Boise Watchmaker, Optician, and Inventor James T. Laughlin [otd 02/05]

Boise jewelry store owner, and inventor, James Thomas Laughlin was born February 5, 1863 on a farm about forty miles southeast of Canton, Ohio. While James was still very young, the family moved to a farm in western Illinois. They moved again in 1870-71 to a farm in western Iowa, about twenty miles from Omaha, Nebraska.

James Laughlin. [Hawley]

James worked for his father until about 1884, when he landed a job at a jewelry store in a small town about fifteen miles north of the family farm.

Back then, jewelry itself was only a sideline in many jewelry stores. They mainly sold silverware, fine china and glassware, and especially clocks and watches. For many, their best profits came from selling, adjusting, and repairing timepieces. Laughlin acquired a fascination with watches.

After two year at that store, James moved to a jewelry firm in Omaha for about six months. Then he went to work for the Waltham Watch Company, in Massachusetts. At that time Waltham and the Elgin National Watch Company dominated the industry, surpassing even Swiss watchmakers in quality and accuracy. They had gained a substantial advantage through the use of mass-produced parts that were (mostly) interchangeable.

Laughlin spent eight years “finishing and adjusting” watches for Waltham. At that time, each watch required crucial fine-tuning – by hand – to attain the needed accuracy and precision. (A half century would pass before the industry achieved true interchangeability.)

James eventually decided to go off on his own. He chose to do so in Idaho, where his brother Harvey had been working in Rocky Bar for a time. An announcement in the Idaho Statesmen said the brothers planned to open a jewelry and optical shop in downtown Boise.

Harvey helped get the business on its feet, then left in 1898 to join the Klondike gold rush. For the next five or six years, James ran a fairly conventional jewelry store, offering fancy silver and glassware, fine China, jewelry (rings, broaches and the like), and, of course, watch sales and repair.

However, some time during his tenure in Waltham, James had also added lens grinding to his skill set. By around the summer of 1907, he had an active sideline fitting “spectacle and eye-glass mountings so they will stay on and be comfortable.”

Eyeglasses without temples – the pince nez style – had come back into favor toward the turn of the century. Their popularity surely got a boost because President Theodore Roosevelt wore a set. But Laughlin disliked the designs then in use and began devising his own. In 1910, he received a patent for an eyeglass mounting that used spring wire to grip the nose “thereby eliminating the use of screws.”

Eyeglass Mounting. Patent Diagram.

He immediately began advertising the comfort and simplicity of his “ITFITS” design, which was “almost invisible.” Two years later, Laughlin filed on yet more improvements, although the patent was not granted until late 1915.

That proved good enough for awhile, but in the fall of 1923 he filed on a mounting that was designed for better lens positioning and to “simplify manufacture” of the eyeglasses. While he waited for a decision, he began advertising a “going out of business sale” in Boise. By the time the patent was issued in the spring of 1925, Laughlin had opened a store in Santa Barbara, California.

Over sixty years old when he moved, he perhaps sought a warmer climate. Laughlin remained active in the Santa Barbara jewelry business until his death in the fall of 1933
                                                                                 

References: [Hawley]

Amy K. Glasmeier, Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the Watch Industry, The Guilford Press, New York (2000).

Dora J. Hamblin, “What a Spectacle! Eyeglasses and How they Evolved,” Smithsonian Magazine, Washington, D.C. (March 1983).

James T. Laughlin, Eyeglass-Mounting, Patent Nos. 957,071; 1,161,699; 1,532,323; U. S. Patent Office, Washington, D. C. (Issued May 3, 1910; November 23, 1915; April 7, 1925).

“[James Laughlin News],” Idaho Statesman, Boise; Los Angeles Times, California (July 1895 – June 1925).

Two Sheepmen Shot to Death, Could Spark Range War [otd 02/04]

On the morning of February 4, 1896, two riders guided their horses along a rough track through the scrub-covered foothills of south-central Idaho. James E. Bower, a superintendent for the Sparks-Harrell Cattle Company, had headed south from Rock Creek after breakfast. He was in no particular hurry and, after about a half hour, cowboy Jeff Gray had overtaken him. Not long after they joined up, they glimpsed another horseman galloping far ahead of them along the stony road.

Sheep camp. Library of Congress.

Bower thought the rider might be a cattleman suspected of being in cahoots with encroaching sheep raisers. Gray agreed that it might be.

The two followed the horseman south until his tracks disappeared from the winding path. Further along, the cattlemen topped a rise and saw two sheep camps in the distance. One looked empty, but the other showed some activity. Its location along Deep Creek, about 26 miles south of the near-future town of Twin Falls, was well west of the "deadline," the informal boundary between sheep and cattle range.

Bower and Gray rode up to the camp not long before noon and dismounted about ten yards from the wagon. A sheepman stuck his head out. He and a partner inside were just preparing lunch. The sheepmen seemed friendly enough and apparently invited the cattlemen inside for a cup of coffee.

However, Bower had lived in the area for a quarter century; the two young sheepmen were strangers. That meant they might be interlopers who grazed their animals on the range but paid no local taxes. After some chitchat, Bower asked quietly, "Do you think it is right to come in here with your sheep?"

The sheepman nearer the door averred that they did pay taxes in the county. The young herders may well have been told that by the owners of the flock. Bower answered in an ordinary tone: “I think you are mistaken about that.” 

The vehemence of the reaction surprised Bower. With an angry retort, the argumentative sheepman rushed him. Bower landed on his back, while Gray was pushed or jumped outside. Physically over-matched, the foreman tried to retrieve his pistol from inside his coat, but the sheepman wrested it away and growled, “I’ll fix you both.”

The attacker ignored Gray’s shouted order to drop the gun, so Gray fired once, then again when the man didn’t react. Still not sure if he’d stopped the assault, he raised the revolver for another shot when Bower called out, “Hold on.” That ended the altercation.

As they helped the active attacker toward the bed, he seemed stunned and said, “I am hurt pretty bad.”

Bower and Gray saw only a little blood on the man’s chin, seemingly a minor, superficial wound. The sheepmen had friends nearby who would have surely heard the shots. They could help with whatever injuries the man might have. Fearing further trouble, the cattlemen hurried off.

(Of course, the surviving cattlemen provided the above self-defense scenario; there were no other living witnesses.)

In actual fact, both sheepmen – John Wilson and Daniel Cummings – had been mortally wounded. Wilson, the aggressive attacker, probably died within hours, while Cummings might have lived a day or so.

Discovery of the bodies would trigger an intensive manhunt for the notorious cowboy-gunman “Diamondfield” Jack Davis. His capture was followed by a celebrated trial, and a legal odyssey that would not be settled for over half a decade [blog, Oct 13].
                                                                                 

References: David H. Grover, Diamondfield Jack: A Study in Frontier Justice, University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada (1968).

William Pat Rowe, "Diamond-Field Jack" Davis On Trial, thesis: M.A. in Education, Idaho State University, Pocatello (1966).

Avalanche Cluster Brings Tragedy to Coeur d’Alene Area, Six Killed at Custer Mine [otd 02/03]

At suppertime on Monday, February 3, 1890, a dozen miners who worked at the Custer Mine sat eating after a long day. The mine, high above Nine Mile Creek about six miles northeast of Wallace, had been located in 1885.

Custer Mill, ca 1890. University of Idaho archives.

Actually, according to the Illustrated History of North Idaho, eager prospectors had combed that area the year before, "but they were looking for placer gold, and were, perhaps, without much skill in their business, so failed to see the riches that lay before their eyes."

Soon, men more capable of recognizing the lead-silver lodes buried in these ranges arrived. They opened mines like the Custer, the Granite (further down the valley), the Tiger (on the south side of the same ridge), and many more. Operations boomed, especially after rail lines connected the area to the outside world.

However, for various reasons, some of the mines cut back production during the depth of winter. And this particular season had seen “unprecedented” snow levels. Just a few days earlier, the Custer Mine had laid off all but 15 of the company's 40 men. Without that fortuitous circumstance, the looming disaster might have been even worse.

The rattle of dishes and murmur of men's voices masked outside sounds, which were probably muffled further by a layer of snow hanging on the dining hall: None of the survivors mentioned any rumble of warning before the avalanche slammed into the structure. Plummeting sharply down the ridge, the snow crushed the roof first, driving broken beams onto the men who sat facing the hillside, "killing three almost instantly."

Miraculously, those with their backs to the slide escaped with mostly bumps and bruises. Then, the Illustrated History reported, "Building and men were carried far down into the gulch."

The least-buried survivors dug themselves out of the debris and did their best to help the others. However, the History noted, "So great was the danger of another snow slide that one of the men who came to the rescue took the names of those at work."

When all the survivors and victims had been recovered, they found that six men had been killed, including the mine foreman, two cooks and a waiter.

1910 avalanche aftermath, near Custer Mine.
University of Idaho archives.

The Illustrated History said, "This was the most disastrous of a large number of snow slides that had caused loss of life and property in the Coeur d'Alenes during the winter of 1889-90 and previous years. The contour of the country is very favorable to such slides."

The snow had become heavier and less stable because a hard rain had hit the area. So many slides were reported, it became difficult to say exactly when some happened. About a mile or so south of the Custer, a slide hit a railroad camp and killed three men. Two miles to the southwest, a tramway and two flumes were destroyed. Near Wallace, snow buried the main rail lines along a stretch of seventy-five feet.

At Wardner, twenty miles to the west, snow obliterated two tramways and wrecked several buildings, including a blacksmith shop. Fortunately no deaths were reported. And the day after the Custer tragedy, a big slide hit the town of Burke, located less that two miles southeast of the Custer Mine. There, “half the business portion” was reported to be in ruins. Fearing more slides, many inhabitants fled the area. At first, survivors thought three men had been killed. However, later reports said that four people had been “buried in the snow slide, but all were rescued with slight injury.”
                                                                                 

References: [Illust-North]

“Burke Demolished,” Idaho Register, Idaho Falls (February 8, 1890).

"Custer Consolidated Mining Company," Manuscript Group 246, University of Idaho (February 1995).

“Slain by the Snow,” The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (February 7, 1890).

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).