Alpheus E. Decker Biography, Beaverhead County, MT

ALPHEUS E. DECKER BIOGRAPHY, BEAVERHEAD COUNTY, MT

Submitted:	04/30/03

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A HISTORY OF MONTANA (Lewis Publishing Company, 1913)

Hon. Alpheus Decker, for the past thirty years identified with the 
ranch life of the Beaverhead county and one of the founders of the 
town of Armstead, Montana, is a native son of Michigan, born in 
Coldwater on the 3d of March, 1846. He is the son of David and 
Lucy (Rossman) Decker, both native New Yorkers, who came to Michigan 
as early as 1836, being Michigan pioneers in the best sense of the 
term. They died at a ripe age, the father at the age of sixty-nine 
years and the mother at eighty-seven. They were the parents of a 
family of seven, of which the subject was the third born and the 
eldest son.

Colonel Decker, as he is familiarly called in Montana, was educated 
in the common schools of his native state, so far as his actual schooling 
went. It is a fact, however, that the best knowledge he possesses is 
that which came to him in the school of experience, which has trained 
so many of our western men in the way of life. As a young man he gave 
his attention to farming in the vicinity of his home in Michigan until 
1874, when he went to Illinois, later moving to Kansas, and in both of 
those states he was devoted to agricultural life. Following the death 
of his wife in 1880, Colonel Decker went to Iowa, where he spent a year, 
and in the spring of 1882 came to Montana. For two years he lived in 
Dillon, then came to what is now Armstead, and here he and his partner, 
J.W. Scott, who was a brother of his deceased wife, purchased a ranch 
on a part of which the town of Armstead was later built. The ranch proper 
comprises something like one thousand acres, and is devoted to general 
farming and stock raising. For thirty years these men have centered their 
interest in this place, continuing through all the years as partners.

Mr. Decker is a staunch Republican and has done his full share towards 
promoting the interests of the party in this section of the country. He 
was the representative of Beaverhead county in the state legislature from 
1904 to 1908, and has done good work for his district in that connection. 
He has implicit faith in the future of Montana, that faith being based upon 
thirty years of actual contact with the great Treasure state. 

In 1872 Mr. Decker was married to Miss Elizabeth Scott, a daughter of 
Mr. and Mrs. James Scott. She was born in 1852 in Wisconsin, and died 
in Stafford, Kansas, in the year 1880. She left one daughter, Edith, 
who was born in Indiana and educated in Michigan. She came to Montana 
in her early girlhood, and later married Roy Herndon, and they make 
their home at Salmon city, Idaho. They have one daughter, Jane Herndon. 
Mr. Herndon is prominent in the political life of his state, and on 
November 5, 1912 was elected to the house of representatives in the 
Idaho legislature.  
 

 
 
  
 

 
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