Robert T. Boatman Madison County History of Montana, Sanders, 1913 As one of the representative agriculturists and stockmen of his native county, Mr. Boatman merits special considerations in this publication and he is one of the well known and highly esteemed citizens of Madison County as well as a scion of one of its leading pioneer families. His extensive ranch is situated in the beautiful Centennial Valley and is about twenty-two miles distant from Monida, which is his post office address. Reared under the pioneer conditions of the great West, Mr. Boatman has had many interesting experiences in connection with activities in Montana and other sections and through his well ordered enterprise has contributed to the civic and material development and progress of the state in which the major part of his life has been passed. On the old homestead ranch of his father, near Laurien, Madison County, Montana, Robert T. Boatman was born on the 21st of April 1866 and he is a son of George T. and Harriet L. (Johnson) Boatman, the former of whom was born in Kentucky, about the year 1831, a representative of one of the old and honored families of the South and the latter of whom was born in Ohio about 1835. The marriage of the parents was solemnized in the state of Missouri and they continued there until 1865 when they came to Montana, making the journey across the plains with ox teams and arriving at Alder Gulch, the site of Virginia City in September of that year. There they passed the winter and in the spring they removed to an embryonic ranch situated between Laurien and Sheridan, Madison County. There the father entered vigorously upon the work of developing his pioneer ranch and there he remained until the autumn of 1887 when he sold the property and removed to the village of Dillon where he and his wife still maintain their home and where they are numbered among the sterling pioneers of this favored section of the state. In addition to reclaiming a valuable farm, George T. Boatman was at one time owner of the Silver Springs flour mills, which he operated about seven years. Of the eight children, Robert T. was the fourth in order of birth and the first to be born in Montana. Of the other children, three sons and four daughters are now living. In his boyhood, Robert T. Boatman learned the lessons of practical industry in connection with the operations of the pioneer farm, and he attended the common schools of his native county until he had attained to the age of fifteen when he initiated his independent career by going to British Columbia, where he remained seven years. He assisted in driving a herd of cattle into northwest Canada and for two years thereafter he was engaged in freighting operations, after which he was in the employ of I.G. Baker and Company about five years, with headquarters at Fort Benton from which point he freighted supplies into Canada. In the winter of 1887-8 he returned to Madison County, Montana, and here he continued to be successfully engaged in the buy8ing and shipping of horses until 1907. Since that time he has given his attention to agricultural pursuits and the raising of live stock. From 1898 until 1907 he had charge of the Home Park Ranch, in the upper Ruby Valley and in his independent operations he now has a fine ranch of four thousand acres, in the Centennial Valley where he conducts a large and prosperous business in the feeding and sale of cattle and in the raising of the various crops best suited to the soil and climate. He is well known in his native county, is alert and progressive as a businessman and citizen and is one of the representative farmers, stock growers of Madison County. From the time of his birth until the present Mr. Boatman has maintained his home continuously in Montana, save for the interval of about seven years passed in British Columbia. In the year 1906 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Boatman to Miss Elizabeth J. Peterson who was born in the Upper Ruby Valley of Madison County and who father Ferdinand Peterson was one of the honored pioneers of that section of the County, whither he came from Oregon and where both he and his wife continued to reside until their death. Mr. and Mrs. Boatman have two children--Thornton T. who was born on February 10, 1907 and Harriet E. who was born May 10, 1910.