Attorney, Montpelier Mayor, and U. S. Congressman Thomas Glenn [otd 02/02]

Congressman Glenn.
H. T. French photo.

U. S. Congressman Thomas L. Glenn was born February 2, 1847 near Bardwell, Kentucky, in the extreme southwest corner of the state. His father died two years later. The family moved first to Indiana and then to Illinois, ending in Cairo, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

When the Civil War began, Thomas clamored for a chance to fight, despite his youth. (Like many Kentuckians, he supported the Confederacy.) Then, in 1862, his mother died, leaving him an orphan. So he joined the Second Kentucky Cavalry – famous as “Morgan’s Raiders.” However, in June 1864, he was severely wounded in a battle in north-central Kentucky. Captured by Union forces, he was paroled three months later.

After the war, Glenn studied at a couple of small local colleges and read law diligently. By around 1880, he had qualified for the Kentucky bar, and voters elected him to the state Senate in 1887.

In 1890, he moved his family to Montpelier, Idaho and opened a law practice. In August, 1897, he had a brief encounter with a bit of local notoriety. Bob Meeks, an accomplice with Butch Cassidy in the 1896 Montpelier bank robbery [blog, Aug 13], had been captured and brought to trial. After the trial started, Meeks had a falling out with his first attorney, so the judge appointed Glenn and another man to represent him. But when the new attorneys asked for more time to get familiar with the case, the judged threatened to replace them. As could be expected, Meeks was convicted.

Glenn also participated in local and state politics, usually with the Democratic party. However, in 1898, Democrats formed a "fusion" slate with the Silver-Republicans. For whatever reason, Thomas ran instead as a Populist for the position of state Attorney General. He was defeated, as the Fusion ticket swept every state office.

Two years later, the Populist party selected Glenn as their nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives (Idaho Register, Idaho Falls, July 27, 1900). About a month later, Democrats and Silver Republicans settled their differences enough to re-form a Fusion alliance. They then also selected Glenn as their nominee for U. S. Representative.

This action pained some Populist Party members, so the election was very close: Glenn won by just over twelve hundred votes out of nearly 55 thousand cast. Records of the U. S. Congress do identify Glenn as a member of  the Populist Party.

He is credited with helping Nevada Congressman Francis G. Newlands pass the Newlands Reclamation Act. Under authorization of the Act, the Secretary of the Interior organized the Reclamation Service, which became the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) in 1923. The USBR ultimately built a vast array of irrigation, flood control, and hydropower projects all across the West.

Panama Canal construction, 1907. Library of Congress.

That session of Congress authorized the president – Teddy Roosevelt – to purchase land for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and to treat with the Panamanian government to obtain clear title to the property. Congress also passed a bill to tax colored oleomargarine, which might be mistaken for butter, at 10¢ a pound (equivalent to about $2.60 today). They taxed uncolored margarine at just 1/4¢ per pound.

Glenn did not run for re-election to Congress, but served a term as mayor of Montpelier in 1904. After a stint as a prosecuting attorney, he resumed his private practice before passing away in November 1918.
                                                                                 

Reference]: [French], [Hawley]

“Brief History of the Bureau of Reclamation,” History Program, Bureau of Reclamation, U. S. Department of the Interior (July 2000).

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, online.

“Fighting For Man’s Freedom,” Idaho Statesman, Boise (April 16, 1901).

Arthur Hart, “Bob Meeks: The Rest of the Story,” The Idaho Statesman, Boise (February 21, 2006).

“Record of This Congress,” The New York Times (June 29, 1902).

Right Reverend Alphonsus Glorieux, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise [otd 02/01]

Bishop Glorieux. H. T. French photo.

The first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise, the Right Reverend Alphonsus Joseph Glorieux was born February 1, 1844, in Belgium. After college, he went to seminary at the American College at Louvain, just east of Brussels. He graduated from there in 1867, and was ordained and sent to Roseburg, Oregon.

After four years at various posts, Glorieux was appointed President of St. Michael's College in Portland, Oregon. Then, in 1884, Catholic authorities made him Vicar Apostolic of Idaho. The following spring, Glorieux traveled to Baltimore, Maryland, where he was consecrated as “Titular Bishop of Apollonia.” (Such designations are used to confer Bishopic status on the leader of an area where there is no formal diocese.)

Glorieux arrived in Boise in June, 1885. The new bishop had to stay in a private home, because the church had no suitable resident hall in the city. A few days later Glorieux headed off to visit every town and hamlet in the Territory.

The new Bishop found that the number of parishioners had dwindled to around 2,500, scattered among ten churches. There was only one Catholic school, and no hospital. The various flocks were served by just six clergymen and fourteen Sisters. A go-getter of epic dedication, Bishop Glorieux set out to change that. Before the year was out, he fostered a new church in Shoshone.

In 1886, he had a new structure built in Boise where he and other priests could live, and could accommodate visiting clergy. That same year, Glorieux dedicated two new churches. The following year, he had the Boise church enlarged and built the first Catholic church in Pocatello. No new structures went up in 1888, but the next year saw: a new parish hall and a school in Boise, plus new churches in Genesee and Bellevue. Even more came in 1890, with five new churches dedicated.

Early the following year, news reached Glorieux that his mother was seriously ill. Fearing the worst, she wanted to see her only son. Alphonsus Joseph rushed back to Belgium, but, sadly, his mother passed away several days before he got there. Afterwards, Glorieux visited Rome, where he had a private audience with the Pope. He then made a Grand European Tour before returning to Boise on October.

In 1892, Catholics built a larger school academy in Boise, three more churches around the state, a school in Pocatello, and a hospital in Wallace. In August 1893, in recognition of all that growth, Pope Leo XIII created the “Diocese of Boise,” with responsibility for the entire state of Idaho. He appointed Glorieux as its first Bishop.

St. Alphonsus Hospital. Library of Congress.

The Right Reverend did not rest on his laurels, however. For each of the next six years, he dedicated at least one or two, and once three, new churches around the state. Growth slowed somewhat in the new century, but did include construction of the St. Alphonsus Hospital in Boise.

By 1914, when H. T. French published his History, Glorieux’s diocese included seventy churches, fourteen Catholic schools, and three hospitals. The number of clergy and Sisters had grown proportionately. At that time, services were being held in the basement of the new Cathedral of St. John being built in Boise.

Bishop Glorieux had laid the cornerstone for that structure in 1906 [blog, November 11]. Unfortunately, he died in August 1917, four year before the cathedral was completed and dedicated.
                                                                                 

References: [French], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

Attorney and Teton Valley Developer Benjamin Driggs [otd 01/31]

Benjamin, Senior.
Driggs Family Archives.

Teton Valley pioneer and attorney Benjamin W. Driggs, Jr., was born January 31, 1858 in Pleasant Grove, Utah, about ten miles north of Provo. His father had been among early converts to the LDS church, suffered through the expulsion from Nauvoo, and trekked to Utah in 1852. Besides owning and, sometimes, operating a store in Pleasant Grove, the senior Driggs guided, did blacksmith work, and fought Ute Indians in central and southern Utah

Benjamin, Jr. had a bevy of siblings since his father, per then-current Mormon doctrine, had more than one wife. (He later served six months in prison for this practice.) On his own, Benjamin Jr. gathered the wherewithal to study at the University of Utah and Brigham Young College (now University). He then attended the University of Michigan Law School.

After graduating in 1886, he practiced law in Provo for two years before moving to Salt Lake City. He would remain in practice there for about fifteen years.

Benjamin also became interested in locating range suitable for stock raising. With much of northern Utah and southeast Idaho already claimed for farm and ranch settlements, he looked further north. In the spring of 1888, he responded to favorable reports about the Teton Valley by inspecting the area himself. Settlers closer to the river advised them to avoid the valley because it was known as “a rendezvous for horse thieves and outlaws.”

Colonists would later learn that the warning had some merit, but it did not deter them. Ben persuaded his younger brother Don, who was not yet married, to start cutting and hauling logs to a site that looked promising for a town.

By the end of 1889, the Valley contained a small colony of Mormon pioneers, including several Driggs family members. Benjamin himself took up a homestead and built a cabin, even though for many years he only spent part of the summer in the Valley. For a time, the structure served as the area’s only mercantile store.

In 1891, he processed a petition to acquire a post office for the new settlement. Because so many names on the petition were Driggs – three brothers and a cousin, along with Benjamin – that name was assigned to the new office. Brother Don became the first postmaster. A decade later, the local Mormons had established the Driggs Ward, with a school and meeting hall, as part of the Teton Stake.

Driggs, ca 1918. J. H. Hawley photo.

By then, Benjamin was spending more and more time in the Valley. He moved his family and law practice there in 1903-1905. As de facto village attorney for Driggs, in 1910 he handled the incorporation paperwork for the town.

Soon, the railroad arrived in the village, and it mushroomed: from a population of around 200 in 1910 to about 1,500 eight years later. Besides his law practice, Driggs owned a farm about four miles out of town, where he had a dairy operation. He also invested in city real estate and had an interest in a mining company. (Idaho Statesman, August 30, 1912).

When the legislature established Teton County in 1915, Driggs became the county seat and Benjamin was elected as the first county Prosecuting Attorney. He was re-elected to that position in 1922. In 1926, Caxton Printers, of Caldwell, published the first edition of Benjamin’s History of Teton Valley, Idaho. He passed away in July 1930.
                                                                                 

References: [Hawley]

B. W. Driggs, History of Teton Valley, Idaho, Louis. I. Clements and Harold S. Forbush (Eds.), Eastern Idaho Publishing Company, Rexburg (1970)

“Benjamin W. Driggs Answers Last Call,” Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah (Oct. 2, 1913).

Frontier Missionary and Peacemaker Father Pierre-Jean de Smet [otd 01/30]

Father De Smet, 1860-65.
Library of Congress,
Brady-Handy Photograph Collection.

Roman Catholic priest Pierre-Jean de Smet was born in Belgium on January 30, 1801. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1821 and trained as a Roman Catholic missionary with the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. His first missionary work to the Indians was among the tribes along the lower Missouri.

In 1840, Father de Smet joined a party of American Fur Company traders headed for a mountain man rendezvous on the Green River in Wyoming (the last such gathering, as it turned out). From there, some Flathead Indians led him to a large Indian encampment at Pierre’s Hole (today’s Teton Valley, Idaho). There, Flathead, Pend Oreille, and Nez Perce tribesmen responded enthusiastically to his preaching and instruction. Later, he preached to attentive audiences near Three Forks, in Montana.

Encouraged, de Smet returned with a group the following year.  On that trip, the Bartelson-Bidwell emigrant party accompanied de Smet’s missionaries as far as Soda Springs [blog, Aug 8]. The Bidwell expedition was the first company of Americans to emigrate to California by wagon train.

Father de Smet’s group reached Fort Hall after nearly four months on the trail. Glad of the respite, de Smet stopped to rest and repair equipment. The factor even sold him supplies at bargain prices, a major concession since everything had to be laboriously packed in from their base on the Pacific Coast.

After a few days, they continued into Montana. There, the Catholics built St. Mary’s Mission, 25-30 miles south of today’s Missoula. That fall, Father de Smet traveled even further west at the invitation of Dr. John McLoughlin, Chief Factor of the Columbia Division of the Hudson’s Bay Company [blog, Oct 19].

Kalispel teepee and canoe on the Pend Oreille, ca. 1860.
Bonner County Historical Society.

On his way to Fort Colville, Father de Smet encountered a band of Kalispel Indians. Though lacking in height, the good Father possessed an impressive physical presence and abundant charisma. His three-day sojourn planted more seeds. Word of the “Black Robe’s” mission quickly spread among the tribes of North Idaho.

When he returned in the spring, he met with more Kalispels, as well as Indians from the Kootenai and Coeur d’Alene tribes.

Fulfilling a promise made by Father de Smet during those meetings, Father Nicholas Point and Brother Charles Huet soon came among the Couer d’Alenes to build a mission church. Their choice of location proved inauspicious: floods inundated the site in the spring. Father de Smet selected a new location about 8 miles west of the later town of Kellogg.

Sacred Heart Mission church, Cataldo, Idaho, 1957.
Library of Congress.

The Mission of the Sacred Heart was moved to near today's Cataldo, in 1846. Four years later, Father Anthony Ravalli arrived to design and build a new church for the mission.

Constructed with simple hand tools, the timber-frame structure contained no nails and took three years to complete. It is the oldest building in the state. (Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, it was among the sites automatically included when the National Register of Historic Places was created in 1966.)

Father de Smet spent the rest of his life striving, with little long-term success, to maintain peace between whites and the tribes of the Northern Plains. For his day, de Smet traveled an incredible amount: The equivalent of over seven times around the Earth, soliciting funds and new recruits. He passed away in St. Louis, in May 1873.
                                                                                 

References: [Brit] [Hawley]

Robert C. Carriker, Father Peter John De Smet: Jesuit in the West, University of Oklahoma Press (September 1998).

Entrepreneur, Fur Trader, and Fort Hall Founder Nathaniel Wyeth [otd 01/29]

Nathaniel Wyeth, 1840.
Illustration for Harper's Magazine, 1892.

Entrepreneur Nathaniel J. Wyeth was born January 29, 1802, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Despite strong ties to Harvard University on both sides of the family, the young Wyeth chose to go directly into business rather than attend college. He was highly successful in the ice trade, rising to a general manager’s position.

However, pamphleteering by advocate Hall J. Kelley convinced Wyeth that he could make his own fortune by exploiting opportunities in the “Oregon Country.” (That region included today's Pacific Northwest, plus portions of British Columbia.) In early 1832, Wyeth organized a venture to pursue fur trading and trapping in the Rocky Mountains.

Unfortunately, the men he recruited in New England proved unsuitable, and six deserted even before Wyeth’s party started west from Missouri. Then, when they reached the trapper rendezvous, seven more men refused to continue with the expedition.

Wyeth’s party also had the bad luck to observe one of the most intense conflicts ever reported between trappers and hostile “Blackfeet” (actually Gros Ventre) Indians: the Battle of Pierre’s Hole [blog, July 18]. After visiting the Hostile’s redoubt the next day, Wyeth wrote, “It was a sickening scene of confusion and Blood[s]head. One of our men who was killed inside their fort we found mutilated in a shocking manner.”

Wyeth himself took some minor part in the battle, but his party of “Yankees” did not. Thus, his statement about “our men” was a sort of “editorial” license. His men did care for several wounded, one of whom died in their camp.

Wyeth was hard-working and conscientious, but in the end his lack of Western experience – and further bad luck – ruined this first expedition. The final, crushing blow came when the supply ship that was supposed to meet them on the coast struck a reef in the Society Islands and sank.

Still sure there was profit to be had in the fur trade, Wyeth put together another attempt in 1834. This time he also transported supplies west to be sold, under contract, to another trapping company.

As recounted in my December 20 blog about Trapper Osborne Russell, Wyeth’s customer reneged on the  contract. Undeterred, he then built Old Fort Hall, in Idaho, to sell his supplies directly to the trappers and Indians.

Still, this venture also failed, largely because more-established competitors, the British-Canadian Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in particular, had a strangle-hold on the business. Within a couple years, Wyeth sold his Fort to the HBC.

Fort Hall, ca 1849. Library of Congress.

For the next 20 years, Old Fort Hall was the most important Euro-American trading post in Idaho. Tens of thousands of Oregon Trail pioneers passed by the Fort on their way to the Pacific Coast.

In 1845, the Joel Palmer party [blog, August 23] passed by. Palmer observed, “The bottoms here are wide, and covered with grass. There is an abundance of wood for fuel, fencing, and other purposes. No attempt has, as yet, been made to cultivate the soil. I think the drought too great; but if irrigation were resorted to, I doubt not it would produce some kinds of grain, such as wheat, corn, potatoes, &c.”

Wyeth returned to the ice trade, paid off his considerable debts, and eventually went into business for himself. He left a substantial fortune when he passed away in August 1856. (Ironically, about the time Old Fort Hall was finally abandoned.)
                                                                                 

References: [B&W]

H. M. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1986)

Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Don Johnson (ed.), The Journals of Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth's Expeditions to the Oregon Country 1831-1836, Ye Galleon Press, Fairfield, Washington (1984).

Joel Palmer, Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, 1845-1846, reprinted, Reuben Gold Thwaites (ed)., in Early Western Travels, Vol.  XXX, Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland (1906).

William A. Foster, Boise Fireman and Long-Time Fire Chief [otd 01/28]

Chief Foster.
Boise Fire Department.

Boise Fire Chief William A. Foster was born on January 28, 1870, in Grinnell, Iowa. The family relocated to the high plains of northwestern Kansas when William was about fifteen years old. Then, in 1890, he moved to Idaho. He worked as a teamster hauling lumber for a time and then went into the freight business for himself.

After that, Foster spent five years representing a lumber company before moving out of state for a couple years. He returned to Boise in 1899-1900.

For awhile after 1894, Foster had served as a member of the Boise City volunteer fire brigade. That organization had been formed in 1876, although records also point to an earlier volunteer unit. He returned to that duty after his brief hiatus out of state.

In late 1901, the city decided to fund a fully paid Fire Department. The new Department took over the following summer [blog, June 2]. It started with part-time leadership, a core of firemen, and a body of firefighters who were paid by the calls they answered. Early accounts state that Foster became part of the new, professional Department in 1903. That was the same year the Department got a full-time Chief.

Foster advanced steadily through the ranks, learning new skills as the department upgraded its equipment. Aside from the normal increases in population, and city acreage, these improvements were required because Boise was also growing UP – with its first “skyscraper” (six stories) in 1910 [blog, Jan 9]. In 1912, Foster was promoted to Assistant Chief.

The Department added more equipment over the next several years, and motorized some of the horse-drawn rigs. Foster was promoted to the Chief’s position in 1917. Within a couple years or so, the Department employed nearly forty men, serving in four fire stations scattered throughout the city.

Chief’s car, 1912. Foster on left – then Assistant Chief.
Boise State University.

Idaho was then much more of a "farm state" than it is even today. Unfortunately, America's agricultural economy suffered greatly for many years after World War I. (Much of the problem is blamed on excessive expansion to meet demand during World War I.) Naturally, Boise felt the pain along with the state. That had hardly eased when the Great Depression began.

As a result, Foster presided over a period when budgets were especially tight. To lighten the burden on his crews, he advocated preventative measures, such as clearing over-grown lots and prohibiting wooden shingles in new construction. Little came of that, plus the city was slow to replace worn out and antiquated equipment. After some upgrades in 1924, the council did not fund another major need, a new pumper, until 1927. Another four years passed before two badly-needed fire trucks were purchased.

When the Great Depression hit, firefighters had to accept pay cuts, and crew numbers were pared to the bone. Thus, from 1926 until 1939, the Boise Fire Department went from 33 men (including officers) to 37 … an increase of just 12%. During the same period, Boise’s population rose by nearly 22%.

During the Thirties, the city began to give more attention to fire prevention. The Department was authorized to provide educational programs and sent fire inspectors out to advise property owners about particular problem spots. In 1938, the city created a formal office of Fire Inspector.

Chief Foster led the Department through all these profound changes until his retirement in 1939. He passed away in March 1958.
                                                                                 

References: [Hawley]

“[Chief Foster News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise, Idaho (April 25, 1920 – December 3, 1939).

“The Department’s History,” Boise Fire Department, CityofBoise.org (1999-2010).

“Foster 60th Anniversary,” Idaho Statesman (Oct 2, 1952).

Arthur Hart, Fighting Fire on the Frontier, Boise Fire Department Association (1976).

Educator, Attorney, and Supreme Court Justice John Rice [otd 01/27]

Judge Rice.
John Campbell Rice Foundation photo.

January 27, 1864, Idaho Supreme Court Justice John Campbell Rice was born on a farm in Cass County, Illinois, about thirty miles west of Springfield. After high school, he attended Illinois College, in Jacksonville (not far south of where Rice was born). He graduated in 1885 and began teaching mathematics at the college.

Three years later, he enrolled in law school, first at Michigan State University and then Cornell University. He received his law degree from Cornell in 1890.

John T. Morrison, a fellow student at Cornell, had previously met Presbyterian minister William Judson Boone. Boone moved to Caldwell, Idaho in 1887, and Morrison followed him there during the summer of 1890.

John Rice joined Morrison in Caldwell that fall, and they became partners in a law practice. When Boone founded the College of Idaho [blog, Nov 5], the partners both served as instructors there for two years. Rice taught Greek and mathematics, and later, economics.

Some years later, they found themselves in an odd position. The legislature upgraded Caldwell from “town” to “city” status. But the old town Board of Trustees successfully challenged the designation, and the election of a Mayor and City Council. John Morrison, the newly appointed City Attorney, was also a town Trustee and recused himself when the new Council appealed the District Court ruling. So the Council hired Rice, who won the appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court. (Idaho Statesman, June 25, 1897).

In 1897, Rice was elected to the Idaho House of Representatives. During his term he served as chairman of the judiciary committee. That legislature passed an Act to authorize the creation of a state Board of Arbitration to handle labor disputes. Another Act provided for the creation of irrigation districts to regularize the allotment of water rights.

After that, he was elected to the Caldwell city council, and served as mayor in 1902. His time as mayor corresponded roughly to the period when he relinquished the presidency of the Commercial Bank of Caldwell. Rice, along with several partners, including Albert K. Steunenberg [blog, Sept 11], had founded the bank in 1895. He resumed the presidency in 1907 and continued in that position until at least 1920.

He had other active business connections in Caldwell and around the state. Besides holdings in western Idaho, he helped organize the First National Bank of Saint Anthony, all the way across the state.

College of Idaho campus, ca. 1900. College of Idaho.

Rice also continued his involvement with the College of Idaho, although he no longer taught there. He had been among the principals when the College was incorporated in 1893 as a legal entity, separate from the Presbyterian Church. Rice remained a Trustee of the College through its darkest days in the Great Depression. (He was, in fact, chairman of the Board of Trustees when he died.)

Rice was first elected to the Idaho Supreme Court in 1916, and remained there until 1923. He thus served through the turmoil related to World War I, and the implementation of national Prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment. He was also there when voters amended the state constitution to expand the Supreme Court from three members to five.

After another period in private practice, he was appointed to be a district court judge, a position he held when he passed away in November 1937.
                                                                                 

References: [French], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

Louie W. Attebery, The College of Idaho, 1891-1991: A Centennial History. © The College of Idaho, Caldwell (1991).

“John T. Morrison,” Reference Series No. 404, Idaho State Historical Society (September 1996).

"Necrology: John Campbell Rice,” Cornell Alumni News, Ithaca, New York (December 16, 1937).