THE SAMUEL AND LENA RITCHEY FAMILY, Bio, Granite Co., MT Indexed and contributed for use in USGenWeb Project by: Wendy Garner USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. © 1998 by Wendy Garner. This file may be freely copied for non- profit purposes. All other rights reserved. THE SAMUEL AND LENA RITCHEY FAMILY Born: he was born on August 16, 1833. Place: Lamont, Illinois Died: after August 16, 1905. Place: Occupation: He was a fisherman, packer, butcher, wagon driver, mill owner, miner and owner of the Nancy Hanks Mine and Minnie Palmer lode claims at Garnet, Montana. He and Gus Dahlberg owned an operated a water system to supply house at Garnet with water. Married: In 1900 he married Lena Sty. Her mother died when she was born. At 18 and living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, she answered an add in the paper which read, "Wanted a girl to work on a big cattle ranch near Drummond, Montana" (was owned by Archie and Anna McPhail). She started out on the train alone. Samuel and Lena were married when he was in his late 60's and she was 20 years old. Children: They had two children. 1) Helene Ritchey (Smith) Born: she was born in 1903. Place: In a big log cabin, Garnet, Granite County, Montana with Mrs. Murphy as midwife. Died: March 16, 1986. Place: Occupation: schoolteacher and later moved to Santa Cruz, Califorinia. 2) Sammuel (Sammy) Ritchey, Junior Born: 1904. Place: In a big log cabin, Garnet, Granite County, Montana with Mrs. Murphy as midwife. Died: Place: Occupation: he was a graduate of Montana State University and became manager of a Power Company in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Sam Ritchey Senior was described as athletic and rosy cheeked. In his younger days he was a fisherman on Lake Michigan. In the spring of 1852, fired by the stories of the adventures of California, he journeyed to St. Joseph, Missouri and outfitted for the great unknown west. He made five trips escorting emigrants from St. Joseph to the Platte River. Tiring of this uneventful life, in the summer of that year he pushed on overland, arriving in Jacksonville, Oregon on September 23, 1852. He accumulated a fortune in mining operations near Idaho City, Idaho. An unfortunate speculation dissipated his wealth. In October of 1865 he came to Montana. Elk Creek was a prosperous placer camp at that time and he opened a butcher shop and conducted it for about a year. Then he went to Snowshoe, near Blackfoot City and worked in the placer mines there. In 1869 he made an overland trip to White Pine, Nevada. Longing to view his old home in Illinois he returned east remaining their until 1873 when he again started west coming by way of Ogden, Utah and then to Deerlodge Montana. He returned to mining with claims along the Blackfoot for the next five years. In 1873 he located the Nancy Hanks (named after Abraham Lincoln's mother) and Minnie Palmer lode claims at Garnet. He worked with his partner, Big Jim Auchinvoile (a French Canadian). In 1897 they located a rich ore vein and devoted his life to mining and making money. There was a hotel near the mine entrance named after him, the Ritchey Hotel. Few mining men in Western Montana are more favorably known than Samuel I. Richie, the pioneer of Garnet and the owner of several of the richest mines in the area. The Nancy Hanks Mine was the biggest and most important mine in Garnet. It produced continuously from 1896 to 1899, the men bringing some $300,000.00 worth of gold to the surface by 1916. By 1900 he made over a millon dollars. In 1907 the Nancy Hanks mine and mainstay of Garnet was closed. Sam Richey's Autobiography reads: "I was born twenty eight miles southwest from Chicago, Illinois. My parents moved there from Ohio in 1826. My father was born in Bedford County, Pennsylvania; my mother was born in Virginia. They both came to Ohio when they were very young, and were married in Ohio in 1823, when my father was twenty three years old and my mother nineteen years old. They acquired farming land in Illinois when that country was unsettled except by indians. Three times they went to Fort Dearborn when the Indians were on the war-path. At times Chicago was not known, and Fort Dearborn was the nearest place where there were any white people." "I was born August 16, 1833, and was raised on the farm. In 1851 I went to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where I spent the summer fishing for Mackinac trout and white fish, and in the fall went home and spent the winter. At this time I got the gold fever, and have never got cured yet. On the 29th of March 1852, I started for the gold mines of the west, and landed in Jackson County, Oregon, on September 23rd. In the placer mines I sold my outfit, and commenced prospecting for the yellow gold. Within two years I accumulated enough to buy sixteen mules, and started packing, from Crescent City, California, to Jacksonville, Oregon, Yreka and the Klamath River and Scots River, California." "We left home with four yoke of fat four-year-old steers, in company with two more light wagons, each manned with four men. We had no difficulty with Indians, until we got to Goose Lake. Here the Piute indians stole twenty-one head of our stock, sixteen head of steers, and two mules and four fine mares, the later animals belonging to Captain Constance, with whose wagon train we were traveling after we left Green River." "At the time we struck the Piute nation, we over-drove eight miles on account of misunderstanding the directions of the guide, and our ox-teams were weary and sore-footed. We drove eight miles further that evening that we should have driven, and we didn't get our stock turned out until it was getting dusk. This was the only time we failed to put out a guard on the whole trip across the plains. In the morning we got up early, and got ready to get around and start, and found that we had no animals accept the two saddle horses, and a span of white mules that were to wild for indians to stampede. The mules belonged to the captain's family carriage, and were always so wild that only one man could handle them, and the indians could not get away with them." "The indians had taken seventeen head of our work oxen (we came across the plains with ox-teams) and two of the captain's mules, the wheelers, as they were fleshy, not having don their share of work. We got out early in the morning and found that our stock was almost all gone. My brother and I struck the trail of the oxen going south in the Goose Valley, at the head of Pitt River, that flows into California. We struck this trail about eight o'clock in the morning. It was hard trail to strike. The cattle were sore-footed, and it seemed almost impossible for the indians to drive them. We followed the trail from twelve to fifteen miles, right through the valley. On Oak Ridge we found thirteen head of these cattle. They had arrows shot into them, from three to five arrows in each animal, and most of the arrow were still sticking into them. The were all humped up and could hardly move on account of their sore feet." "Three of the steers had shoes on, and the indians got away with these. There were no indians guarding the cattle we recovered. Probably they thought the cattle couldn't travel, and that we would not find the track." "We cut the arrows out of the cattle, and we drove them back to camp, and arrived there about half past ten o'clock that night. We had nothing to eat, and not even a drink of water, since daylight that morning." "The captain had lost three valuable mares, worth five hundred dollars apiece, and the two mules, and we had also lost some other horses, including a saddle horse that we boys owned. The captain had traced this stock due east from our camp, twelve miles to the mountains across the valley, and struck the trail going up a creek. He followed that trail up the creek possibly ten miles or more, when it crossed the creek and came back on the other side, and right opposite where it went up." "When my brother and I were returning to camp with the cattle, we had seen a fire on the butte that was in the edge of the valley, about twelve miles east of us, right close to where the captain had trailed these animals. When I got into camp the captain proposed that if nine men would go with him (leaving only a few to guard the camp) to try and get these animals back, that he would go as one of them, and he asked for volunteers, and not one of the men said a word. My brother said to me, "Sam, I'll go if you go." I said I would. We got the outfit filled up, and left the bodyguard in camp." "About half past three o'clock in the morning, I think it was, we the captain of the train as our guide, we started to strike the trail of the Piute Indians, and we got to trail that he had traced up, very early in the morning, and traveled up this creek about ten miles, and crossed the cree where the indians had crossed, and then we trailed them right down the other side to a place opposite where we had struck the trail. Here we stopped for lunch and a drink of water. We had brought with us bread and butter and raw bacon. At the foot of the hill the indians had killed on of the mules, and here we found part of the carcass of the mule, lying up i the limbs of a tree. The indians had eaten part of the mule. We also found, in the same place, at least a hundred bushels of dried seeds and berries in baskets. After cutting off a few slices of this mule, we made a bonfire (for spite, I must admit) and burned up everything that the indians had left there. We went down to the creek and built a fire, and roasted our bacon and mule meat, and took our lunch, the first we had eaten since three o'clock that morning. We were then ready to start for camp, with just about twelve miles to go. We didn't find the other horses." "My brother and myself were raised in the woods, and hunted a good deal, and knew how to keep our courses good. We took a mountain view so that we could keep our course. It was not a very dark night, so that we could see. I don't think we went more than a mile before my knee quit, and I couldn't move. I begged my brother to go on to camp, but he wouldn't do it. He kept urging me to move a little, and insisted on it, but I lay there twenty or thirty minutes, and then got up to try it again. I was tired out and wanted to sleep but he wouldn't let me at all, and when I finally got up my knee was all right for a time. I think we went about three miles further, and I wanted to lie down there and die. My brother kept urging me to try it again, and we finally started once more." "The other men, under the leadership of the captain, had taken another course, and had gone a little too far to the north and circled into camp, and we all got in about together. We slept well that night. We thought the cattle were all going to die from the effect of the arrows, but they did not. However, we killed on steer, and divided the meat." "We then proceeded on our way, towards the Modoc country. The Modocs were the worst tribe in the west, and had killed more that one-half of the emigrants who attempted to pass through their country, and would have killed our party, but the sixty miners organized a Yreka under Captain Ben Wright, and killed about fifty of the Modocs, which cleared the road for us. They also furnished provisions for us, which we sadly needed. We had been living on rice, jack rabbits and sage hens for two weeks, and flour seemed good to me. The Klamath indians were friendly, and we had a good escort through their country. Just such men as met us saved hundreds of emigrants. In after years almost every man in our company went on the same mission year after year, and escorted the pilgrims through he dangerous country. I myself went for two years." "Jacksonville was built altogether with canvas. It was a new camp situated in the most beautiful valley that I have ever seen." "Soon after I commenced packing, my troubles commenced. The Rogue River, Klamath and Applegate Indians, and the coast indians, would go on the war path about once a month, and would kill people living away from the towns. It made it very dangerous to pack through a country that was sparsely settled. In the Fall of 1855 these raids occurred so frequently that the people had to organize to protect their families and homes, and make battle with the redskins." "Governor Joe Lane set out a call for three hundred volunteers. That was more men than could be spared then. California responded to the call, and we raised three hundred volunteers, and made battle with about three hundred indians as well armed as the volunteers. We met these indians in the battle of Hungry Hill. We fought them in their style and the battle raged for two days. It was a thickly timbered country. The indians shot thirty-seven of our men, and nearly all the wounded died. We probably killed as many of the indians. We were glad to leave them on the battlefield. We were suffering from hunger and thirst, as we had no water, nor a bite to eat, for thirty-six hours, so we retreated with our wounded seventeen miles to our supplies, and carried the wounded on stretchers, before we could eat." "I followed packing and mining, and was in the horse business, until 1862, when I went north and packed from Umatilla to Elk City and Florence, Idaho. I spent the winter in Grand Ronde Valley (Oregon). In March I went to Idaho City, and mined there for three seasons. In September I bought a band of cattle and brought them to Montana, where I spent the winter, in Deer Lodge Valley. In March I began butchering, in Elk Creek, and left that camp in July 1867. I mined one year at Snow Shoe, near Blackfoot City. In 1869 I went to Hamilton and White Pine, Nevada, and then went to my old home in Illinois, where George W. Ervin and I were raised. The Ervins and my father were neighbors, and among the best people I ever knew. I remained there three years, and then came back to Montana in July 1873, and have prospected almost all the time since. I worked in the Garnet District for twenty-six years before I sold any ore, and I am still digging the ground of ore. I struck ore in the Nancy Hanks Mine in 1896. In 1897, 1898 and 1899 I took out $550,000.00 in gold and silver from the Nancy Hanks, Cascade and Spokane claims. Since that time I have leased some ground, which has produced about $150,000.00." He was one of the first miners to instigate an eight hour day. Ritchey got total control of the mines when his partner James (Big Jim) Auchinvoile pulled out. The mine was no longer very prosperous and became filled with water. The Ritchey home was on the left site of the gulch leading to the Nancy Hanks Mine and Stump town. It was the largest family residence in Garnet. It was two stories, and the main part was built of logs. For all his wealth his house was a rather simple three room affair built with vertical board walls. It did have a stone foundation of broken rocks. Flower beds outlined in stone gave it a landscaped appearance. Across the front was a long porch, was void of gingerbread. On the south was a parlor which must have been very elegant in it's day, complete with not only fancy wallpaper, but embossed brass hardware on the doors and even gold picture rail. Off the parlor was a small bedroom, and to the north was a kitchen. A back porch and pantry filled the corner produced by the L shaped house. Even Richey made do wit stove pipe chimneys, but he did have double hung window which few other houses in Garnet had. Originally the home was furnished with elegant Victorian furniture from eastern factories. Samuel Ritchey Senior gave his 72nd birthday celebration on August 16, 1905. Bibliography: Cushman, Dan, 1964. Article, "Montana's Last Booming Gold Camp", Montana the Magazine of Western History, pages 38-55. Daley, Dennis and Jim Mohler, 1973. Historical Resources Identification and Location Study, Resources Development Internship Program, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, unpublished, page 43-44. Garnet Mining News, 1898. December 8, Volume 1, No. 10, page 1. Hammond, Helen 1990. Garnet was their Home, unknown publisher. Hammond, Helen 1983. Garnet-Montana's Last Gold Camp, Acme Press, Missoula, Montana. Richey, Samuel, about 1905. Autobiography, unpublished. Smith, Helene Ritchey, 1986. Letter to the Garnet Preservation Association concerning her early life in Garnet. Wolle, Muriel Sibell, 1983. Montana Pay Dirt, A Guide to the Mining Camps of the Treasure State, Sage Books, pages 226-228.