Perry W. McAdow
Revised 8 November 2002 [Added details]
Perry
W. McAdow (Bud) was among the
Perry was a merchant by heart, and he and Tom Cooper operated a sawmill in
the Grasshopper Creek area. He sold the mill in the summer of 1864, and moved
to
[Note: It is reported
in his biography, author unknown, that he moved from Gallatin Valley to Coulson
in 1867 to become a merchant and sawmill operator. However, these dates to not
seem to be consistent with the land purchases and the founding date for
Coulson, in June 1877; and according to the War Department’s military
expedition on the riverboat “Josephine”, piloted by Captain Grant
Marsh, in 1875, there were no white men in the area. A Billings Gazette 1914
article states he relocated to the Yellowstone Valley in the summer of 1877.
This must have been in May.] The Josephine riverboat reached Duck Creek on June
7, 1875. See Cochran
files for details.
He purchased 457.86 acres of land (Desert Claim Land identified later by land surveyors in 1878) south of the Coulson area in Section 2, Rn26E, Tp 1S [Josephine Park – City Water Plant sites, directly south of John Alderson’s land, whose property was used for creation of Coulson. The filing date for the land is not evident as the land filing records held by the BLM were not microfilmed and apparently have been lost. Homestead applications are supposedly available through NARA. He did claim ownership of these lands prior to the arrival of Northern Pacific railroad and had tried unsuccessfully, along with John Alderson and John Shock, to sell their land to the railroad at an exorbitant price ($30,000?) for establishment of a permanent town in Coulson, which was later platted in 1881 by Alderson. He located his land in the summer of 1876, when the railroad surveyors were creating boundary lines.
Perry published his water rights in Book A, Custer County on November 15, 1879. In that document he identified that he filed for his desert land claim under Desert Land Act on March 8, 1877, Bozeman District Series. He received formal title on March 18, 1879. He had the right to 2,000 inches of water for reclamation and irrigation with water extracted from the Yellowstone River situated on the south line of Section 10, Lot #4. This ditch crosses many other parcels (See Abstract Title #2432-YGF Forum Files for details and property transfers.) [2]
· On October 24, 1881 Perry made his final payment of $457.86 to JV Bogert, Receiver in Custer County.
· At time of filing Perry paid the Receiver in Bozeman $.25 per acre as down payment, with balance due before he could take legal title.
· On December 10, 1883 the United States issued Perry a Patent for his land.
After Billings was created, McAdow was asked to sell about 300 acres to support Billings. This was later known as “McAdow Subdivision”. The attempt by Alderson to create a town out of Coulson failed, and the town of Billings was created adjacent to it. [Coulson mainly ran in a northeast direction essentially parallel to the Interstate Highway that runs through its center, fully on John Alderson’s land and midway between where the fairgrounds and Conoco refinery are presently located, according to photographs of the town, and the land plat. A corner of the western edge of the property was just before it reached the Headquarters Building, owned by the railroad.] On June 22, 1885 he granted right-of-way to the Billings Water Power Company to install pipes and ditches on his land. The ditch connected to the Yellowstone River was called Coulson Ditch. Perry was operating a sawmill, with virtually all of his output devoted to the railroad’s needs. Joseph Cochran was one of his suppliers of logs, others ferried them down river from areas as far away as Livingston. The arrival date of the sawmill has not been identified, but had to have been before September 1877.[3]
Initially he had the mill located on his land,
along with a general store (tent), and a saloon (tent). In early 1878 John
Alderson apparently had decided to change his land plans from farming to the
creation of a more permanent settlement, and encouraged others to locate there.
This would make the town and businesses more accessible to the ferry across the
Yellowstone, which was located about ½ mile to the north of the main business
center. No land was platted at the time, but as businesses came into being,
they generally added to the line of businesses already there. John Alderson
asked Perry to put the sawmill onto his land, so as to better serve the entire
community. It is not known when this occurred, but was before October 1878, and
probably in early spring before cutting could begin. Walter W. de Lacy located
the mill as being on the north riverbank, about 0.6 miles south of the ferry.
Perry’s “saw house” was located a few hundred feet south of
the mill. There is no definition of what a “saw house” was, but
presumably it stored various tools and parts for the sawmill. The origination
of Billings
contains more details. In the 1880 Federal Census, Perry’s family and his
ten workers were not listed. At that time he had a large farm on his land, and
a store on John Alderson’s land. There were 11 buildings reported as
being in “Coulson” [John Alderson’s land] according to
the 1880 Census. (Photo – Parmly Billings Library – Reprint of
1882 Picture. View looking south toward river.)
When Billings became a real town, Perry created a streetcar connection between Coulson and Billings. He operated two horse-drawn coaches, and offered patrons FREE BEER at his Coulson store in exchange for the two-bit ride. This track ran from the railroad at 27th Street down to 6th Avenue South, then northeast to the town’s Main Street. Perry, along with T. S. Wadsworth and George B. Hulme (originally from New York City), formed the “Billings Street Car Company” on 25 May 1882. The organization of the company took place on the 20th. Its function was to serve residents and merchants with trade and passage in the City of Billings. This line was the first in Montana, and ran from 27th Street & Minnesota Avenue south to 6th Street, then northwest to where the Conoco refinery is located, and into Coulson’s Main Street. The total distance was two miles. The town of Coulson lay adjacent to Billings, and was only a few blocks actual travel to its edges. Extensive lines were later created that essentially created the bus line routes as currently in use. Perry McAdow and Fred H. Foster jointly owned the McAdow store, founded in 1881 and placed on the Coulson land at the north edge of the tract. This partnership lasted until 1883. Joining them was Jules Breuchard, who bought supplies for Perry on his trip east in 1881 to get married. (Both Jules and Fred were employed by the NPR at the time.) The local mail carrier, Billy Needham, upon completing his last trip with the Lavina stage made arrangements to go back to live with his mother in the east. He pulled off his coat in McAdow’s store and accidentally dropped a pistol he carried in a pocket. The gun went off wounding him in the leg, and he died a month later despite the efforts of J. H. Rinehart, hospital steward at Fort Custer, to save him.
Perry created the McAdow Subdivision from his land, with Cleve & Wadsworth as agents specializing in selling his lots. In 1886 he quit the area and moved to Judith Gap, where he mined a little and operated yet another sawmill. He struck it good, and established the “Spotted Horse” mine that gave him his eventual fortune that had eluded him earlier in Coulson and Billings.
A few years later in 1889 he sold out to Hauser & Holter, and he and his
wife Marian A (Tomlinson) vacationed in
[1] Bozeman Women Illegally Vote, Phyllis Smith, Oct 2004, pg 12.
[2] Perry McAdow was the first recorded settler arriving in Yellowstone Valley. Following him were: Alderson, Cochran, Colwell, Dills, Summer & Hoor (Haar) “Reference Chapter V, Part V, Yellowstone Valley, State of Montana 1907 historical pamphlet publication. Parmly Billings Library.
[3] During the Nez Perce raid on the Coulson Trading Post in September 13-14 1877, he reportedly put up a wood wall to protect the sawmill from attack. (Bio file from ID O’Donnell; 1929)
[4] Marriage Record #3, Yellowstone County Marriage Book (Billings). Note Gazette articles have different dates.
[5] Billings Gazette, Anniversary Edition for 1914. James R. Goss. [Goss was a lawyer, and first president of the Yellowstone Bar Assn. He later became Judge”
[6] Refer to article by Lawrence Small, History Professor at Rocky mountain College, “A Century of Politics on the Yellowstone”, for additional details. 1983