1920-05-13, [P ]

THE WOLF POINT HERALD Causland, had a store and were do There are living today in Mon At the age of 15 he was a farm labor where his losses were enormous. ing a fine business when some trou tana thousands of men and women er in Kentucky. At 40 he owned 16 When he was awarded the mail con ble between them occurred and they who came to this state in the old- steamships, trading to every point of tract into Montana his annual con U3& had a quarrel. McCausland shot and time Concord stage coaches that the Pacific; owned the great Over tract price was raised to $840,000, killed Kinney. I arrested McCaus played so important a part in the & land stage-coach line, the biggest and which was sufficient to save him. In land and put him in jail, but after a early-day transportation of mail best line of coaches ever operated in 1866 he sold out to the Wells-Fargo hearing he was acquitted. He then and passengers in the Rocky moun the world, with an investment of sev Express Co. He died in Portland, settled up his business and left Vir tains and figured so conspicuously eral millions, He spent a million Ore., in 1877 at the age of 53, but \ ginia City for Salt Lake in company in Montana’s early history. dollars in a home on the Hudson left little property and no money. with M. Parker, Dave Dewman, Wil The old stage coach ended its : When Holladay sold to the Wells- >. If- liam Carpenter, William Brown and career in this state many years ago. : 1 Pargo company he received $1,500,- some others. The party had $60,000 Here and there what remains of jpPI xm 000 in cash and $250,000 in paid-up in gold dust with them. this class of vehicle stands beneath mil" stock of the company. Later he re “When they got to Snake river ceived another $600,000 in cash for the rickety shed of some one-time L' , A - road ranch, a relic of bygone days . they became alarmed, as things did Li hay, grain, provisions, etc., on hand —weather-worn, storm-battered, not look right. They thought they ■A at the. various stations, which were would hire a wagon and teapi to go not included in the sale of the line. rusty and abandoned. Its leather COK à-j springs are cracked and broken; I through Port Neuf canyon—kind of Holladay entered a claim against its doors gone, its sides and back slip through—and leave the coach. the government for $600,000 for 7 ■ smashed in; its boot the refuge of Prank Williams, the driver of the - damage done to his property by In rats and bats, its wheels bent, its r coach, assured them there was no dians in 1864 and 1865. In 1877, axletrees twisted; a poor, forlorn mVX; danger. They took his word for it 10 years after he had presented his and continued on the stage. claim, and at a time when he was remnant of its former proud and » - glorious self. Ghosts of a bulled f v- “Parker was sitting on the outside 1 badly in debt and in failing health, past now hide in it. Shades of the ■ SS with the driver. The rest were in f congress offered to settle with him occupants it carried once still seem side. The big six-horse Concord for $100,000. Holladay rejected the to linger around it at twilight. mi coach had got into the canyon six or offer, stating that if the United Spectral forms of the road agents eight miles to a place known as Hell’s States was not able to pay its debts who once surrounded it now’ troop Half Acre when the road forked. he would give it his claim. He left around it, perhaps, in the moon There was a high water road above .«j Washington at once and never re beams. ONTANANS who visit the museum of the postoffice de and a summer road beneath it. The k- ir turned. The old brake that so often and partment at Washington are always greatly interested in driver took the lower road. Parker Decline of Stage-Coaching so faithfully checked its down-hill saw the road agents and shouted: M A an old stage-coach that has found its way there, which has More than half a century has pass speed, grating out reassuring ‘Boys, here they are.’ The team /: harsh sounds to the travelers’ ears more historic associations in connection with Montana than any dashed up to the road agents and ed since the last Concord stage-coach when the road was steep and dan other vehicle in existence, and which should never have been al stopped. Parker fired one shot at è on the great Overland route made the gerous, is lient and broken and lowed to leave this state. It is preserved by the postoffice de them and*fell dead. The road agents ifM 1Ü v long trip between the Missouri river useless now. The well-matched poured a volley into the coach, shoot and the Pacific coast. It is 40 years partment as an i..teresting specimen of the Rocky Mountain mail- ■ since the railroad coming in from the horses that pulled it over long, ing both feet off Charlie, the messen I, weary, dusty miles are gone. The coach of the old days to show to future generations the manner ger on the coach, and killed three of tec>«3 south ended stage travel between haughty and self-confident driver in which mails were carried in the Rocky Mountains before the the passengers inside. Salt Lake and Montana. Since those days all manner of small stage lines —where is he? From his nerve first transcontinental railway was completed through this state. “The team by this time had become less hands the lines have long since *■ ». have been operated from point to Among the first vehicles to carry the mails in Montana was unmanageable because of the shoot ■ •n point in Montana where the railroads fallen, and the shrill notes of his ing and started on the run, tearing whistle have died away on the air this old coach, which was built in 1868 by the famous Abbot- did not run, but today these have the tongue out of the wagon. Car s been superseded by the “flivver” of the vanished years. Downing company. It was then used once a week between Hel- penter, who was in the bottom of the - It stands where it has stood stage lines, and today the traveler ena and Bozeman, while now, by railroad, mails are carried over coach with the three dead men on top - through slow seasons, and it has who travels off the railroad in a pub the same route four times a day. The old vehicle had its ups and of him, was unable to move, being lic conveyance does so in an automo fallen into decay and rust. Wind badly wounded. Brown at the first “Bishop” West, Noted Overland downs. While in service carrying mail and passengers, it was Stage Driver, Who Worked in bile, and is no longer pulled by and lain and the heat of many shot leaped from the coach and es Later Years in Montana, Where horses. summer days have frayed its trap captured by the Nez Perces Indians in 1877, and recaptured by caped in the willows. pings and shredded its curtains. Its He Died in the lH)’s. One of the last stage lines to b© General Howard. "The robbers took the gold dust chains, once bright and strong, are operated for any great distance in This coach, in its day, has carried a number of remarkable and the watches and purses of the tarnished with the rust of decades Montana was that between Great river near New York City. and serve now only to bind it to a men as passengers. Among the distinguished persons who have passengers. After they had all the Falls and Lewistown, which contin valuable and were walking away, one soon-to-be-forgotten past. No one ridden in it in Montana are General Garfield, before he became When the Overland line was ex ued to run until the completion of the will ever again hall its coming with of the road agents turned back and tended across the continent Holladay Billings & Northern railroad in 1906. president; General Sherman, while on a tour of inspection in pointed to Carpenter. T don’t be received $1,000,000 a year from the The stages used on that line and all eager, beating heart; none will 1877, and President Arthur, while visiting Montana and the Yel again weep as it rumbles away lieve that-------- is dead,’ he said. government for carrying the mails, of the other later stage lines in Mon with a precious freight of .affection lowstone Park on a tour of recreation in 1883. While “Old Te- ‘He might squeal, so I’ll fix him.’ but this was subsequently reduced— tana, however, were not the old Con and friendship. And yet in the bat cumseh” was its passenger, the coach, drawn by six horses, with He was about to shoot when Carpen nearly cut in half in the course of a cord coaches, but much lighter ve tered relic there stands one of the ter said: ‘Gentlemen, I’m dying. few years. In May, 1864, he was hicles. When the Great Falls-Lewis- the usual relays, made the distance from Fort Ellis, near Boze- Don’t mutilate my face—so my wife facing bankruptcy as a result of the most splendid “has beens’’ of a ro to Helena, 108 miles, in eight hours, an average of 13 1-2 town coach made its last run, long mantic era of western history.

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