everyone went uptown to watch the St. Patrick’s Day parade. The couple boarded a train heading west, stopping in St. Louis for a working honeymoon, as W.A. bought goods to ship west. They continued by train and stagecoach totheir new home, the mining camp of Helena, Montana. When they arrived, they discovered that most of Helenahad been destroyed by a fire. The newlyweds set up housekeeping in a friend’s spare bedroom.
W. A. Clark’s first wife, Katherine Louise “Kate” Stauffer Clark, a childhood friend from Pennsylvania.
( illustration credit3.1 )
In addition to a new wife, W.A. had a new business venture. Time and again, he showed great adaptability, switching businesses and cities in search of greater profit. In partnership with a Missouri merchant, he had formed a wholesale mercantile business in 1868.Donnell & Clark shipped groceries and eastern goods to Helena, Montana, by river, rail, and bull or mule teams—a lot of effort for very little profit. After a rough season of drought and poor sales, they consolidated the business in Deer Lodge, a growing town to the west of Helena, in cattle and mining country, and added a third partner, becoming Donnell, Clark & Larabie. In 1870, they adapted to circumstances again, whittling their business down to its most profitable element, banking, which was mostly the business of making the rounds of mining camps, assaying and buying gold dust.
W.A. was shrewd in business, but he was known, like his father, for fair dealing. “When we first knew him he was a ragged, dirty, lousy miner,” Montana’s
Missoula Gazette
recalled in 1888. “But beneath those rags and gray-backs there was industry, energy, determination and brains, and behind all a resolute, fixed, determined purpose to succeed in the struggle for wealth and honorable distinction.”
He had become a family man, too. Kate bore a daughter that January, named Mary Joaquina, usually called May or Maizie. She was followed by Charles Walker, or Charlie, in 1871. In 1874, an unnamed son died at only eight days old. Twin girls, Jessie and Katherine Louise, were born in 1875; the twin Jessie died at age two. William Andrews, Jr., called Will, was born in 1877, and Francis Paul followed in 1880. They were then a family of seven, with W.A., Kate, and the five surviving children.
The Clarks were now prosperous, at least by Deer Lodge standards.The federal census of 1870 shows W.A. as a grocer and banker, with a net worth of $15,000, equal to about $275,000 today. That made him the fourth-wealthiest banker in Deer Lodge, a town of 788 people. The young family lived on a side street in a white frame house with five rooms. Attached to the house was a log lean-to that W.A. used for his assay office. The Clarks traveled the dirt streets in a littlehorse-drawn buggy.
His wealth began to afford him social status, even a short-term military commission in an Indian war. During the Nez Percé War of 1877, W.A. raised three companies of volunteers and was assigned the rank of major. The fight was then taken over by regular U.S. Army soldiers, who drove Chief Joseph and his band of four hundred warriors off their ancestral lands, in violation of a U.S. treaty with the Indians. The soldiers captured the largest group of Nez Percé refugees near the Canadian border. Although W.A. saw no fighting, his son Charlie recalled watching his father ride off toward the Bitterroot Mountains “to sound the alarm about the Indians,” sitting atop a horse called Wild Bill.
In 1872, W.A. gained greater respectability as a banker when he and his partners organized theFirst National Bank of Deer Lodge, capitalized at $50,000. They soon opened a branch forty miles to the south in Butte, Montana, a failed gold camp with the beginnings of a rebirth as a mining camp for silver and copper. Two of W.A.’s younger brothers, Joseph and Ross, eventually joined him in Butte. After they arrived, W.A. bought out his other partners. It was now solely a
W. A. Clark’s first wife, Katherine Louise “Kate” Stauffer Clark, a childhood friend from Pennsylvania.
( illustration credit3.1 )
In addition to a new wife, W.A. had a new business venture. Time and again, he showed great adaptability, switching businesses and cities in search of greater profit. In partnership with a Missouri merchant, he had formed a wholesale mercantile business in 1868.Donnell & Clark shipped groceries and eastern goods to Helena, Montana, by river, rail, and bull or mule teams—a lot of effort for very little profit. After a rough season of drought and poor sales, they consolidated the business in Deer Lodge, a growing town to the west of Helena, in cattle and mining country, and added a third partner, becoming Donnell, Clark & Larabie. In 1870, they adapted to circumstances again, whittling their business down to its most profitable element, banking, which was mostly the business of making the rounds of mining camps, assaying and buying gold dust.
W.A. was shrewd in business, but he was known, like his father, for fair dealing. “When we first knew him he was a ragged, dirty, lousy miner,” Montana’s
Missoula Gazette
recalled in 1888. “But beneath those rags and gray-backs there was industry, energy, determination and brains, and behind all a resolute, fixed, determined purpose to succeed in the struggle for wealth and honorable distinction.”
He had become a family man, too. Kate bore a daughter that January, named Mary Joaquina, usually called May or Maizie. She was followed by Charles Walker, or Charlie, in 1871. In 1874, an unnamed son died at only eight days old. Twin girls, Jessie and Katherine Louise, were born in 1875; the twin Jessie died at age two. William Andrews, Jr., called Will, was born in 1877, and Francis Paul followed in 1880. They were then a family of seven, with W.A., Kate, and the five surviving children.
The Clarks were now prosperous, at least by Deer Lodge standards.The federal census of 1870 shows W.A. as a grocer and banker, with a net worth of $15,000, equal to about $275,000 today. That made him the fourth-wealthiest banker in Deer Lodge, a town of 788 people. The young family lived on a side street in a white frame house with five rooms. Attached to the house was a log lean-to that W.A. used for his assay office. The Clarks traveled the dirt streets in a littlehorse-drawn buggy.
His wealth began to afford him social status, even a short-term military commission in an Indian war. During the Nez Percé War of 1877, W.A. raised three companies of volunteers and was assigned the rank of major. The fight was then taken over by regular U.S. Army soldiers, who drove Chief Joseph and his band of four hundred warriors off their ancestral lands, in violation of a U.S. treaty with the Indians. The soldiers captured the largest group of Nez Percé refugees near the Canadian border. Although W.A. saw no fighting, his son Charlie recalled watching his father ride off toward the Bitterroot Mountains “to sound the alarm about the Indians,” sitting atop a horse called Wild Bill.
In 1872, W.A. gained greater respectability as a banker when he and his partners organized theFirst National Bank of Deer Lodge, capitalized at $50,000. They soon opened a branch forty miles to the south in Butte, Montana, a failed gold camp with the beginnings of a rebirth as a mining camp for silver and copper. Two of W.A.’s younger brothers, Joseph and Ross, eventually joined him in Butte. After they arrived, W.A. bought out his other partners. It was now solely a
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