Col. John Gibbon's battalion of 207 men of the Montana Column laid over for a day at Fort Ellis near Bozeman after 11 days of slogging through snow and mud from Fort Shaw on the Sun River.
They were bound for the Yellowstone River country to meet up with Gen. Alfred Terry's Dakota Column, which included the 7th Cavalry under Col. George Armstrong Custer, in a campaign against the Sioux.
The infantry in Gibbon's command left Fort Ellis the next day, and Gibbon followed with the rest of the column, now numbering 450 strong, on April 1. Bradley's mounted troops were first to discover the dead under Custer's command on the banks of the Little Big Horn on June 27, two days after they were routed by the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. A letter by Bradley described the scene and was later included in his book, "The March of the Montana Column."
March 23, 1901
Ten horses burned to death in a Saturday night fire at the late Marcus Daly's Bitterroot Stock Farm in Hamilton.
The first blaze in the history of the stables also consumed 50 ton of hay. It was another blow for the operation Daly established in 1887 and produced, among other world-class race horses, Scottish Chieftain, who in 1897 became the only Montana-bred horse to win the Belmont Stakes.
Daly had died the previous November in New York, and his survivors were in the process of dispersing his racing stock when the fire struck.
Barns on the property had been boarded up, noted state veterinarian M.E. Knowles, who visited the farm in the days after the fire.
Knowles told the Helena Record that 200 trotters and 60 thoroughbred yearlings remained. The former "constitute the finest string of harness horses in the country," Knowles said.
As for the thoroughbreds, "I doubt if the yearlings remaining at the farm could be duplicated anywhere in the world," he said. "Many of them are Tammany colts, and they have prospects of perpetuating the name of their famous sire. Forty of the horses still at the farm have already been entered in some of the big races that will be held in the east.
"It is with regret that I see the farm being sold and the stock scattered over the country," Knowles told the Helena paper. "The Marcus Daly farm was without doubt the greatest stock farm in the United States."
March 28, 1901
William Welch, Montana's new state superintendent of schools, was asked to revisit the issue of allowing country school houses to be used for public dances.
"Mr. Welch has already delivered an extensive opinion showing the illegality of allowing rag time melodies to incite the feet of school ma'ams and pupils to riot, but fearing he may have made a mistake has referred the question to attorney general (James) Donovan," a special correspondent in Helena reported in the Daily Missoulian.
Donovan handed the case to his first assistant, a Mr. Moore, to "draw up an exhaustive opinion." Moore had been a country school teacher himself, and the correspondent said, "knowing the lack of amusement in the country districts he may reverse Mr. Welch, unless he finds the weight of authority against the dance."
The reporter further speculated that when Moore turned the report over to Donovan, the attorney general would go along with Moore's ruling.
"It is reported (Donovan) is not averse to the mazy waltz, the enlivening two-step and the exercising polka," he wrote.
Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com.
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