Benjamin Franklin Ferris - On to Montana


     The Boles family consisted of Mr., Mrs and two Miss Boles. Molly, the
older and much nicer of the two girls attracted my attention and we rode and
drove many miles over the Texas prairie, while J.W. and the younger sister
walked and talked and spooned among the flowers and fruit trees. I did not and
do not doubt the wisdom of it, but I was not ready to settle down. If we had
staid, there is no doubt that we would have married these nice two girls and so
passed in our checks as bachilors. Molly said to me while driving, "Now Mr. F.,
you have been away from home so long. Why don't you marry and take your wife
and go and visit your folks?" I replied, "I will do that, Molly, if you will
have me." She seemed much surprised and shocked by my reply, and I turned it
off by apologising for my ignorance in such matters, and the subject was never
refered to again. I was that it was to stay and marry or leave, so I left. John
W. and I went to Sherman and from there to Pilot Point and hunted up the Besett
family that we has traveled to Texas with in '59.

     There were two boys, Jim Besett about 25, and Jim Dorrance, a stepson
about 21, and Molly Dorrance about 23 years old. Molly and I spent a verry
pleasant week riding over the prairies on our good horses. In Texas as in
Mexico, they love their horses, but do not spare them. If one fails, there is
always another.

     We went about 100 miles west, to Ft. Richardson on the extreme frontier
and bought 200 head of cattle and Jim Dorrance gathered as many of his and we
drove them to Mo. An agreable party, 6 strong men, One white woman with two
children and one black woman with one kid. We drove to SW Mo. and were forced
to stop in the Cherokee Nation because the Missourians would not let Texas
cattle cross the line untill frost, for fear of Texas fever. This fever scare
bothered us so much that we lost money on the drive.

     Finally in December 1868, we disposed of the last of our herd, having sold
some and traded some. Sold the last after snow covered the ground, at
Springfield. We went 100 miles east of Springfield and put our horses at work
on the Mo Pac. R.R., grading, at $4.00 per day for man and team. This was the
roughest country I had ever lived in for a farming country, and the people were
rough and ignorant. After faring verry poorly for 2 or 3 weeks, we got board
with an ex-preacher from Texas by the name of Quick.

     In the party that went RRing was John Wenches, Jim Dorrance, and myself,
and we soon had 7 teams running and we built stables and all boarded with
Quick's. Mr Q was a harmless, common southerner, 58 years old, and Mrs. Quick
was a tall, straight woman of 30 years of age. Who had been a remarcable
beauty, and still, notwithstanding the rough life, she was a woman to attract
attention, a neat housekeeper and a fine cook.

     All went well for a time and we made money, but Quick got jelous and a
scene that I will never forget broke out, resulting in some of the party
hunting another boarding place for a time, and then we learned again to
appreciate the Quick board and were only too willing to comply when the Quick's
both sent pressing invitations for us to do so.

     A. Mr. Forrest kept a boarding house near Quick's and boarded the day
laborers. He had a large, stout, and intelligent wife and a houseful of
children, the oldest boy about 20 and oldest girls about 17, I soon got
acquainted with this family and found them interesting, especially the oldest
girl, Adaline. This interest grew with more intimate acquaintance and altho I
had to move as RR work progressed, I kept track of her. I finally sold teams
and wagons and went into a grocery store with a Dutchman at Neosho, Mo. As we
were not agreeable to each other I sold out to him and as the RR was being
built past Neosho, I was to put my money into a saloon in company with a Mr.
Wolf, who had experience in that line. Wolf agreed to manage the saloon and
make a pile of money. Not long after we started the saloon, Wolf came to me and
asked me to buy him out. Why? Because the woman he was living with, a verry
pretty and most agreeable young girl of a woman, was not his wife and he had to
leave or get into serious trouble.

     I bought him out and he left. I run the saloon and had a high time while
my money lasted. On Nov 15, 1870, Ada F. and I got married. I sold the saloon
in spring of '71 and went to Sedalia, Mo and assisted a Mr. J. Allen Wire in
furnishing meat for RR men while they built the branch of the M.P.R.R. from
Sedalia to Lexington, Mo. Wife soon joined me, and we boardes along the line of
the road for more than a year, generally with farmers.

     When the road was completed, Wire and I took contract of fencing it and
while at this work, our oldest boy, John C., was born at Ben McCormicks, two
miles east of Higginsville. While on this RR job, I had got word from my
brother John, then superintendent of a live stock company in Wyoming, and in
December, wife, baby and I left for Rock Springs, Wyoming. We had a rough time
of it as it was snowing hard when we left Sedalia and continued to snow most of
the time untill we got to Chyenne. Trains were late and it was verry cold. I
found John with his Morman wife and two children, living in a comfortable house
by a big river, 16 miles from Rock Springs, and the same distance from his
nearest neighbor, except for Billy Titsworth, a guide and herder, living in a
small house a few rods away.



Green River Area of Montana
     John is recorded as having started a live stock company with a W. H.
Mellor. A Mellor ranch still exists in the area. The map above shows a Ferris
and Tittsworth ranch on the Salt Well Creek. This seems to match the
description in the memoir. Today the creek is dry in the summer. Perhaps the
climate has changed or the extensive grazing has changed the dynamics of the
runoff. An 1886 "Holt" map shows a Ferris Spring due south of Rock Springs.
Billy Tittsworth was a famous early resident of the area, either a hero or a
crook depending on the story believed. His name was W. G. "Billy Buck"
Tittsworth who came from Arkansas after the Civil War. He is recorded as going
into the stock raising business in the late 1860s at Salt Wells, or "Tittsworth
Gap". Billy had some troubles after he shot someone and he is said to have gone
to Iowa, where the two brothers went. I wonder if he went there to meet them?
(EHM 3)



Billy Titsworth
     John had some of the Rock Springs folks out for Christmas and the next
morning, Billy came from Green River and reported they had two men for
breakfast.



     Records show nephew, George H. Ferris, and niece, Julia Ann Ferris,
were in Rock Springs at this time.
     John's daughter, born in 1878, was Edna Clair Ferris.  She was my
grandmother and the author of:
Edna Clair Ferris - Diary (EHM 3)

     I bought an interest in the live stock company and spent four years here
in the Rocky Mts, herding, butchering, etc. It did not suit me and it did not
pay, so early in the spring of '76, I told John I was going back to the states
and he said if I went, he would, so we took the horses and left cattle and came
to Iowa, Butler County, where brother Sol had a farm and a small nursery. I
traded horses in part payment for 40 acres of Butler Co., land of brother S.
W., he putting price on both horses and land.

     I visited my mother, taking the whole family, wife and two boys, John,
five years old, and Ben, 3 years, the latter born at Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Came back to Butler Co and commenced housekeeping on our small farm in fall of
'76. Sold nursery stock for S. W. untill 1880. Bought his nursery, also one at
Green, and one at Hampton. Milla and Earnest were born in the loghouse on the
farm. Moved to Hampton in summer of '81 and John followed in fall the same
year. We owned two nurseries in Co. and planted more.

     S. W. is Soloman Wayne Ferris, another brother of Ben. (EHM 3)

     Lulu, Leone and Concha were born in Hampton where I bought a home of 5
acres with a shell of a house and a few poor outbuildings. Planted nursery
stock and did a paying nursery business and raised our 7 children, having them
all in school at one time. Bought a hotel, in Hartly, Iowa, in '86, sold it in
'91. Took up homstead an tree claim in about '92, bought 40 acres in Hampton in
'95. Could not pay for it and brother S. W. got it for less than I did. He came
here and planted a nursery and that ended my profitable nursery business.

PREV <==    NEXT ==>

Ben Franklin Ferris - Introduction
Ben Franklin Ferris - 1838-1846
Ben Franklin Ferris - 1846-1857
Ben Franklin Ferris - The Early Years
Ben Franklin Ferris - Civil War
Ben Franklin Ferris - After the War
Ben Franklin Ferris - Mexican Civil War
Ben Franklin Ferris - On to Montana
Ben Franklin Ferris - Last Words
Ben Franklin Ferris - Epilogue
Battle of Apache Canyon and Pigeon's Ranch
Fort Union National Monument
Bibliography


Preface to These Documents. (Brief)
Family History
Ben Franklin Ferris - Memoir
Edna Clair Ferris - Diary.
Mallory Home Page