in the afternoon.” The body was taken to Anaconda to be shipped to his old home in Hazelton, Pennsylvania. Wards Peak near DeBorgia, [Montana] was named for John F. Ward who discovered and owns a number of mining claims there. For 25 years Ward had been a miner in Idaho and Montana… "

During WWI Paddy fought in France, under General George Mac Arthur and returned to Montana on April 4, 1919. But I found no reference of Paddy being enlisted or drafted from Granite county so he must have enlisted from another location. After the War he went to work in the copper mines in Butte and found himself a wife named Minnie. The story goes that his health was too poor to work underground so he and Minnie moved to a small cabin on the Middle Fork of Rock Creek and he began prospecting. Records reveal that Paddy and Minnie filed the first mining claim and named it “Boots” in 1932.  

Then in the summer of 1933 Minnie sold her sewing machine to Pauline Carpp for $5 and her rocker for $1 and was gone. Pauline remembered her as a very nice woman. The story continued on to say that he had become a hard drinker then was in a car accident and supposedly got his ear bitten off in a fight before he quit drinking liquor. He never lost his thirst though and always stopped at Porter’s Corner when he went to town for an “Orange Crush.” The Orange Crush I know to be true, as he was the person that introduced me to my first taste during haying season at Granny’s. Oh, such a biting sharp flavor it had and to be given an entire bottle for my own, was just grand. 

When Emil Jarvi died in 1942 Paddy became caretaker at Moose Lake and from then on lived in a cabin on the Dunn-Musselman land along the eastside road. The Forest Service bought the Musselman property where Paddy’s cabin was located in 1966. They promised Paddy that he could live in his cabin until he died then they burned all of the other cabins. He soon became confused and forgetful and after some stays in Granite County Memorial Hospital and Fort Harrison, Paddy was placed in a Nursing Home in Deer Lodge, Montana at the age of eighty-five. Paddy died there a few days after his ninety-first birthday and his ashes were scattered on each lot around Moose Lake and at the Senate Mine according to Elizabeth Hauck in “Gold on a Shoestring.”