Taylor - Ohio to Montana - 1910

Families

Frank Taylor was born December 22, 1875, on a farm near Derby, Ohio, which is about 20 miles SW of Columbus. Frank had three brothers and two sisters.  His parents were Warner T. Taylor, Jr. and Jane (Blackburn) Taylor. Their farm consisted of several hundred acres where they raised crops and fattened up cattle for market in the lush pastures of Pickaway County.  The previous generation of Taylor’s had migrated to Ohio from Hampshire County, VA in the early 1800’s. During the 1700’s, the Taylor’s had farmed in Hunterdon Twp, NJ, so it is clear that westward migration was a pattern in this pioneer family.

Adjacent to Warner T. Taylor’s place in Ohio, lived the Fitzgerald’s, who had been neighbors back in Hampshire Co., VA. As was common in those early year’s, family groups and neighbors often traveled and settled new areas together.  George and Emma (Crookham) Fitzgerald had two children. A son named Seisel, after the surname of a family friend, and a daughter named Warne, who was so named because she was supposed to be a boy and was to be named after their neighbor and friend, Warner Taylor.

Looking West

Frank Taylor, and Seisel & Warne Fitzgerald grew up together and as young adults the prospects of making a living in Ohio were becoming more difficult. They decided to go west.  Frank went alone by train to the West Coast, looking for land, but was unsuccessful.  On his way back he stopped in Chinook, MT., where George Roberts and Frank Browne from Columbus, Ohio were known to have a ranch located about 20 miles south, near Cleveland, Montana.  With their help, Frank rented the nearby Rhodes ranch in 1910.  Seisel and Warne soon joined Frank, and they formed the Peoples Creek Sheep Company.  In 1911, the Browne-Roberts ranch came up for sale and Frank bought it. The three continued to live at the Rhodes place, while Warne worked at fixing up the ranch house at the Browne-Roberts ranch. Frank and Warne were planning to marry and in 1912 they returned to Ohio, to be wed among family and friends at Warne’s Aunt Kate (Fitzgerald) Florence’s house in Circleville, Ohio. Siesel remained in Montana, tending to the business while Frank and Warne were gone.

The Ranch

Upon returning to the ranch, they set up housekeeping in the log house that was built in 1889 from trees cut on Timber Butte and hauled to the site by a four-horse team.  The living room was 26 X 20, and the dining room was 24 X 24.  There were three bedrooms.  All of the chinking was removed from the walls and it was soaked in kerosene and re-chinked.  The interior walls were calcimined with three coats. The kitchen had a Majestic wood burning cook stove, and running water was supplied from a spring some distance up the hill behind the house.  This required a 6’ ditch that was dug by hand to pipe the water in.  A bathroom was added, and a later a firebox was attached to the stove to provide hot running water in the kitchen and bathroom. A summer kitchen was built so as not to heat up the house during the summer, when big meals were prepared for all of the ranch hands.  There were two gardens for vegetables and a root cellar for food storage was dug into the hill behind the house.  There were chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys for eggs and meat. A few cows were kept for milk and butter.  Pigs were raised for meat. Horses were used for transportation and fieldwork, until automobiles and tractors became more common.

The ranch house had a beautiful lawn with a willow picket fence around it to keep out the chickens and the dogs.  The abundant water from the spring made it possible to keep the grass healthy all summer long.  Frank and Warne loved to entertain, and the lawn was used for parties, picnics, and receptions.

Many parts of the range were open areas and not owned by an individual.  Two of Warne’s uncles, George and William Crookham came from Ohio to claim adjacent rangeland. It was required that a house be built and the owner live in it for three years to prove up the claim on this land before it could be deeded over.  Warne, herself, claimed some land directly behind the ranch house, and had a small cabin built.  She lived in it, along with her children for the required three years.  She would fix the children breakfast in the cabin and then go down to the ranch house and prepare the meal for Frank and the hands.  Some of this newly deeded land was eventually purchased by Frank and added it to the ranch property. There was also substantial leased land from the state that provided additional pasture.  The entire ranch, including the leased land, was over 8000 acres.

Frank and Warne Taylor had two children.  Nancy Jane was born December 30, 1913, and George Warner was born March 28, 1917.  They both grew up on the ranch and attended Peoples Creek School. The school year was March through October due to the severe winter weather.  The schoolteacher usually lived at the Taylor place, as there was an extra bedroom.  If there were no other students in a given year, the teacher stayed at the ranch and taught only Nancy and George.

Life on the ranch in those early years was difficult and the work was hard, but with Frank’s ingenuity and effort the Taylor ranch had many amenities that others did not. 

He even installed a wind charger, which was a windmill that turned a generator feeding electricity to a storage battery setup in the crawl space under the utility room. This provided a 32 Volt DC current to power a select few household appliances and lights.

Sheep

The Taylor ranch had three bands of sheep.  Each band comprised about 2000 head.  Sheep were considered good business as there was revenue from wool in the Spring and a new crop of lambs were born in mid-winter.  Each band of sheep had a herder who lived on the range in a herder’s camp wagon.  The wagons were horse drawn.  They were outfitted with a bed and stove, with plenty of room for storing food, clothes, and firewood. The wagons were stocked with bacon, ham, eggs, flour, sugar, coffee/tea, potatoes, and beans.  Every ten days or so this stock was replenished with food from the ranch.  During lambing time, the herder picked up ewes and their new lambs used a special wagon, with 12 compartments.  They were then brought to the large sheep shed at the ranch and placed in a small pen in the shed.   When about 50 ewes and lambs were well enough along, they were turned out into a small pasture adjacent to the shed to graze as a bunch.  As the lambs matured, these bunches were then introduced back into one of the bands.  This was a critical time and great care was taken to insure the lambs well being.

Sheep were not allowed in the ranch meadows and alfalfa fields, as these crops were used to make hay for winter-feeding.  Often during the summer, the sheep were taken to nearby pastures that were rented from neighbors. This insured plenty of grazing and hay making on the ranch for the cold season feeding.

Conservation

Conservation was a part of every day life on the ranch in those early days.  All sorts of things were saved and re-used. Clothes, bedding, tools, are just a few of the things that were recycled. There were two good reasons for this.  First, there was no steady cash income, as money was only received after wool shearing and again when sheep were sold at market.  In between there were supplies to be purchased and field hands and herders to be paid.  Secondly, it was nearly a days drive by horse and wagon to town.  During the winter it was difficult to get to town at all.  Saving things that could be re-used, modified, or repaired was the norm and it would have been unthinkable to do otherwise.  Self-sufficiency on the ranch was important to everyone.

Food Storage

Warne had a 36-quart steamer.  Vegetables were gathered from the gardens and the cleaning and canning process began.  If there were not enough of a certain vegetable to fill the steamer, two or three different ones were cooked at the same time.  It took 3 hours for peas and green beans, but 4 hours for corn or lima beans.  The water had to be replenished and kept at a hard boil. When the jars hit the cold air, they pinged and that assured that they were sealed.  After they cooled, they were taken to the root cellar. In addition to the canned vegetables, there were pickles, plums, pears, and peaches.   When the cellar was fully stocked there were several hundred jars of various fruits and vegetables.

Potatoes were stored there too, along with carrots and cabbage.  There were always several boxes of apples available.  The storeroom in the house had dried apples, peaches, pears, raisins, oatmeal, cornmeal, salt, sugar, and flour.  There was a large icebox that held 500# of ice, that were cut from the pond in blocks and hauled in.

Winter

School was not held in the winter due to the weather, so everyone had a job to do.

Keeping the wood box full was most important. Gathering eggs was a daily chore. There was a gasoline powered wash machine that was indispensable in keeping up with the laundry.  It was located in a separate room off of the kitchen.  In winter there was a folding dry rack that was moved into the living room near the wood stove.  The bedrooms were not heated, so all of the beds had cotton flannel sheets and several quilts to keep a person warm on those cold winter nights.

Fishing was also a winter pastime and also provided meat for the table. There were deep holes in the hop pasture that were frozen over. Frank would spread hay on the ice and the children would lie on the hay and fish through holes in the ice for hours at a time.

Ohio Roots

Nearly every winter after the holidays and before lambing season, the Taylor’s would pack up the family and take the train to Ohio to visit relatives.  This tradition was carried on into the mid-twenties until the Taylor and Fitzgerald parents had passed away.  It was always an exciting time for the children and it allowed them to get to know their Ohio cousins.  Several of the relatives from Ohio have visited the ranch over the years, and so a close family bond was maintained that might otherwise have been lost when one considers the distance involved.

End

Frank and Warne sold the ranch in 1946 to the Holman’s and moved into Chinook to be near their children and grandchildren.  Nancy had married in 1940 thereby gave up her Taylor name. She had four children.  Her brother, George Warner also married and had 5 daughters.  George is now deceased. It is unfortunate that this branch of the Taylor name has now run out in Montana, but I think that it is fair to say that they made their mark as a pioneer family in early Montana history.  There are still Ohio friends and family who come to Chinook to visit Taylor descendents from time to time.  They come to renew acquaintances, recall old memories, and for some, it is to see the Big Sky country for the first time.  I recently returned from my first trip to Montana and for me all three of those reasons apply.

I visited the ranch, where the house is still in service and the lawn is as lush as ever.  The sheep are gone, but now there are cattle.  The place is much the same as the pictures taken in 1920.

Frank Taylor was my paternal grandmother’s brother.  My father had gone to Montana on several occasions as a young man to work for Uncle Frank and Seisel, and as a child I listened to his Montana stories with rapt attention.  I doubt that all of the stories were true, but it cemented images of the ranch, the country, and the people in my mind.  My father was a good storyteller, but as good as he was; I don’t think that he did justice to Montana.

I have children and grandchildren and now I have some Montana stories of my own to pass along.  I hope that I can give them some feeling of what it must have been like for our ancestors making their way in that beautiful, spacious, unforgiving frontier.

Mt Pioneers ©1998-2000 by Ann Kramlich  All Rights Reserved.