Beaverhead County MT Archives Biographies.....Fitzharris, Kate March 1857 - April 6, 1922
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Andy Anderson oxdrover@mindspring.com February 20, 2017, 9:10 pm

Source: Compiled from various newspaper articles, federal census records, marriage records
Author: Andy Anderson


Kate, daughter of Roger Burke and Bridget Lynch, was born in County Tipperary, 
Ireland. She died 6 Apr 1922, her obituary stating she was born in 1857 and had 
recently passed her 65th birthday. Judging from the several conflicting 
documents showing her age, a closer estimate of her birthday would be 21 to 24 
March of 1856. She immigrated in 1880. 

She married Morris Fitzharris of Potter Township, Cheyenne County, Nebraska, in 
1882, and their oldest known child was born at Sidney, in that county, in 1883. 
Morris reportedly laid tracks on the railroad while Kate was a washerwoman for 
the railroad men. By 1885 they were in Idaho and by 1889 in Dillon, Montana, 
where Morris started a sand and gravel business. 

When he died in 1890, leaving Kate with four young children, she took over the 
business, adding more teams and men. She was said to have been the only woman 
in the state directing construction work and large contracting enterprises. In 
1902 she and surveyor George Metlen established a stone quarry in Frying Pan 
Basin, about seven miles northwest of Dillon. 

It was reported in the centennial edition of the Dillon Tribune-Examiner of 
September 3, 1980, that Kate "supervised (construction) work from the seat of a 
wagon, always dressed in her work attire of black coat, long black skirt, heavy 
working shoes (and) large black sun bonnet." She used a horse whip as a pointer 
in giving instructions to her workmen.

In 1906 she directed a crew of men and four teams by moonlight on the 
excavation for the new Dillon post office building. They succeeded in getting 
the dirt out of the way of the stonemasons, who began work on the foundation in 
the morning.

After Morris' death Kate married twice: to John Monahan in 1892 and 
George "Jerry" Highsmith in 1895. The last two marriages each produced a 
daughter. Kate had a total of seven children (Michael and another son, whose 
name is not known, died before 1900): Maggie, Sallie, Michael and Mollie 
Fitzharris; (Julia) Josie Monahan; and Bessie Highsmith. 

On August 20, 1898, Kate and her 12-year-old son Michael were returning to town 
from a quarry with a wagonload of rocks. Michael was driving the team. Hitting 
a rock in the road, the wagon jolted, knocking Michael out of the wagon and 
under a wheel. He was run over and killed. His funeral was conducted at the 
Catholic church. Interment was in Mountain View Cemetery.

Kate was known for her charitable work. When people were sick or injured in the 
area, they were brought to her boarding house for care. During a smallpox 
outbreak in 1902 she took sick and was quarantined with a guard stationed 
outside her door. She nursed smallpox victims during the pandemic of 1918, 
which took the lives of her daughters Sallie O'Brien and Mollie Collier, and 
her brother, John Burke.

In 1903 she was acquitted of an assault charge brought against her by a 
persistent suitor of her daughter Sallie. Kate had warned him many times not to 
keep coming around. He had threatened to "blow her block off", and when he 
showed up one day with a gun Kate got her own revolver and drove him off by 
firing a few shots over his head.

At a political meeting in Dillon in 1904, the crowd of hundreds left a 
reception at the hotel and lined up for a parade to the hall where the speeches 
were to be made. An enthusiastic Kate "made her way to the head of the column 
where Governor Toole stood and, taking his arm, marched to the hall, escorting 
him to the platform."

A Springfield, Illinois, newspaper of 1908 reported that the local police had 
received from Mrs. Kate Fitzharris of Dillon, Montana, a telegram giving notice 
that Thomas Kelly had died. Kelly had been one of Kate's most valued employees 
and she was attempting to locate relatives he was supposed to have had there.

Kate died April 6, 1922, at Dillon after an illness that had confined her to 
her bed for many months. The Great Falls Tribune of April 9 stated that "Mother 
Fitzharris", a pioneer matron of the city of Dillon, had been active in its 
early day development. Her funeral was held at St. Rose Catholic Church. She 
was laid to rest in Mountain View Cemetery.
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