William Montgomery: ‘Montana’s Cattle King’
Montana had at least three famous 'kings', the Copper King, Marcus Daly, the Gold King, Thomas Cruse, and William Montgomery, the Cattle King of 'Big Hole Basin, Wisdom, Montana. All three were from Co Cavan. Jonathan Smyth's latest Times Past column recalls William Montgomery who came from Arvagh.
I have heard it said that many Irish American millionaires in the 19th century were born in Co Cavan. This may be true. Cavan alone can boast of at least three ‘kings’ of Montana. There was the Copper King, Marcus Daly; secondly, the Gold King, Thomas Cruse; and thirdly, the ‘Cattle King of ‘Big Hole Basin', Montana, William Montgomery, who was a leading cattleman in that State.
It is a tale of success, and his estate should have benefited his descendants following his death in 1919 but for the fact that a bank, whose president being one of the executors of his will, allegedly stole from William's widow and children leaving them in poverty before finally evicting them.
A farm is a fine place to grow up where there is always something to do no matter what the season is. Every season is more visible to the country eye. Hailing from Arva, Co Cavan, the man who ascended to the title of the ‘Cattle King of ‘Big Hole Basin', Montana, was born on December 25, 1862, to George and Margaret Montgomery, Corhanagh. Civil records also show the birth of William's sisters Margaret in 1866, Eliza Jane in 1869, and Sarah in 1871.
His parents George Montgomery of Corhanagh, Arvagh, and Margaret Gibson of Cloneary, Templeport, were married on February 12, 1856, at Templeport parish church. The Montgomery family resided on the family farm at Corhanagh.
William was 16 when he left Arva in 1884. He went to America, where he became one of the local pioneer cattlemen of Big Hole Basin, in Beaverhead County, Montana. Initially, Montgomery enrolled for a time in Rush College, Chicago, where he graduated in medical studies. Rush was the first medical college of the Midwest, which was established in 1837.
On October 25, 1919, according to the ‘Butte Miner’, William’s arrival in Montana in the 1880s was not of any note because he was practically penniless. However, he worked darn hard on a ranch ‘in the horse prairie country'. Two years later, Montgomery moved to the oddly named ‘Big Hole Basin’ and the ‘Butte Miner’ reported on how ‘quick he was to realise the resources of that wonderfully fertile valley with its miles of meadows of wild hay as a cattle country’ and continuing, added that, ‘with rare courage he overcame such a reverses as he met while steadily building up his ranch holdings and developing his cattle industry until the time of his death he was counted as one of the most successful ranchers in the state.’
Montgomery’s landholdings ‘comprised thousands of acres’ and it was said that ‘each year he put on the market over a thousand head of fat beef steers'.
Montgomery's grazing lands consisted of 11,000 acres and in 1919 it was recorded that the shipment of steers from his farmlands ‘to the eastern markets’ were to ‘total more than one thousand head of cattle'. The Great Falls Daily Tribune reported that William Montgomery married Miss Cecilia Lennox, of Dillon, on October 24, 1896. Mr and Mrs Montgomery had seven children.
Alleged theft
J.B. Poindexter and J.H. Gilbert were appointed administrators of William Montgomery's will. But when Poindexter was appointed to Hawaii as its new governor, the task of administering Montgomery’s estate fell to Gilbert, the president of the First National Bank who, aided and abetted by other bankers, were widely believed to have deceived the Montgomerys of their entitlements.
The administrator had been trusted by Mrs Montgomery who was still bringing up a young family when her husband died. Later, when the children were older, they called to the bank to find out what was going on but were told to get the hell out and go home. They learned that cattle were sold without permission, loans from several other banks were taken out against the Montgomery ranch and finally, the family were ordered off their land.
The Montgomery family were enraged, so much so that in 1936 one of the sons, George Montgomery, stood as a candidate for the state senate in Beaverhead County. He was 21 years old, and his rival was none other than the brother of the president of the First National Bank. George's election slogan was to the point: ‘I want to circle with those that robbed my father's estate.’
This accusation in turn set off a series of lawsuits from banker Gilbert and his dodgy ring of associates. The Montgomerys eventually had their day in court, and they took the bank on with the help of the famed ‘legal hound of Virginia and Butte’, H.L. Maury. Such was Maury's name in legal circles, that it was said the bankers would soon be chased ‘up the tree’ as he pursued them through their labyrinth of lies to find the truth.
On April 16, 1941, the People's Voice commented on ‘the Montgomery case,’ describing it as a ‘weird story of how a bank now a chain bank looted the estate of a pioneer Montana stockman, reduced a widow and her children to poverty and finally evicted the children from the very land they were born on.’
It must have been sickening for the Montgomerys to see the First National Bank as it prospered and grew into a chain of successful banks while their own inheritance was robbed from them.
The bank claimed that their actions stemmed from a need to clear outstanding debt. Apart from the smack of impropriety, it was the bank's callous treatment of the Montgomerys, which in most people’s eyes was unforgivable.
On March 22, 1943, in the case Montgomery vs Bank of Dillon, the Supreme Court of Montana ruled: ‘I can find nothing in the record to justify any contention that the defendants considered the estate closed after the executor's final account was filed, noticed, approved and allowed’, adding that, ‘this should finally show that there was no intention at any time, as it appears from the record, that the executor of the banks intended to anything more with the property than to recover the money they had advanced to protect the estate and turn any residue that remained to the heirs.’
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