John Ball Wellcome
Jefferson County
History of Montana, Sanders, 1913

The late John Ball Wellcome, lawyer and extensive ranch 
owner, was born in the state of New York on September 22, 
1857 and received his education in law schools in his native 
state.  In 1887 he came to Butte where for the ensuing twelve 
years he was successfully engaged in the practice of law.  
Not long after the beginning of his legal activities here 
he formed a partnership with Frank E. Corbett.  A considerable 
proportion of the business of this firm consisted of the 
affairs of the Hon. W.A. Clark; they were also attorneys 
for an number of large mining companies in Butte.  Mr. 
Wellcome had a wide reputation for being a very careful 
and reliable lawyer and after the death of Mr. Corbett 
became the partner of Jesse B. Roote, so continuing 
until 1898.  Mr. Wellcome took part in the fight for 
United States senator before the legislature of 1899 
in behalf of W.A. Clark.

After that time Mr. Wellcome felt practically little 
interest in the practice of law, having acquired 
extensive landed interests in Madison and Jefferson 
Counties, owning 7,000 acres in the former and 5,000 
in the latter county.  Creeklyn, the Jefferson County 
ranch which was his home and on which he spent the 
latter part of his life, was the center of his broad 
and important interests.  There he spent all his time, 
except when business called him elsewhere; there he 
lived a home life which his friends have pronounced 
ideal; there he systematized and developed various 
phases of his ranch work, which was to him a pursuit 
of the greatest enjoyment.  His favorite line of 
ranching was the raising of high grade cattle; as a 
skilled breeder he made record throughout the state 
and did much, by his exhibitions in Chicago in 
competition with stock fanciers from all over the 
world, to give Montana exceptional prestige as a 
specially favored spot for the breeding of cattle.  
Besides his interest in land and stock he was 
connected with mining enterprises in several places; 
and for a number of years he conducted coffee and 
rubber growing operations in Mexico.  He had learned, 
moreover, to carry out vast schemes in making his 
rural properties factors in the building up of the 
state.

Then, in the prime of his strength and at a time when the 
returns for his energetic work were stamping him as one of 
the most far-sighted men in the west--he was stricken with 
a sudden illness, so brief that few of his friends had 
known of it, but so severe that death soon claimed him 
on March 23, 1908.  His friends, shocked by his sudden 
going, his social intimates, including members of the 
Silver Bow Club and the Montana Club of Helena, 
representative citizens of Butte, where he had been 
so prominent a citizen and men from al sections of 
the state thronged to the memorial service said over his body.

Mrs. Wellcome, who as Miss Emily Irvine, of Butte, had been 
married to Mr. Wellcome on December 17, 1891, and the five 
children of that happy Creeklyn home--Charlotte I, 
Katherine P., Richard F., Emily I, and John B. Jr. 
constitute the family who were bereaved by the swift 
passing from life of the head of the household.  The 
beautiful estate on which they had lived remained in 
Mrs. Wellcome's possession until 1912 when an eastern 
syndicate secured the purchase of all except the 
homestead and a few surrounding acres.  And there on a 
lot within sight of the house, as he had chosen, the 
physical being of John B. Wellcome rests in the heart 
of the soil he loved so well.