Lower Valley Gun and Knife Fight Ended in Death

Philipsburg Mail headlines on December 30, 1910 carried the story that there was a tragedy at the Miller and Lockaby Ditch Camp on the afternoon of the 9th. The camp was located about three miles south of Hall in the Alex Wight field. Between three and four in the afternoon, Miller went after Lockaby with an axe and Lockaby shot to protect himself according to the report that Lockaby phoned in to the sheriff office, from Hall, before he started off on foot to Philipsburg to turn himself in. 

Lockaby arrived in Philipsburg in the early morning and County Attorney Moore and Judge F.D. Sayr took the morning train to investigate. At the time of printing the Mail had no other information as Lockaby did not wish to “make a statement for publication.” 

The January 6, 1911 Philipsburg Mail published the following: “…According to the testimony given at the inquest Geo. A. Miller and William Lockaby, {age 50} were partners in a subcontract on the Thayer Ditch, their camp being located several miles south of Hall. Miller tired of the job and Wednesday evening he and Lockaby settled up their affairs between them, Miller stating that he wanted to go to Idaho. Everything was adjusted amicably between them and all that remained to divide was a lot of groceries amounting to $24 and in which three parties owned equally. Miller did not want the groceries and told Lockaby he could have his share. Thursday morning Miller left camp to take the train to Drummond. On his way to Hall he met two men coming up who had been sent from the lower camp by another contractor to work at the head of the ditch. All three stopped and talked and the two inquired of Miller if he knew of a place where they could stop while working up there. Miller told them they might be able to stay with Lockaby as he was alone in camp. Miller went on to Drummond but on the afternoon train he returned and went back to camp. Lockaby asked what brought him back and Miller replied that he thought it over and concluded that the two fellows should not come to camp and eat up his grub and that he had come back to see that they didn’t. Lockaby started to cook lunch for Miller and while doing so Miller continued to talk about the two men, who then were out on the ditch at work, that he would kill them both before they should eat up his grub and that he would kill Lockaby too, if he took them into camp. The more he talked along this line the more violent he got. Lockaby tried to quiet him but it did no good and finally Miller stepped out of the tent to the wood pile and in a moment came back with a double-bit axe and made a pass at Lockaby who dodged the blow and jumped over the bunk. As he did so he grabbed up his gun and shouted to Miller to let up or he would shoot, but Miller kept on coming with the axe uplifted. Lockaby fired as he run until he had emptied the gun. He saw Miller fall just outside the tent but kept on going until he got to where the other men were at work. He told them what had happened and asked them to go and do what they could for Miller, and that he was going on to Hall to telephone the sheriff and give himself up. 

Miller was dead when the men reached the cabin, they covered him with a canvas and left things just as they were until the coroner arrived. Lockaby sent word to the sheriff from Hall that he was on his way to Philipsburg and arrived here early Friday morning. He went right to the Sheriff’s office and surrendered himself.” 

Judge Sayr acting coroner and County Attorney W.F. Moore went to Hall Friday morning, impaneled a jury; viewed the remains and the scene; and brought Miller’s remains to Philipsburg. The autopsy revealed Miller had been hit four times: once on his watch, one grazed his skull over the left eye, one entered the left breast and one entered the right breast, puncturing the lung. Both bullets were found under the skin on his back. The jury was comprised of: Frank D. “Sandbar” Brown, J.J. Carmichael, J.E. Barret, Peter Larson, William McRen and Napoleon Robishaw were satisfied that Lockaby was justified and had acted wholly in self-defense. “He was promptly given his liberty.” 

Nothing was known about Miller’s relatives so the remains were buried in the pauper section of the Philipsburg cemetery.

How Sandbar Got His Name: Frank D. Brown

 

                                                             Frank D. "Sandbar" Brown

An exaggerated account of this tale was published in the May 4, 1923 Mail that was taken from the Great Falls Leader. Because the story is a good yarn I will quote the entire excerpt: “[this story]…brings us to the name “Sandbar” as attached to Mr. Frank D. Brown. Not vouching for the story, but telling it as it was told to me in the days when every man had something tacked onto the name his folks gave him, it relates to Mr. Brown and the red brothers of the days when scalp locks were more fashionable in the Indian village than short skirts to the rail bird brigade of today. Mr. Brown was rather sudden with a gun in the early time, and also a chief clerk of a large institution, between prospecting and hunting trips. The Henry rifle, predecessor of the present Winchester had just come into use and Mr. Brown grabbed the first one off the boat. The Henry was brass bound, held 16 cartridges of .44 caliber, with one in the barrel, and rim-fire---the cartridges, not the barrel. Mr. Brown was traveling along innocent like near the Missouri River one gladsome summer day and was jumped by about 20 red brothers, all howling for ruddy gore and riding hell bent for a taste of it. Mr. Brown rode his horse across the river at a convenient ford, leading his pack horse. On the side where he came out was a long spit of sandbar reaching into the river and Mr. Brown rode up the sandbar to the bank, tied his horses and walked back to the open. 

Lo! The poor Indian had a cheerful habit of drawing the fire from the white man’s smoke stick and then charging in before he could reload; a very disconcerting habit and predicated upon the proposition that the white man had a single shot rifle and all necessary to success was to dodge the first bullet and then wade in. With 20 Indians coming across the river whooping, Mr. Brown was to be made an example of the habit, the repeating gun not figured in the performance, as the first let a whoop and headed for the white man. But Mr. Brown was a different kind of medicine than the red brother had ever met in his scalping entertainments as he kept right on firing while Indians kept tumbling to the sandbar in a most disconcerting fashion---the charge broke up and the Indians headed for the other shore, with seven down and Mr. Brown still shooting for good measure. 

Then he untied his horses filled the magazine of the little Henry and went on his blithesome way. “Hell”, said Mr. Brown some time after in discussion of the incident when friends commented upon the inequality of 20 Indians to one white man “I could a kivered the whole damn sandbar if they’d just kept comin’!” And thereafter he was known as “Sandbar” Brown---and that is the kind of hairpin “Sandbar” Brown was in the days of real sport!” 

The above article was written at the time Sandbar was elected to be the secretary of the Society of Montana Pioneers. He was the Historian for the Society for many years and was “…pioneer extraordinary as well as plenipotentiary to every ghost city of the west” according to the May 4, 1923 Mail. 

The year of 1875 found Sandbar as a government scout on the ill-fated Baker Expedition down the Yellowstone, Sun River, Prickly Pear, Last Chance, Bear Gulch, Cedar Creek and then one season of “fruitless” prospecting in Utah. In 1878 Sandbar and his wife moved to Philipsburg where he accepted the position of superintendent of the Northwest Company at Tower. He had married Anna E. (unknown maiden name) in Helena, Montana in December 1873. 

Born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany she immigrated to America as a child. Anna died at the age of fifty-nine on October 6, 1914 at her daughter’s home in Missoula. Frank D. “Sandbar” Brown died January 16, 1931 “of sheer old age” at 2:30 in the morning at the home of his daughter Mrs. Rutledge Parker in the Rattlesnake Valley near Missoula. He was eighty-five years old “and never were years more crowded with action, with adventure, with achievement.” 

According to his wishes “Sandbar” was buried next to his wife in the Philipsburg cemetery.

More Granite County Patriots of the Civil War

Norman Alexander Eddy, born August 14, 1848, died November 21, 1917 in Parkerville, at his daughter, Mrs. Hanley’s home. He was a carpenter and was repairing a home, when he died of probable heart failure. Born in Canada, he came to the U.S. as a small child to live in Pennsylvania. He had lived in Philipsburg with his daughter for only a short time. A member of G.A.R., he displayed the Stars and Stripes of his adopted home conspicuously in his home. He was preceded in death by his wife, survivors were: daughter Mrs. Hanley and Mrs. E.J.M. Williams, of Hall. L.C. Degenhart a G.A.R. Veteran was honorary pallbearer, at his burial in the Philipsburg cemetery. 

First I found an obituary for John Hendrickson Jr., a Corporal in Co. E, Thirty Seventh Regiment, who drowned on February 24, 1900, in the Philippines' while serving for the US in the War with Spain. Then in a very short obituary, the February 1, 1901, Philipsburg Mail, stated John Hendrickson Sr.’s funeral had taken place on Sunday, January 26, 1901, with services at the City Hall, by Rev. H.G. Wakefield. The GAR, Firemen and City and County officials attended the funeral with the Philipsburg Silver Cornet Band leading the procession to the cemetery. 

Thomas Long, born in 1839, died at the home of his relatives in Galena, Illinois in September, 1917. A tinner by trade, he operated a tin-shop in Philipsburg, for many years before he settled a homestead, on Cow Creek, several miles from Hall. He was a G.A.R. veteran and often entertained his small friends with stories of the battlefield. He had a very large collection of valuable curios and every specimen had a story. After a Catholic service, he was interred in the Philipsburg cemetery. 

J.A. Matthews, I know was a Civil War Veteran, but I have been unable to find an obituary of his death. He is discussed through out the “Mettle Of Granite County Books.” 

Paul A. Fusz, was born in Hericourt, France in 1847 to Francis H. and Marie Regina (Tachaen) Fusz, was brought to St. Louis Missouri when he was six years of age. He and two friends ran away and joined the Confederate Army when he was seventeen. He and one of the friends were caught by the Union Army while smuggling quinine and valuable papers for the confederates and they chewed up the papers rather than give them to the Union Army. The friend was hanged, but because Fusz was only seventeen, he was sent to Jefferson City Prison. “One of President Lincoln’s last official acts was to pardon Fusz”. Fusz lived in Granite, Montana from 1889, until shortly before his death, when he returned to St. Louis, for medical care of his pernicious anemia. He was president of the Bi-Metallic Mining Company which included the American Gem Mining Company on West Fork of Rock Creek. Burial was in Calvary Cemetery, beside his wife, who had died 20 years prior, in the family plot in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 18, 1910. Paul is spoken of often in “Mettle of Granite County Book One” and discussed in depth in Book II in the Sapphire Mines Chapter. 

Charles Weitfle died in the Masonic Home in the Helena Valley, on January 20, 1921. He held the title of being one of the oldest Mason’s in Montana. Born in Germany on February 15, 1826, He immigrated in 1850 and served in the U.S. Navy with an honorable discharge in 1859, then served in the Civil War in the Union Army. He was a noted photographer, receiving medals for work he did for the Union Pacific Railroad in Central City, Colorado. He moved to Granite at the peak of the silver boom in 1892, then, in 1899 he became a bee keeper in Idaho Falls and continued this career until moving to the Helena Masonic Home in 1914. He was the Master of the Granite Masonic Lodge for one term. Charles is memorialized, by his publication of "Views of Granite and Philipsburg and Vicinity", and is spoken of often in “Mettle of Granite County Book One.” 

William Irvine worked the mines over thirty years with his good friend G.B. Ballard. Born in Davis County, Missouri in 1842, he served in the Confederate Army and died from complications of asthma and dropsy at the county hospital, August 13, 1901. He was a miner and prospector. There is no headstone or file card in the City Hall, so he must have been buried in the pauper section of the Philipsburg cemetery.

Civil War Veterans Part Three

Continuing the history of Civil War veterans, Lawrence Pence, died November 14, 1916 of tubercular bronchitis after being ill several months. A native of Ohio, he was around seventy six years old. He was a veteran and member of G.A.R. but there were no record of the regiment or state he served from. A resident of Philipsburg, for about 15 years at the time of his death, he was a miner, had never married and had no relatives in the area. There is no mention of where or how he was buried and there is no headstone or file card on record of his burial, in the Philipsburg Cemetery (Mail, November 17, 1916). 

After serving in the Civil War, J.K. Pardee, came to Granite in 1874, to look at property for Hon. A.B. Nettleton and gave such a positive report of the area, Nettleton paid off the bond he and his friends owed for the property and hired Pardee as the resident manager of the newly formed North West Company, located at Tower. He was one of the many Granite County residents, who volunteered for the Spanish American War. He was a frequent topic in the Philipsburg Mail, in 1899, during the prospecting, promoting and development of the Iron Mountain and Iron Tower mines, in Missoula County. Later that year, J.K. Pardee departed for Sumpter, Oregon, to give attention to the operations on the “Diadem”, a mine he had purchased. His wife Mary (Schoonover) died at Gladstone, Oregon on March 25, 1914 after an extended illness, at over seventy years of age, J.K. took his own life by shooting himself on May 18, 1914: “…due to a spell of despondency over the death of his wife only a month ago and to his defeat in the republican primaries last Friday for the nomination for county treasurer…” The obituary stated that in 1881, Mr. Pardee was a member of the Montana Territorial Council, and voted to divide Deer Lodge County, creating Silver Bow; served one term as Treasurer of Granite County (1897) then moved to Missoula. In 1906, he was Postmaster at Plains being appointed by President (Teddy) Roosevelt. After one term, he retired, disposed of his property in Philipsburg and located at Gladstone, Oregon, where he has been engaged in mining and political interests.. Survivors were: son Joseph T. who worked for the U.S. Geological Survey and wife, in Washington, D.C. He was believed to be about seventy two years old (Mail, May 22, 1914). 

Albert Tinklepaugh was born in Canada June 8, 1845 and immigrated to the United States as a young child to Wisconsin and later Minnesota. During the Civil War, Albert enlisted in Volunteer Company K of Minnesota and received an honorable discharge. He came to Montana in 1880, located in Hall, first on a ranch and then due to poor health opened up a merchandise store, which he operated until a few years before his death. He was Postmaster of Hall and an organizer of the Granite County Bank, in Hall. He was President, of the Bank when he died on June 21, 1920, at his home. Survivors were: his wife, a daughter Mrs. M.C. Ross of Philipsburg, a son, Freeman A., of Hall, a brother, Charles, of Hall and two sisters, Mrs. Duncan Dingwall of Drummond and Mrs. Ella Barker of Rollins, Montana. After a service in the Methodist Church, in Hall, Masonic services were conducted at the Valley Cemetery, by Ruby Lodge Number 36 A.F. & A.M., of. Drummond. 

Francis Thomas, born in Pennsylvania in 1833, was a young married man when he enlisted in The Union Army for the Civil War and was reported killed in action. When the war ended he chose to let the record stand that he was dead and started for the west, with his arrival in Philipsburg, in 1871. The obituary stated he was eligible for a pension, but never applied, nor did he affiliate with the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic). It was assumed he had relatives in Pennsylvania as he subscribed to a small town Pennsylvania newspaper. He died at his home, in South Philipsburg, on July 27, 1921 from infirmities of eighty eight years of age and after a service in the Carmichael Chapel he was interred in the Philipsburg Cemetery (Mail July29, 1921).

Civil War Veterans Part Two

This article continues the details of known Granite County residents that served in the Civil War. 

Joseph Case, who died on March 27, 1930 at the Soldiers Home in Columbia Falls, Montana, was listed as the last surviving G. A. R. Veteran in Granite County, in his March 28 obituary. Born in Flemington, New Jersey on May 4, 1846, he enlisted at the age of sixteen in the Union Army and served with Company C of the Thirty Seventh Regiment in the New Jersey Infantry, the duration of the Civil War, as a Private. Several years after the war he began his trip to the west and in the late 1880’s settled on lower Rock Creek. Joe had a homestead on Rock Creek, that was originally homesteaded by Annie Morgan. Annie found Joe near Rock Creek suffering from an attack of malaria and nursed him back to health. He was supposed to be the heir of Annie’s homestead but she did not make it back to town to sign the papers before her death. The obituary stated he sold his ranch to J.W. Meyers, about 1920 and moved into Philipsburg. Because Joe “Jack” was an ardent sportsman and had supplied the mining camps with fish for years, he was known as “Fisher Jack from the Hogback”. On Memorial Day of 1929, he was the last surviving G.A.R. in the area, so carried the Post Colors and participated in the Philipsburg Parade. Little is known of his family, in the east, except for a niece Mrs. Eliza Case who lived in Brooklyn, New York. The homestead property has been preserved as a historical site and is under the protection of the Missoula Forest Service according to Philipsburg Mail May 22, 2008. 

Eilisee E. Thibault was a Corporal in the 192nd Ohio Infantry and died May 3, 1920. The obituary listed a daughter Mrs. L.P. Conway of Philipsburg and two sons: Eugene of California and A.A. residing in Oregon. There was neither birthplace nor age listed in his obituary. Also, no headstone in the Philipsburg Cemetery or file card at City Hall for any Thibault. Because I catalogued the Philipsburg cemetery before writing this book, I have come to the assumption that many veterans are buried there as paupers, so do not have headstones or file cards. Apparently at the time of their deaths the VFW and American Legion were not aware of their service. 

J.H. Loomis, died March 24, 1914, in Philipsburg and his obituary listed him as a member of G. A. R. He was born at Saundersville, Mass., on November 7, 1840, was a resident of Philipsburg for about 25 years. A carpenter by trade but being in poor health for a number of years he abandoned his occupation. Elected City Treasurer on 1906, he served four successive terms in the office. His wife died at the age of seventy two on March 17, 1912. By his request, the Selish Tribe Improved Order of Red Men performed the burial rites. 

Elijah Powell served his country throughout the Civil War as a member of a Pennsylvania Regiment. He received an honorable discharge, with membership in the Burnside Post No. 22 G.A.R of Philipsburg. Born in Chippewa Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania on September 26, 1845, he died on December 4, 1899, with survivors: wife (Mary E.), daughters, Lydia Linguist, and Sadie Barrett of Butte; and sons, Charles and Edward of Philipsburg. He worked as a stone and brick mason and when that trade became dull he worked as a miner, until his death from pneumonia. The family resided in the Rosalind district when they arrived in Philipsburg in July 1880, after traveling west via the Missouri River. He was interred in the Philipsburg Cemetery. 

John A. Spencer, a resident of Montana from 1892, collapsed and died while waiting on a customer at his store on lower Broadway on March 1, 1921. Born in Boone County, Indiana on April 9, 1844 (tombstone states 1840), he moved with his parents to St. Paul when he was seven years of age. His first trip to Montana was in 1865, when he became a resident of Virginia City, for twenty seven years and ran a mercantile store. I assume this was right after his discharge from the Civil War, but his obituary does not refer to his military service. Next he lived in Butte, where he also had a mercantile business, for three years then returned to St. Paul, for two years, after which he returned to Butte. He moved to Granite the next year and in 1892, moved his business to Philipsburg. John, served as Master of both the Virginia City and Philipsburg Mason’s and was a city councilman, for two terms. He was survived by a son Clarence C. who recently came from Wallace, Idaho, to assist in the family business, and a sister Mrs. J.S. Yallop, in California. Masonic services were held at the Temple and the Philipsburg cemetery. Research reveals frequent, small ads in the 1895 Mail, stating: “John A. Spencer, near N.P. depot, will take hay and grain in exchange for wagons, carts etc.” 

 I will continue discussing Civil War Veterans in other articles.