A Sketch of Lewistown, Montana History

(Indian Days – 1884)

Part II

BY

Anna R. Zellick & John R. Foster

The first permanent settlers in what is now Lewistown were the peaceful, quiet, but colorful Metis, descendants of the French and Indian. In 1879 three bands comprising of about forty families came in their "creaking, growling all-wood wagons known as the Red River Carts." A few of the names that became very familiar to all were Berger, Wells, Laverdure, Oulette, and "Uncle Ben" Kline who down through the years was looked upon as their spokesman and leader. They immediately filed on homesteads. (The Ou lette addition to the city, for example, located near the Garfield School, and known as "Buckskin Flats", was Antoine Oulette’s original homestead."

Francis A. Janeaux, the found of the Lewistown, was another leader and a member of this group as was his wife, Virginia Laverdure Janeaux. A French Canadian, Janeaux was a licensed trader.⁴ He filed on a homestead, and i n the fall of 1879, Janeaux built a stockaded trading post on the Big Spring Creek "near the intersection of Third Avenue North and Broadway."⁵

After the Metis arrived, Major Reed severed his association with Bowles. In 1880-81, he took up land and established a trading post across the road from the Charles W. Cooley property. A log structure, still standing, was the first post office, and it was called Reedsfort. Serving an immense area surrounded by Fort Maginnis, Judith Gap, and Philbrook, mail was delivered only three times in the winter of 1881-82.

In the meantime, there was much activity in the Janeaux stockade. Interested in the welfare of the youth, Janeaux invited Edward Brassey to teach the school children. (Brassey, incidentally, earlier had ably assisted Montana’s Secretary and acting Gove rnor, Thomas Francis Meagher, in establishing school districts in that far-flung area that became Meagher County). According to Mercy Jackson, a longtime public school teacher, "the school was opened in 1881 with 35 breeds and 4 white children. The log sc hool was across the street from the present post office. Mr. Brassey lived with Janeaux in the stockade."⁶

Dr. L. A. Lapalme, a friend of Janeaux’s, plated the town in 1882. A doctor, and not a surveyor, he used Janeaux’s fence as a starting line which did not conform to the true North-South bearaings. (Hense, the reason why the streets are off by around fo rty-five degrees).

Immediately the following year, 1883, Janeaux, the great benefactor, donated eight lots of choice land to the school district. Construction started immediately. The first framed school house, used for a number of years, was built on or near the site of the Lewistown News Argus. Assuming her duties there in December 1883, Miss Winifred Shipman was the first lady teacher.

Footnotes

⁴ George D. Mueller, "Francis Janeaux, Found of Lewistown," Lewistown News Argus 1978 Christmas Edition. Information on Kline in the preceding paragraph was given by George St. Peter

⁵ C. B. Worthen, "A History of Lewistown", Lewistown News Argus, Aug. 31 – Sept. 3, 1979. The Metis Edition.

⁶ Mercy Jackson and Eleanor Gardner, "History of Early Day Lewistown," Lewistown Daily News, April 4, 1957. It’s interesting that Mr. Brassey told his grandson, Bob Brassey, that he also taught school at Reeds fort.