J. Harry Beals
History of Montana, 1898
US Genweb Montana Archives

J. Harry Beals, one of the citizens of Montana was born in 
Maine in 1854, a son of Isaac Beals, a prominent farmer by 
occupation.  Our subject read much of the great possibilities 
awaiting young men in the West and at the age of nineteen 
arrived in Grand Rapids, Wisconsin where he applied himself 
to the blacksmith's trade.  He came to Ft. Custer, Montana 
in 1880 where he spent eighteen months and from that time 
until 1886 was engaged in hunting and trapping in the Black 
Hills, Wyoming.  He became one of the skilled shots in the 
region and was called the mighty hunter of Wyoming.  Mr. 
Beals has had many thrilling experiences with wild animals 
and his first hunting on the plains was for buffalo of which 
he killed twelve a day.  He worked at his trade in Billings 
from 1886 to 1890 when he again engaged in hunting in Wyoming.  
At one time he encountered two old bears with three young ones 
and after exhausting his ammunition secured four as trophies, 
one young one having escaped.

He was married in September 1888 to Miss Gertrude Schmidt, a
 daughter of John Schmidt, a mining broker of Helena.  They 
have two sons-Clyde and William.

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