1911 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AND REUNION
An event of historical
significance in Hughes History:
" Grandma Mincer's
80th birthday - she lived to be 87 - came to Montana from Iowa late in
life."
Ina Hughes Kirkman wrote the above pertaining to the picture. Aunt Ina, then 18 years old, and her mother, Sarah (Vincent) Hughes had traveled from Sumas, Washington, to Meadow Creek, Montana, to attend the 80th birthday celebration for Grandma Mincer, mother of the 12 Vincent children.
Aunt Ina also provided a handwritten identification of the people in the picture:
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"Summer of 1911, Meadow Creek, Mont. (Now called McAllister)
By: Ina Hughes
"Back row, against door, left to right. Uncle Allen Vincent and second wife (?); Aunt Lora (almost hidden), and her husband, Thomas Vincent; Uncle Jasper Vincent and wife, May
2nd row from back: Brother Ira (almost hidden); ___?___ (Alice, crossed out) and Viola Vincent (daughters of Uncle Allen); Thomas Vincent, (son of Uncle Allen); Uncle Jack McDowell (husband of Aunt Jennie Vincent); Maggie Vincent (wife of Thos. Vincent the younger); Aunt Jennie McDowell; Grandma Mincer (holding young grandchild - Ina Hughes, the 2nd); Aunt Flora Miller; Aunt Emma Farmer (from Iowa); our mother - Sarah Ellen Hughes; Edith McDowell Fletcher (daughter of Aunt Jennie).
3rd row: Standing-William Hughes and wife Bessie; seated-Allen Vincent, the younger (adopted by Aunt Lora and Uncle Tom when his mother, Uncle Allen's first wife, died at his birth. Allen died of flu in W.W.1, at Camp Lewis, Wash.); Ina Hughes; Leslie and Winifred Vincent (children of Uncle Jasper and Aunt May) and their small daughter on Winifred's lap, whose name I don't remember; Harry Miller (son of Aunt Flora); Mildred Vincent (daughter of Uncle Jasper and Aunt May); George Miller (son of Aunt Flora); Allie Vincent (daughter of Uncle Allen) and two of her children-I can't remember her married name; another daughter of Uncle Jasper and Aunt May, name forgotten.
Bottom row: John Hughes (playing with something on the floor) William Hughes (the 2nd) at my knee. The small girl whom I think was another of Uncle Jasper's numerous family, at her brother Leslie's, knee. The boy next to John, I can't remember at all; another son of Uncle Jasper's, whose name I've forgotten, but resembles his brother Leslie above.; Lewis McDowell (son of Uncle Jack and Aunt Jennie); Harold McDowell (also son of Uncle Jack and Aunt Jennie); Walter Vincent (son of Uncle Allen Vincent);
Tom and Emily Hughes not present. Ira's wife Ada not present. Leroy Vincent, oldest of Uncle Allen's family not present.
(Note: Minor changes and punctuation has been added for clarity.)
(An original print and copy of Aunt Ina's notes are in the Shirley Franz collection.)
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1887 OR 1888, NINTH GENERATION DESCENDANTS (IN OUR DIRECT BLOODLINE) OF JOHN HUGH,.
Sarah (Vincent) Hughes and Six of Her Eight Children.
Standing: left to right: Edwin, Roy, Ira and William. Center: standing, Mattie. Seated: Thomas and (mother) Sarah. Lora and Ina were born after this picture was taken and are shown in the photo below. Mattie appears again in the photo below as a teenager.
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The
three Hughes
Girls. Left to right: Lora, Ina, and Martha.
This is perhaps the only picture
available showing Lora and Ina as young
girls.
No date for the picture is recorded but Lois
Bromley thought it was
taken shortly after the family moved to Sumas
in 1900. It looks appropriate to
assign an age of 7 to 10 for Ina,
9 to 12 for Lora and 17 to 20 for Mattie, thus more or less confirming Lois's opinion. Lois also thought that her mother (Mattie) was 18 or 19 when she taught school in District 13 in Meadow Creek. (See Mattie's Memories of a Plain Little Girl, page 24)
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ABOUT THE VINCENT AND HUGHES RELATIONSHIP,
AND SOME MEADOW CREEK HISTORY, MT
"Thomas Vincent (Uncle Tom), Allen Vincent, and Jasper Vincent, settled in Madison Valley, MT as ranchers about 1885 to 1890. Eventually two daughters, Jennie Vincent McDowell and Flora Vincent Miller also came to Meadow Creek to live".
The above, written by Ina (Hughes) Kirkman (1.8), sets the scene for 9th generation Hugheses that settled in Montana. Thomas Vincent (Uncle Tom), with his wife Lora, owned and operated the "TV Ranch"when the migrating John W. and Sarah Hughes (1.0) and family passed through there on their way to the west coast. Sarah was Uncle Tom Vicent’s sister. Uncle Tom's and Aunt Lora's influence as leaders in the Valley lasted until their deaths. They provided a home base for the Hughes and Vincent nephews who stayed in the valley, especially for youthful Thomas S. Hughes (1.6), who lived, worked, and was partners with Uncle Tom Vincent for forty years.
Tom Vincent, 1911 Jack McDowell, 1911
Tom Vincent and Jack McDowell came to Montana together in 1887.
(See Chapeter 6 by R. R. Hughes (1.6.4)
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McALLISTER, By: Ruth Beals, in "Pioneer Trials and Trails."
Nearly midway between Norris and Ennis is situated McAllister, Montana, altitude 5050 feet, near the west shore of Meadow Lake. This area was formerly known as Meadow Creek and was settled in the late 1860s. The old Meadow Creek post office was established perhaps in the 1870s. A. M. Berry was the first postmaster. In 1880, George Bess was postmaster, he also had a hotel.
The first school building was a log structure built in the early 1870s and the first teacher was a Mr. Done. This building burned later and school was held in the community hall. The hall was enlarged in the early 1900s. In 1901 a brick school building was completed.
A Methodist church was completed in 1887.
The settlement now known as McAllister was settled in December 1896, on ground bought by Alex McAllister from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. Mr. McAllister had settled near this spot with his parents in 1871. The post office was established in 1902.
Dave Lindsay was the first postmaster
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My recollection: Mother said that when she first came to the valley, Upper Meadow Creek and Lower Meadow Creek were developing as two separate communities, and for a while had two post offices. The Gibsons had a post office in their house, known as Meadow Creek, which was located about where the Bausch house was in later years. The other Meadow Creek post office gradually became known as McAllister, and became the official U. S. Post Office for the area after the 1910 census. She said that there was really no confusion about mail; everybody knew everybody else and one seldom went to the post office; neighbors would bring the mail. Ruth Beal writes in her article that George Bess had a post office in the hotel. The post office was probably there until Alex McAllister took it over when he built his store about 1900.
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My Memory Map of Meadow Creek (approx 1908)
The Methodist Church, built in 1887 is still standing just to the west of where this map ends. The Community Hall, now gone, was about 200 yards east of the church. A house for the minister stood in between the community hall and the church. The church house was moved, in the early 1920s, and coupled to the community hall to make a kitchen area. Later the original Community Hall was torn down and the church house served as the community center.
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Insert: Intersection of Ennis/Norris road (Hwy 287) and McAllister (was Meadow Creek)
My Map of the MEADOW CREEK AREA
(as I think it was in 1908 when my folks were married)
A brief description, preceded with a number, of each location appears in the following two pages. Matching numbers appear in the map.
(1) Tom Vincent's T.V. Ranch: Destination point for the Hughes and Vincent families who migrated, from Iowa and Kansas, to Montana in the late l890s and early l900s. "Uncle Tom" had taken over management of this ranch (owned by the Richters, of Virginia City) after his marriage to Lora Richter in l887.
(2) Before the Montana Power Co. built a dam in Madison Canyon, the lowland area upstream grew abundant wild hay that was harvested every year by the neighboring ranches. Tom Vincent's T. V. Ranch had a large block of this ground. The hayfield area was flooded by the dam and was known as Meadow Lake and/or Madison Lake, then later (when the tourist and fisherman trade became important to the townspeople) the permanent map designation became Ennis Lake.
(3) Emily's brothers, Joe and Tony Mackel, had purchased this ranch at about the same time that Tom Vincent took over the Richter Ranch. Her visits from Butte, to visit her brothers, resulted in her meeting young Tom Hughes, who worked and lived, most of the time, across the road at his Uncle's ranch.
(4) Post office location before moving to McAllister. Guy Gibson and his mother ran the post office, which was in their house. Tom and Emily were married in that house.
(5) Remington Ranch. Tom worked part time here when first arriving in Montana. Ronaldo Remington was one of the young men who "chummed" around with Tom in the early days.
(6) Revenue Hill Road provided access to the rich gold mines on the hill, and for the freighters to take their loads of ore to the rail end at Sappington, later to Norris when the railroad was extended.
(7) The Norris Hill road provided a direct route to Norris from Ennis and thus was more heavily used, and better maintained. The Revenue road was nearly abandoned in later years when the mines became worked out.
(8) Alex McAllister had a general store, service station, and rental cabins here. Eventually, sometime after 1910, the upper post office was closed and McAllister became the post office for the entire Meadow Creek area..
9) Tom and Emily started their married life at the homestead. Tom had help building a cabin from his brother Will, and, possibly from brother Roy, who was a carpenter, and visited Montana nearly every summer.
(10) Alex McKinnon owned property below the homestead. Records are not clear but Ed and Will Hughes had homesteaded at least some of the acreage that became the McKinnon place. Edwin and Lewis remembered living on the McKinnon place but the timing is unclear.
(11) District 13 school. One room, all grades. Emily's sister, Florence (Fodie) Gibson, was teacher when Tom and Emily were married.
(12) The McDowell place was close enough to District 13 that Edwin and Lewis could walk to school. Tom moved his family there, from Fletcher Creek, when the weather got too bad for the kids to ride horseback.
(13) Guy and Fodie Gibson owned a small place on the South Meadow Creek Road which was vacant in 1914 when the Tom Hughes family returned to Montana from their west coast trip. Bob was born there, Jan. 4th, 1915.
(14) The Gibson's were living on the Green Acre Ranch in 1915 (Guy was foreman).
(15) Maggie and Jess Frisbee had a ranch about a mile from the Gibson place. Maggie was summoned for mid-wife duties when Bob was born.
(16) The Fletcher Creek place was close to the T.V. Ranch, and the Tom Hughes family lived there a couple of times. The family moved to the old hotel building at McAllister when Tom's work at the T.V. Ranch ended.
(17) Lewis wrote that Schoenberger started building the original house on this place in l882, so it was well established when the Hughes kids went by there on their way to school from the Fletcher Creek (about 1916). The Stoker family, who had one of the first radios in the valley, lived there in the 1920's. I remember going there with my folks, before Tommy was born, to listen to static ridden old time music (hoedown) from Calgary.
(18) The "corduroy bridge" covered an extremely soft and swampy bottom caused by poor drainage of South Meadow Creek into the lake. In the early days, when nothing but horses and wagons used this road, it was made passable by cutting short logs and laying them side by side to make approaches on both sides of the wooden bridge that spanned the channel. It was an ordeal to cross even with a team and wagon. The horses stumbled and fell, or their legs went through the cracks, wagon wheels bounced violently, it was almost impossible to ride in the bed of a springless wagon. In the spring it became completely impassable for a few days during run-off. Those living below were stranded. When people started to try to cross over this monstrosity with automobiles, it became a community peril. Finally work crews were organized to clear out the creek for better drainage, and with the county's help, the approaches to the bridge were filled with dirt and graded. I quite clearly remember using this bridge quite a lot, in the wagon with Dad, when the logs were still there, Tommy vaguely remembers it also, so I think it must have been improved around 1927.
(19) The road from Norris to Ennis went through several modifications before becoming hard surfaced with asphalt. In 1920, when we moved to the home ranch, the road was a couple of ruts traveled mainly by team and wagon. I suppose the early autos (mostly Model T's) started using it about that time, creating pressure to upgrade it; which was done the first time about 1928 or 1930. In l934 and 1935, a rock crusher was set up on the McAtee Hill and upgrading on the road started again. Maurice McDowell tried to keep the corrugations out with a small, horse drawn grader for a few years until the asphalt process came along.
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