Page 281 - Cornelius Hedges Story

For This And Succeeding Generations Gardiner 268

Freemasonry in the State of Montana

Cornelius Hedges, P. G. M. & Grand Secretary
What is now Montana, or at least that portion east of the main range
of the Rocky Mountains, was part of the Louisiana Purchase and
was traversed from east to west by the Lewis and Clarke expedition
in 1805, which gave the names to the three forks that form the
Missouri River. That portion west of the main range came to us from
Oregon, through Washington and Idaho. The area occupied as the
State was at various dates included in several Territories beginning
with Louisiana, then Missouri, etc. It was last a part of Idaho down
to May 26, 1864, when it became a separate Territory with the name
that it still held on its admission as a State November 8, 1889.

For sixty years Montana remained unsettled, and wholly unoccupied
except by a few fur traders along the Missouri River and some Indian
Agencies. The central portion was not even permanently occupied
by Indians, but was common hunting and fighting grounds between
the Sioux and Crows on the east, the Blackfeet on the north, and the
Flatheads and Pend Oreilles on the west.
It was the great range for buffalo (bison) which roamed here in
herds of countless thousands, hunted for their hides and tongues.
For some years after Helena had become the metropolis, herds of
buffalo visited the valley of Sun River, a hundred miles north, and
were hunted by parties from this city.
If inquiry is made why Montana with such a wealth of resources
in mines, pasturage, and agricultural possibilities should have
remained comparatively unknown and entirely unsettled, the causes
are not far to seek. There was plenty of better lands in the Mississippi
Valley to provide homes for settlers. The few trappers and traders
who knew anything of this country were interested to keep out
settlement which would destroy their hunting and trapping. Its first
appearance was not attractive, wide plains covered with sage-brush
and prickly-pear, scantily supplied with streams of water and rain,
a veritable desert at certain seasons, and inhospitably cold at others,
its soil and water impregnated with alkali. After Oregon began to
be settled and surveys for a railroad across the continent were being
made under Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War of President Pierce,
some of our most intelligent public men in Congress affirmed that
continent were being made under Jefferson Davis, Secretary of
War of President Pierce, some of our most intelligent public men