History of those who made it

              [ga, sugar--am.r-so Oil. Wllen rue:­Q,
uffalo were thinning out we had!,
se.veral meeting-s to decide on what~
to do next. \-\Te realized t.hat wei
could not liye on hUlltin~ forever.l
One ,l:;eneral meeting W<lS called
and it· was decidecl to settle penna-nently
some,,'here. ' i
"In 1878 I remember my father-!
in·law, old Pierre Berger, decided i
to'''Cross the :i\Iissouri. He told his'
sons he had heard of a place that
he !;>elieved would be suitable for;
all, Mr, Berger was a man weli i
known to the Indians who both
fear8l1 allllrespected him. He had
figurec[ in many Indian fights, espe- ,
cially with the! Sionx. The Indians
called him Chat·Ea whidt means
'left handed.' lIe always acted as
chief guide. As 1 was the oldest of
his daughters-in-law. I ,\'as asked if
I wanted to go along and s\')ttle
wit.l~ the others. 1 could not. make
liP my mind to llo at. onee, as I
had nlway:; rcganJ<)d l\1iuJI(,'lola as
'my hOllie slate and' nalul'ally waJlt­cd
lo ,go, back therE'. but they final­iy
gal my consent lo travel furthet'
west in the ,,'inter of 1879. SlJ
in lhe spring oJ: that year a band
of 25 families, headed by old Pierre
Berger, started from Malta and
went on to Fort Benton, where we
crossed t.he Missouri and camC' on
down to A1TO\\' Creek Vve had
never seen such bad lands before
but :;omehow we got through and
on around the mountains to Box
JYldet· and the Musselshell region
and around the Snowy nlount.ains.
\Ve came in by the 'Gap' to what is
now the Judith Basin.' It was in­deed
a pradise in t.hat early day,
a land of plenty, witlt game of all
kind:; iJl abundance. "Ve coulll
hardly have asked for more than
nature had provided us here and
so in the montll OL ~Tay, 1879 we
settled at 'Reedsfort.' The only
white man we fouiHl ,,'as called:
'Booze' (Bowles?) who was mar­ried
to a Piegan Indian woman. \
He ran some kind of a trading post
sit.uated near t:le present site of,
tha COUll ty farm_.__ 'I
"Of the 2[) families that. came ill \
with this company t.here were, as
I recall, some of the Bergers, \
Klines, IJaFountains, Doneys, Fi-\
ants, and vVilldes. The Doneys aud
Fiants Sttlled around Fort Magin-!
nis in the early '80's. The Bergers '
settled on Halt' Breed creek and I
Boyd creek and Ben Kline settled I
on Half Breek creek. Til t.he fall,
of 1879 the lIext eontingent of our
peoille came in, including the Ja­neaux.
Morase. La"e~·c1ure. "Vells, I
Daniels, ancl LaTray families, in-j
eluding' old Mose La-Tray, who I
helped to build the original! old log I
,
HISTORY BY THOSE WH-O
MADE IT
A link with the Imst was brollen
indeed with the death of Ben Kline
last week, said Mrs. Isaie Berger,
generally known liS "Aunt Clem·
ence," residing at 103 East Boule·
vanl when she listened to the re<ld­ing
of the tributes llll;d the old
pioneer. ,Old Ben w'as ever a Idnd
friend and neighbor of hers since
childhood and his passing bringing
back the memory of the old days
she' said:
"While we roamed the prairies of­western
Minnesota and eastern
,North Dakota we were always in
the same company of people of part
Indian blood. Vve traveled in many
groups, but so far back as I can
remember Old Ben always traveled
with PierJ'e Berger <lllli his f<lInily
of 13 children. Of these Peter
Berger was the oldest and he never
m'anied; Isaie Berger, my hus­band;
Isadore, John B., Jac!" Bar­ney,
who resides at Belcourt, North
Dakota; while of .the daugh,ters,
o.nly Mr.s. Art McCarthy now lives
in Lew'istown. 'We left Dalwta
shortly after I was married in 1870
and we roamed all over North Da­kot.
a. just. camping here and there
but without tliought of settling per­llHIlIC'ntly
in al~y place-just follow·
ing tite bdfalo trails, coming in
from Ute Canarlian lines around the
cOllntry called "Vood mountains
and from thence on to l\lilk Riyer,
on Ow' bil!; 'Horse Shoe' as we lIsed
to call it. That is whero Malla
now :;tanu:;. vVe wC"e as far noil1tl
as CYllre:;' lIill:; in Cmmda. How"
ever, we maue our headquarters at
the prer:;ent site of Malla. From
there we x:oa,med on. o'ut alL over
the east.ern part. of Montana, but
al,,'ayl; C<lme back to Malt.a.
"Yuu may thiuk we lived the lIre
of real Indians, but one thing we
had with us alw<lYs that they did
l}.ot-religion, Wherever we were
we had sOlUe .Jesuit l1lis:;iollaries
willi us. 'l'hey baptized our chil­dron
amI in:;trueted them in the
Catholic faith. Arm we always did
tl~Y to live in accordance with their
teachings. In fact, in those earlicr
d3YS I believe peoiJle gell'erally
Vi'ere more deeply religiou:; than
now, Every night we had prayer
ll1cetil;g <lnd bdore .1 buffalu l1nli i.
you would see our men on bended
k\leeS in prayer. 'Ve endured many
hardships-yes. There were times
when We eOllld lIOt find any !;>uf·
f[\lo or oll~er, kinc1 o[ game, and OC,
casionally even water was hal'll to
find. Yet' sOI:nehow we were all
happy. Om·',men did all the hunt·
hig and ,,'e women did all the tan·
ning of the bu'ffalo robes, drying
meat and maldng moce-asins. For
oth3r supplies we generally had
some traders with us like Francis
.Janeanx, who always had a supply
o,f clothing, along with Jobacco,
-_.- - ------ - - _.._--- .-,-
postoffice that still stands out in
the city park. The, following-year
;\-nt.oine Oulette 'and family'- came
111.
Janeaux, Morase and Oulette
took up'their homesteads in what
is no,,· Lewistown. It was Mr.
Oulotte who donated, a piece 'of
land for, a, site for the original
Cat.holie cemetery here: .His daugh­,
t.er, ,Mrs. James, Wells, was the
first to be buried ,there. ' ,
. "Little did we think thEm that
one day we woul~ behold a. .beauU;
fnl little city' grow ,up here. We
have seen many" changes and de­velopments
and~ new mearrs - of
t.ransportation inaugurated to 'bring
in supplies. ' ,
"Our means' of transportation In
those old days were the Red river
carts and bull teams. Then' came
the Jaw Bone railroad the l\Illwau~
kee, ' followed ',by ilUt~mobiles and
the l;Jirds of' the air."
\" '.
, , f
,'.~Of t.he 25, families who, }Jlade
; that original settlement' in', the
: BasiiJ, 'Oilly three su:rvlve. ,They
l are Mrs. Betsy Berg-er, .'wife' of,the
i1ate J;, n.:Bergel'; !"Irs. Art;-,-iYlc~I'
I,Carthy and myself." . ,' '._......,.',- 'I
I 'Bolemon 1?~SS Wl\S born lie::,r wh-atJ
1
i
is now Devil sLake. N. D. III 1854.
IHe came to Montana and up the riv­leI'
to Ft. Benton at the age of 11. A
i few years after arriving in the terri-tory
he moved t.o what is now L<cwis­town
and has made his home here al­most
continuously since. I Beside hi" widow. Mrs. Mary Dess
:he is survived by five children. three
boys and two girls. They are James,
'j\lt,ert_ LPo. Madeline ann Josephine,
all residents of this vicinity. One
son, Joe. died here a year ago an.d
two other children preceded thelr
faLller in death by several years.