After the civil war was over, the economy of Virginia was in ruins, and it was hard to make a living for almost everyone, and the Conrads were not exempt. Charles and W. G. Left their home in Virginia and headed to New York state to live with and work for relatives, as they could not get work at home and with the times being so tight, it was concluded that the boys should head north where they had been offered room, board and jobs with their aunt Mary and her husband, John Hunter.
Mary Elizabeth Conrad (1831-1909) was the youngest sibling of James Warren Conrad and was only 19 when Charlie was born. She married John Hunter (1828-1902) of Sterling Valley, Cayuga co., NY, in 1855 and removed there with him. The Hunters[0] were for many years a merchant family of Cayuga county. John with his brother James Crockett Hunter and a partner in 1859 opened a store in Sterling Valley under the name of John Hunter & Co. The store went through minor changes in ownership, with John owning it outright 1863-1867. The firm of John Hunter & Co. was widely and favorably known, their house being one of the most prominent in their section of the County.[1A]
This is no doubt the store the Conrad brothers worked in while with their aunt & uncle. In 1867, James bought back a half interest and the store continued as James C. Hunter & Co. It was not long after that when the Conrad boys headed west, in 1868.
John Hunter was previously involved in building sections of several railroads in central New York and a portion of the Welland Canal[1B] and later, in 1880, with his four brothers, established the Hunter Arms Co. in Fulton, Oswego county, New York. In 1888, Hunter Arms bought out L. C. Smith, maker of the "Elsie" double-barreled shotgun and continued making them while Mr. Smith went on to make typewriters as the Smith Premier Typewriter Co. He then joined forces with the Corona Typewriter company and the resultant company became known as Smith-Corona. That's Charlie's very tenuous connection to typewriters.
Charlie did have at least one of his uncle's shotguns in his gun collection.
With so many places to choose from in which to seek their fortunes, why did they pick Ft. Benton, away to the west in Montana Territory? The gold rush in Montana was pretty well over by 1868, so what bent their minds in that direction?
The answer came unexpectedly in the pages of a book which referenced W. G. Conrad in an account written by his third cousin (on his mama’s side), Shirley Carter Ashby. The incident involving W. G. was interesting enough, but what really got our attention was the tale of how Mr. Ashby ended up in Ft. Benton and what happened to him shortly thereafter,[1, 2], which I will now take up.
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| Shirley Carter Ashby |
Shirley Carter Ashby, 3rd cousin to C. E. & W. G. Conrad, was born 10 August, 1843, in Fauquier county, Virginia, to George William Ashby (not to be confused with C. E.’s grandfather of the same name) and Hebe Grace (Carter) Ashby. He served in the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War.[3]
He had a brother, one William Wirt Ashby, who had gone to St. Louis, Missouri, during the Civil War, having apparently run into some trouble in Virginia.[4] He may have accompanied his uncle, Duncan S. Carter to St. Louis. Wirt was working for Joseph LaBarge[5] as a pilot. After the surrender at Appomattox, S. C. Ashby joined his brother and uncle in St. Louis and got a job as a clerk on a steamboat, likely with their help, for not only was his brother a pilot for La Barge[6], but his uncle owned a boat of his own, the Mountaineer.
He had come down with cholera and had been advised by his doctor to seek the mountains, and was further advised by his maternal uncle, Capt. Duncan S. Carter, a friend of Capt. Nick Wall, manager of the Diamond R Transfer Co.,[7] to go to Montana. Consequently, on 13 April 1867, S. C. Ashby headed up the Missouri river for Ft. Benton on board the Nile, Capt. Luker in charge, with his brother as pilot, arriving 12 Jun 1867.[8] Ft. Benton was, at this time, a very busy port being the head of navigation on the Missouri. The buffalo robe trade was in full swing, and any young man of determination could certainly make his way in the world there. It was the gateway to adventure!
In Ft. Benton, he eventually landed a position clerking for I. G. Baker & Bro. which in turn led to his being given a ten percent interest in the company for services rendered above and beyond the call of duty as detailed in Mr. Ashby’s narrative.
I think it is of some interest as to exactly how Mr. Ashby earned that ten percent, so I here give a summary of the events as he related them.
In the summer of 1868, the Bakers had been granted one of two federal trading licenses that allowed them to set up two trading posts, one to be on the Marias River for trade with the Blood (Kainai) and the North Blackfeet (Siksika) and the other to be located on the Milk River at the mouth of People’s Creek for trade with the Gros Ventre (A’aninin or Aksina).
They had hired a fellow by the name of Roche de Rouche to locate, build and operate the Marias River post and Ashby had been hired as his clerk. However, at the last minute, de Rouche backed out, claiming his Indian wife had told him any white men in that area would be killed and scalped.
This left the Bakers in a bind, as they were not able to find anyone to replace him. Ashby, being privy to the problem by virtue of the fact that his desk was right next to theirs, offered to take the job, despite having little experience. His offer was immediately accepted and I. G. Baker was to go along to help out in locating the post and in building the stockade. The new trading post was located on the Marias just below Willow Round. They named the new post Fort Ashby. After the buildings were up and the holes for the stockade dug, Mr. Baker returned to Ft. Benton, but soon sent W. G. Conrad to assist his cousin.
They traded with the Kainai, Siksika, and Piikani and despite a few incidents, that winter's trading was very successful. They returned to Ft. Benton the following Spring (1869)[9] with $40,000 in profit for the Baker concern. As payment for the young Ashby’s efforts which had yielded such excellent results, the Bakers paid him $7500 for making the trip and made him a partner with ten percent interest in all the business of the firm as thanks for saving their bacon.
As the Conrad brothers arrived in Ft. Benton only a year after Ashby, it is not beyond likelihood that his presence had encouraged them to go there, either as a direct suggestion or through the family grapevine. At any rate, their situation with the Hunters was not to their liking, as they really weren't much better of than they had been in Virginia, so the opportunity to make their fortunes in the West was likely a strong lure and so it was Westward, Ho! for the boys.
They arrived 30 May 1868 on the steamer Mountaineer which was owned by S. C. Ashby’s uncle, Duncan S. Carter.[10] It was through their Ashby cousin that Charlie got his position with I. G. Baker and W. G. obtained a position in Helena with McCormick, Caldwell and Co.[11] which W. G. shortly decided did not appeal to him and he returned to Ft. Benton whereupon his Ashby cousin got him on with the Baker firm as well.
The Bakers held Ashby in high esteem, as one of his employers, George Baker, named a son after him, Shirley Ashby Baker...and S. C. returned the favor, naming his son Shirley Baker Ashby!
In 1870, Ashby wanted to move his mother, who was by that time living in St. Louis, out West with him along with his maternal uncle, newly retired former riverboat owner and captain, Duncan S. Carter, who was still living in St. Louis. He chose to move all three of them to Helena, rather than Ft. Benton, deeming the latter too rough a town for genteel persons of advanced age. To raise the additional funds needed to bring his relatives to Montana and thence to Helena, Ashby sold his ten percent interest in the Baker firm to his cousins, the Conrad brothers. This also provided him some working capital with which he could establish himself in Helena.
He wasted no time upon arrival in the larger town and quickly established his own interests, but also acted as agents for I. G. Baker & Co. as various newspaper ads of the time attest. This firm was eventually controlled by his cousins. He was primarily engaged in the real estate and insurance business until 1889, when in addition, he opened a store selling agricultural implements, wagons and carriages. In 1892, Ashby became president of the Helena National Bank. His mansion in Helena was built in 1886, for a reported price of $15,000. It remained the Ashby residence until 1903, when Senator Thomas H. Carter became the owner.[12]
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| The Ashby/Carter mansion in Helena |
He was appointed Adjutant-General of the Montana National Guard in 1903.[13]
He married his wife, Emma Withers (b. 1852, Missouri), in 1876 and they had three children, two girls (Hebe May, 1877 & Gertrude, 1893) and one boy, Shirley Baker Ashby (1880) who later went by the name Shirley Carter Ashby Jr. and is buried as Shirley C. Ashby II.[14]
After a major set-back in his real-estate ventures, Mr. Ashby lost interest in business and retired to a quiet life, having considered his life a failure. He passed away 2 Jun 1924 in Helena and is buried in Forestvale Cemetery.
Family connections were very important not only to the Conrad brothers and their Ashby cousin, but to others in the extended Conrad family, as both brothers aided many of them to make a new start in Montana by providing them jobs, either with one of their concerns or with others, financial assistance or connections.
--- Copyright ©2023 by Richard L. Hardesty. All rights reserved
NOTES
0. Charlie had a younger brother, Joseph Hunter Conrad (1859-1894) born after Mary’s marriage to John Hunter.
1A. History of Sterling, New York, ex. Elliot G. Storke, Assisted by: Jos H. Smith. History of Cayuga County, New York. Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Co., 1879.
1B. http://geocitiessites.com/biosterlingny.htm (last accessed 8/24/23). Contains much more information of John Hunter's engineering work and mercantile efforts in the Sterling area. It was on one of these early railroad contracts, one in Fauquier co., Virginia, in fact, that he met Mary Conrad.
1. Silliman, Eugene Lee, ed. We Seized Our Rifles. Recollections of the Montana Frontier. Introduction by Eugene Lee Silliman, illus. Joe Boddy. Missoula: Mountain Press, [1982].
2. Although we first came across the Ashby story, titled An Opportunity Presented Itself, in We Seized Our Rifles (op. cit.), the manuscript had been shortened for publication. The narrative is the result of an interview with Mr. Ashby by A. J. Noyes in 1916 and a transcript of the full interview is in the Montana Historical Society (Shirley Carter Ashby papers, 1867-1889, SC 283) along with Ashby’s journal of his trip up the river on the Nile. This interview is the source that we have used, and not the book.
Mr. Noyes himself died in 1917 and is probably best known for his book The Story of Ajax: Life in the Big Hole Basin (Helena: State Publishing co., 1914) and reprinted in 1966 by Buffalo Head Press.
3. Company D, Sixth Virginia Cavalry, under Colonel Fitz Hugh, in Lee's division, enlisted 9-22-1862, paroled April 20,1865 at Millwood, Age 23. Cavanaugh, Michael A. 6th Virginia Infantry. Lynchburg, VA: H.E. Howard, 1988.
4. He normally went by his middle name and apparently was the same Wirt Ashby who, in company with one Charles McDonough, murdered a captured Union officer, Capt. Evan M. Buchanan. If so, it would certainly explain his sudden departure from Virginia in the middle of the war. Mr. McDonough was sought by the Union for some time for that act, and eventually came to a bad end. Having sworn never to be captured by any Yankee, when faced with that eventuality, he committed suicide rather than surrender. (Williamson, James Joseph. Mosby’s Rangers: A Record of the Operations of the Forty Third Battalion Virginia Cavalry, etc. NY: Ralph B. Kenyon, 1896, p. 303, footnote 6 and p. 307, footnote 10.)
5. For an account of this man’s life, see Chittenden, Hiram Martin, History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River: The Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge. 2 vols. NY: Francis P. Harper, 1903. This has been reprinted several times.
6. Wirt eventually worked his way up to a captaincy and married the boss’ daughter, Marie Octavia LaBarge, who, incidentally, had a Missouri river steamboat named after her, the Octavia. Wirt and Marie had nine children in all. He was shot to death in front of his dentist’s office 20 April 1892 by an unknown assailant.
7. The Diamond R was the largest freight outfit in Montana, Utah and Idaho at the time. See Madsen, Brigham D. and Betty M., “The Diamond R Rolls Out.” Montana, the Magazine of Western History, 21:2(2-17).
8. “In 1867, she loaded at St. Louis for Ft. Benton, Capt. James F. Luker, made the round-trip in 73 days. She had but one pilot on the down-bound leg, Wirt Ashby, who did all the work and was on watch for ten and one-half days doing it, something of a record.” Way, Frederick (Jr.). Way’s Packet Directory 1848-1983. Passenger steamboats of the Mississippi River system since the advent of Photography in Mid-Continent America. Athens: Ohio University Press, [c1983], entry #4209.
9. They returned to Ft. Ashby again for the 1869-1870 trading season, as indicated by the 1870 U. S. Census. See the blog page “Ft. Ashby: 1879 Census” for details.
10. Ashby interview, op. cit. The Mountaineer was built for Duncan S. Carter of St. Louis, a maternal uncle to S. C. Ashby. It ran aground at the mouth of the Heart River in 1867 and was floated free. She sank twice in the Missouri, was owned in 1874 by William J. Lewis of St. Louis and was off the lists by 1875. Way, Frederick, Jr. op. cit., entry #4058.
11. Ashby interview. op. cit.
12. For his Helena activities, see Miller, Joaquin. An Illustrated History of the State of Montana. Chicago: Lewis Publ. Co., 1894.
13. According to his report to the Adjutant-General of the U. S. Army for 1903, the Montana National Guard was in sad shape: “There has been no mobilization of State troops during 1903, for the reason that there were no funds to defray the expense.”
In response to the enquiry about target practice, he had this to say: “The National Guard of Montana has not been ordered under arms this year. Books of instructions should be supplied and schools instituted the coming winter. The National Guard of Montana should be supplied with tentage and other necessary camp equipment before being ordered into camp of instructions. The National Guard of Montana needs a Regular Army officer to instruct and drill it thoroughly before it will be of much use.”
Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1903. Vol 1: Reports of the Secretary of War, Chief of Staff, Adjutant-General, Inspector-General, and Judge-Advocate-General. Washington: GPO, 1903; pp 336-337.
14. He named his son Shirley Carter Ashby III (1921-2007).
Revised 1/9/23, 1/18/23
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