Page 59 - Cornelius Hedges Story

For This And Succeeding Generations Gardiner 46

An election was held on November 6, 1883, to choose delegates
for the 1884 Constitution Convention, and Hedges was a candidate
However, it was not until November 21, after an official canvas and
a vote recount that Hedges learned that he had been elected over J.
R. Weston to a seat in the Convention.178 Weston served as Deputy
Grand Master to Hedges and followed him as Grand Master in 1871.

The Constitutional Convention of 1884 opened at noon
on January 14. On the 17th, he was appointed chairman of the
Education Committee; that at the same time Hedges was Territorial
Superintendent of Public Instruction. He was recognized as a man
of great legal ability, while his knowledge on almost every other
branch of learning was thorough. Hedges were one of the signers of
the 1884 Montana State Constitution.

On January 26, the report of the Education Committee was
submitted, debated, and voted upon. At the end of the day, Hedges
disappointedly entered in his journal “The Educational Article went
thru with little improvement and more mutilation.” Judge Hedges
chaired the convention session on the 28th. Finally, he was a member
of the revision committee to draft the final form of the document, and
he contributed greatly in that capacity. On February 9, he noted in his
journal the formal signing of the Constitution, and the “Convention
closed in the eve with little ceremony singing the Star Spangled
Banner song.”179

Judge Hedges, along with about 250 other men and women who
entered Montana and established homes on or before December 31,
1864, signed the constitution of the Society of Montana pioneers on
September 10, 1884, and became a charter member of the Society.180

Hedges was always looking toward the good of the community,
in July of 1884 he helped establish the Mount Hope Cemetery
Association. The association purchased forty acres of ground about
one mile east of Dry Gulch. The Board of Directors: G. C. Swallow,
T. H. Kleinschmidt, R. H. Howey, Wm. Muth, E. D. Edgerton,
Cornelius Hedges, A. R. Gates and E. Ballon.

On August 28, 1885, he was elected Corresponding Secretary of
the organization and held that office until 1886. On August 24, 1888,
Hedges was elected Secretary of the Society at a salary of $150 and
served in that capacity until 1892, when he became the Society’s
Treasurer. He served two years in that position, and he finally served as
the President of the Society of Montana Pioneers in 1904 and 1905.181