THE HONORABLE SAMUEL McLEAN OF MONTANA This material was compiled and written by Dan Wilson Copyright, 1997 by Dan Wilson. This file may be freely copied for non-profit purposes. All other rights reserved. Dan Wilson has also placed a query on the MTGenWeb Project pages in both the Madison Co. and the Beaverhead Co. pages. If you think you might have further information on Hon. Samuel McLean, please refer to the query. ============================================================= THE HONORABLE SAMUEL McLEAN OF MONTANA and Summit Hill, Carbon County, Pa. Samuel McLean was the prosecuting attorney for Carbon Co., PA in the period 1855-1860. He was born at Summit Hill, PA on August 7, 1826, he attended the select schools of Wyoming Valley, PA and then Lafayette College in Easton, PA, where he studied law. In 1849, he was the first Carbon County native to be admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar after which he established a practice in Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), PA. He read law in the offices of Andrew H. Reeder. In 1852, he moved briefly to California, then returned to marry Jane Gray Wilson of Easton on January 23, 1855. They settled in Mauch Chunk on November 27, 1857. After his term as prosecuting attorney for Carbon Co., he moved west and in 1860, Samuel McLean was the attorney-general of the provisional Territory of Jefferson (later Colorado), and it is believed he resided in Denver [Wolle (1963), pp. 61]. In 1862, he moved to Bannack, Montana where he joined the Montana Territory gold rush. According to Wolle (1963), it was the discovery by John J. Healy and George Grigsby in 1861 of the placers on the Salmon River near Florence, Idaho Territory, that brought men to the area, including Samuel McLean, who at the time was in Denver, then part of the Jefferson Territory. He organized a party of men and set off for Idaho by way of the Overland Trail and Fort Hall. Another party, organized by Captain Jack Russell, also left Denver about the same time, and eventually met McLean's party at Fort Hall. The two parties went together to Fort Lemhi, Idaho Territory, and while they were still more than 125 miles from Florence they discovered that the Salmon River was too wild to use to go downstream to the placers. Thus they joined about a thousand other miners who were also stranded in the Lemhi Valley. [Wolle, Muriel Sibell (1963), MONTANA PAY DIRT: Guide to the Mining Camps of the Treasure State. Denver: Sage Books]. When Montana entered statehood in 1864, Samuel McLean was elected as a Democrat to the 38th and 39th Congresses of the U.S. and served from January 6, 1865 to March 3, 1867. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1866. He was president of McLean Silver Mining Co. in 1870, and after expiration of his term in Congress, he returned to Easton, PA seeking local investors in his McLean Silver Mining Company. After living in Montana several years, he moved to Virginia in 1870 and settled on a plantation near Burkeville, Nottoway, Co. He died in Burkeville, VA on July 16, 1877 at the age of 51 years, and was interred in the churchyard of the Presbyterian Church there. [U.S. Government Printing Office, House Document No. 442, (1961), BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY OF THE AMERICAN CONGRESS, 1774-1961, pp.1310-1311; Lavelle, John P. (1996) "The Hard Coal Docket," pp. 203]. A review of the map of Burkeville, VA shows a street named McLean as well as a street named DIMMICK. There is a Dimmick Memorial Library in Jim Thorpe, PA where Samuel McLean practiced law. While in Montana, Samuel McLean lived in Bannack and in Virginia City where he was known as "Colonel" McLean. James Knox Polk Miller, in his diary, edited by Andrew Rolle (1960), includes an entry for September 1, 1865: "For five hours last evening I wrote a copy of the Montana Territorial Laws Regulating Elections, without intermission finishing at one o'clock this morning, for which I received from Col. McLane [McLean], the Democratic candidate for Congress, 7th District, $7.00 in gold dust." [Rolle, Andrew (1960) THE ROAD TO VIRGINIA CITY: The Diary of James Knox Polk Miller, pp.80]. Spence (1889) claims that as a member of the 39th Congress, Samuel McLean was known as Montana's "Talking Delegate," a hard- drinking, fun-loving, and "gay old boy." He was reported to weigh 300 pounds. [Spence, Clark C. (1975), TERRITORIAL POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN MONTANA, 1864-1889, pp. 41-42]. Dimsdale, in Chapter 12, in discussing the settlement of Virginia City and the discovery of gold at Alder Gulch says: "Colonel McLean brought the first vehicle to the Gulch." He doesn't say what kind of vehicle, however. Samuel McLean may have been connected with the McLeans of the Dunboe District, Co. Londonderry, Ireland through James McLean of Summit Hill, PA, who is believed to have been a brother or a cousin to Alexander McLean, founder of the First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre. As a young man, Alexander McLean emigrated from the Dunboe District of Co. Londonderry, Ireland ca. 1820, and settled at Summit Hill, PA where he joined the First Presbyterian Church of Mauch Chunk, then under the leadership of Rev. Richard Webster. Alexander McLean was an early contractor of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (LC&N) and before the advent of the Switchback Railroad, Alexander McLean hauled coal by mule team from the mines at Summit Hill to the Lehigh River at Mauch Chunk (Jim Thorpe) where the coal was floated downstream to markets south. He eventually became a mine operator under contract with the LC&N and became wealthy as a result. He retired to Wilkes-Barre where he and his sons founded the First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre. One of his sons, James McLean, was elected the first president of the bank, but he served only a short time before being killed in a railroad accident between Summit Hill and Wilkes-Barre in January of 1864. He was succeeded by Alexander Gray of Wilkes- Barre, who also had coal interests [Harvey, (1930)]. Jane Gray Wilson, wife of Samuel McLean, may have been related to Alexander Gray, second president of the First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre, and to Rev. John Gray pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Easton 1822-1866, and of long time elder of the Church, James Wilson of Easton [Records of the First Presbyterian Church of Easton, PA]. She may also have been related to Rev. Thomas McKeen Gray, pastor of the Bridge-Hampton Church. She is listed in the records of the Brainerd Presbyterian Church, Easton, PA, and those records indicate that she transfered to the Presbyterian Church of Burkeville, VA. in 1874, so that's probably when Col. Sam also moved to Burkeville. Obituary -------- The following obituary on Samuel McLean appeared in the HELENA WEEKLY HERALD, May 29, 1879. "Col. Samuel McLean, our Delegate in Congress from 1864- 68, died in Nodaway county,Virginia, August 16, 1878. It is a strange comment on the mutability of human affairs and a striking example of the tireless whirl and restless activity of the American People, that the First Delegate from Montana, who represented it for three years in the Congress of the United States, should have passed so utterly out of the sight of our people in four or five years, and whose death ten or eleven years later should remain unknown to our _____[illegible] for months after that event occured. Col. McLean was a native of Pennsylvania, whence he came to Colorado, and in 1862 to what is now Montana. He was widely known among the early settlers of the mountains, was engaged in various mining enterprises, and by a fortunate turn in affairs was elected in 1864 and again in 1865 to Congress. Without great mental activity, he was nevertheless a genial, kindly man with a noble impulse(?) and his death will come to the knowledge of his old friends with sincere regret. He had become the owner of a considerable tract of land about thorty miles west of Richmond, where in recent years he resided, and where his estimable wife and children now are." ----- REFERENCES Davies, Edward J.(1985). THE ANTHRACITE ARISTOCRACY: leadership and social change in the hard coal regions of northeastern Pennsylvania, 1800-1930. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, pp.56. Dimsdale, VIGILANTES OF MONTANA, pp.59, 63. Harvey, Oscar Jewell and Smith, Ernest Gray (1930). A HISTORY OF WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, Volume VI. Mark, Rev. James, B.A. (1936). THE FIRST DUNBOE: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. Coleraine: Chronicle Office, Abbey Street. McCaughan, Alison A. (1988). HEATH, HEARTH AND HEART: THE STORY OF DUNBOE AND THE MEETINGHOUSE AT ARTICLAVE. Castle Rock, Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland: Dunceithern Publishing. Hayes-McCoy, G. A. (1969) IRISH BATTLES: A MILITARY HISTORY OF IRELAND, Belfast: Appletree Press. Hayes-McCoy, G. A. (1937) SCOTS MERCENARY FORCES IN IRELAND. Helena Montana Herald, obituaries, May 29, 1879. Rolle, Andrew (1960) THE ROAD TO VIRGINIA CITY: The Diary of James Knox Polk Miller, pp.80. Norman, Oklahoma: The University of Oklahoma Press. Spence, Clark C. (1975), TERRITORIAL POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN MONTANA, 1864-1889. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Stout, Tom (ed.)(1921), MONTANA ITS STORY AND BIOGRAPHY 3 vols., Chicago: vol I pp. 207, 218-19, 281-82, 286; U.S. House of Representatives (1961), BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY OF THE AMERICAN CONGRESS, 1774-1961, House Document No. 442, (1961), pp.1310-1311. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Wolle, Muriel Sibell (1963), MONTANA PAY DIRT: A Guide to the Mining Camps of the TReasure State. Denver: Sage Books.