Early History of Treasure County

Prepared by Miss Elizabeth Grierson and Read at Hysham Woman’s Club

Fort Lisa Built at Mouth of Big Horn in 1807
(Published in the Hysham Echo Dec. 10, 1925 & Oct. 4, 2013)

The first record of white men in Treasure county, that I was able to find, is, Saturday, July 6, 1806, when Capt. Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, was on his way home. They camped below the mouth of the Big Horn that night and his diary reads: “Sunday July 27, 1806, I marked my name with red paint on a cotton tree near my camp, and set out in an early hour and proceeded on very well, the river is much wider, from 400 to 600 yards, much divided by islands and sandbars, passed a large dry creek (Elk creek). Halted on entrance of river, on the starboard side, 50 yards with which I named Labeech.”

Elk creek is now Alkali and Labeech is Sarpy. The explanation of the names I found in a newspaper, but from all other reading, Labeech was the Rosebud river, and it was there that Fort Sarpy was located in 1850 and named for a fur-merchant in St. Louis.

In the spring of 1807 Manuel Lisa, Drouillard (a hunter and trapper who had been with Lewis and Clark) and others, left St. Louis in a keel boat to establish a trading-post on the Yellowstone. They met a boat near the mouth of the Platte, with one man in it, who proved to be Coulter. (Coulter a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, had received an honorable discharged Aug. 12, 1806, near the mouth of the Yellowstone, to return up the Missouri with two trappers.) Coulter knew where the beaver-meadows were, and was the man of men, whose services Lisa coveted. Lisa induced Coulter to return with him. The party went up the Missouri and Yellowstone as far as the mouth of the Big Horn. There they built Fort Lisa. This was probably the first permanent building erected within the boundaries of Montana, and surely the first one in Treasure county. They traded with the Crows that winter and returned to St. Louis in the summer of 1908 with a rich stock of furs.

In 1823 William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry established a trading post near the site of old Fort Lisa and were there fourteen months.
In 1832 Tullock built a fort named Van Buren on the south side of the Yellowstone about three miles below the mouth of the Big Horn. It was 15 feet square, picket stockade and although burned, the pickets showed plainly, and several of the chimneys were standing in 1863. From the time that Fort Sarpy was abandoned in 1853, there were no trading posts built on the Yellowstone until 1875.
In the spring of 1875 Major Pease, A. H. Daniels and Paul McCormick of Bozeman had the idea of establishing a trading-post near the mouth of the Big Horn. They started June, 1875, with about twenty-five men and established a fort on the what is now the M. I. Draper ranch in Pease Bottom.

As I gave the Club the story of Fort Pease, not long ago, will only say that for eight months it was one continuous battle with the Sioux for existence. During this time six men were killed and eight wounded. They were rescued March 4, 1876, by Gen. Brisbane with troops from Fort Ellis. The Indians burned the fort that year, and the site is washed into the river. The tree, in the Draper back-yard was planted by Mrs. Draper in one of the rifle pits. She held the tree Mr. William Houx put in the dirt, and T. W. King watched the proceedings.
The advent of the N. P. R. R. surveyors into Bozeman in the early ‘70s brought word of the wealth of the Yellowstone and the establishment of Fort Custer and Fort Keogh in ‘76 gave the settlers protection from the Indians. This news and the fact that steam boats could easily come up the Yellowstone as far as the Big Horn gave some men in Bozeman the idea that there might be a town built at the head of navigation on the Yellowstone that would equal Fort Benton on the Missouri.

In April 1877 Mr. John C. Guy with a partner named Ralston, a Frenchman and Mr. T. W. King left Bozeman with four yoke of oxen, one wagon and supplies for the summer. Mr. King returned to Bozeman from Little Timber, this side of Hunter’s Hot Springs. The rest came on, and reached what is now the John Ebber’s ranch in Pease Bottom about the first of May. That year they raised a crop of Potatoes. Ralston returned to Bozeman, was elected sheriff and killed.

That same year saw Joe Allen and family, George King, William and Gavin Mouatt, John Strauss, Steve Lenneau and Andrew Lindsay settled in the Bottom. They were mostly single men from the Black Hills country. Lindsay, Strauss, Linneau and a Frenchman built a cabin with a stockade around it in the fall of 1877 (on the land that Linnous took up) for the protection of their stock. Some of them went to Fort Custer and cut wood that winter.

When T. W. King came in January 1878, Mrs. J. C. Guy and Mrs. Allen were the only white women. A postoffice, Etchetah, had been established and either Mr. or Mrs. Joe Allen was post-master. The mail came on the stage which ran from Bozeman to Miles City, later the line was extended to Bismarck.
There was a stage station in Froze-To-Death in 1877 run by Frank Taylor or George Hyde, and a wood-yard for the steam boats run by Bill Roach.

I would like to say here that we should try to keep the old name Froze-to-Death as the Indians, had named it long before the white man came. The story told me by an old, old man, who said an old Indian told him, that he (the Indian) had heard it when he was young, from an old Indian, was: That the Indians had swum their horses across the creek when a blizzard came up and many horses froze to death. The other stories are, that the Crows corralled two Sioux in the creek and kept them until they froze to death; and that a hail storm drove their ponies into the river and they froze to death. The name Mission has no significance as there was never a mission there, and so far as I know, not even a religious service. The men that wanted to sell land changed it from Froze-To-Death to Mission.

The only trouble the settlers had with the Indians was that they some times stole their horses.
In the Spring of 1878 Mr. Joseph Isaac came to the Bottom from Fort Custer and built a cabin. He then went back for Mrs. Isaac and the two children. She came in June, and when crossing Alkali the team balked and the wagon box began to float, and a part of their load got wet. Mrs. Isaac made the third white woman and Mrs. Robert Lyns came soon afterward. The Isaacs brought their supplies with them, as the nearest store was in Miles City. It was only through the kindness of the officer at the Fort that they were able to get their supplies there, as the government did not sell civilians. (Mr. Isaac had been a soldier.)

1878 and 1879 saw many discharged soldiers from Fort Custer became settlers, among them were Mr. and Mrs. Charles Young. Mr. and Mrs. Young John Shields Mr. and Mrs. M. O’Brien, Mr. Webb, Mr. Dorsey, Mr. Joosten and Mr. McKeen. (Mr. H. Heynemann did not come until later as he was discharged at Fort Ellis and took up land near Bozeman before he came to the Bottom.

No doubt you are wondering what inducements there were for settling here when we know there was no town built. The valley was level and soil rich. The first few years were set so large crops of oats were grown, which were sold at high prices to Forts Custer and Keogh. Any vegetables grown were readily disposed of at almost any figure. You know our growing season is longer than in the western part of the state so it seemed a farmer’s paradise. In 1879 the following crops of oats were grown; J. C. Guy and son 4000 bushels on 90 acres; Tim Cotter 200 bushels; Nichols and Nortman 700 bushels on 25 acres and S. Lenneau 400 bushel on 12 acres.

The first houses were built of logs with dirt roofs and no floor but the ground. At first the grass grew around the table legs, etc. and an old friend told me of cutting down the grass with a hoe. She took it to the door to throw it out and there stood a big buffalo. She was very much frightened, but the buffalo was frightened too, as he ran away. The furniture was home made and very little of it. There was a port hole on each side of the house and at night the door was closed with a heavy wooden bar on the inside. A dirt roof makes a house warm in winter and cool in summer but when it rains it is sure to leak. The only dry place was under the ridge log and the table was usually put there. Print this post