Joseph Stariha

Connie Lenzen
E-mail: ConnieLenzen@comcast.net

The Stariha and Cvar Families

By Connie Lenzen

Part 2.

Joseph Stariha	To the US	Fort Benton	Yachats, Oregon
Naturalization	Waldport, Oregon	Spokane, Washington To be completed later.

Spokane, Washington

To be completed later.

Fort Benton

The first official record of where Joseph lived comes from his Declaration of Intent to become a citizen. On 17 May 1888, Joseph Stariha filed his declaration (first papers) at Fort Benton, Montana. [1] The naturalization laws of the time required that an individual had to be in the state where he took out his first papers for at least one year and in the United States for three years.

Fort Benton was the head of navigation on the Missouri River, and the route to the town was by steamboat. The navigation season lasted from late May to early July. During that time, steamboats hauled goods and passengers 2,400 miles from St. Louis, Missouri to Fort Benton, with stops at river towns along the way.

If Joseph went to St. Paul to be near his kinsman, Rev. John Stariha, he could have gone by railroad from St. Paul to Bismarck, North Dakota. From there, he would have hopped on a steamboat headed for Fort Benton.

In an undated Cut Bank Pioneer Press newspaper clipping in the "Fort Benton" file at the Missoula Public Library, an article tells about George Miller who made this trip from Bismarck to Fort Benton in 1881:

Then, even as now, the word, Montana, stirred youths with thoughts of dare-devil deeds on the prairie, of thousands of cattle and countless buffaloes, of mountains towering over a sleepy plain of long grass and where the red men trekked at will with temporary villages.

Mr. Miller, now a resident of Choteau, tells of his adventuring into the west.

"There was a ferry at Bismarck to connect the railroad on the west bank with the railroad on the east bank of the Missouri," says Mr. Miller. "The train came as close to the river as possible, where everything was unloaded and ferried to the west shore to be loaded on the waiting train."

Mr. Miller did not continue to Montana by rail, but came up the Missouri from Bismarck to Fort Benton on the stern wheel steamboat, "Red Cloud." As exciting as a journey by train could have been 50 years ago, it could not have been more stirring to the adventurer than the trip up the Missouri by steamboat.

Never a dependable stream of great depth, the muddy Missouri presented many difficulties in navigation. Narrowly avoiding treacherous sand bars, just grazing uncharted shoals, scraping sunken snags, ever the fingers of misfortune grabbed for the hull of the Red Cloud. Aboard were about 200 passengers. One hundred and twenty-five of these were men coming from eastern Canada by way of Bismarck and Fort Benton to McLeod, Canada, to enlist in the royal northwest mounted police. . . .

Thirteen days after leaving Bismarck, the Red Cloud churned its way up to the landing at Fort Benton and the adventurer . . . was treated to his first sight of real rough stuff. The mate of the boat, a man named Star, took his station at the gangway to see that the disembarking took place without accident. It was the rule that all passengers should be ashore from the up trip before the boat received visitors or passengers from land. A man approached the shore end of the gangway and started to come aboard but had not gone far before the mate ordered him back. The response was a short laugh as he continued up the gangway, faced the mate. Without a word, the mate drew a revolver from his pocket and fired it point blank in the man's face, shattering his jaw.

The wounded man was taken ashore and given medical aid and, although he recovered, his lower jaw was always distorted. His name, or rather, his nickname, was "Happy" Oakly.

From the 1885 issue of the History of Montana, [2] we learn about the area around Fort Benton.

The area of [Chouteau] county is estimated at 27,380 square miles. The population increased from 517 in 1870 and 3,058 in 1880, to about 6,000 in 1884. . . .. Mr. Collins, in his review of the resources of this great county, states that it contains more valuable grazing lands than any county in the United States, while the valleys of its numerous great rivers and the tributaries afford ample field for the husbandman. That portion of the county north and east of the Marias River, a section of unlimited resources, is yet an Indian reservation, but it is confidently hoped that Congress will throw open to actual settlement a large portion of it. It is no longer required by the Indians, and the rapid development of this section of Montana makes imperative the demand that it be opened to the stockman, ranchman and miner, as the Bear Paw mountains are known to be rich in the precious minerals. . . .

The principal industries of Choteau County are stock raising and agriculture. The entire county is one grand pasture field on which there now ranges not less than 100,000 head of cattle, 60,000 sheep, and 10,000 horses, with a capacity of sustaining ten times the number. The numerous valleys are well adapted to agriculture, growing crops of grain and vegetables that in the matter of yield cannot be excelled elsewhere in the world.

Another undated newspaper article in the Missoula Public Library's "Fort Benton" folder [3] tells about a find of an 1885 day book or pencil memorandum book of Conrad Bros. Store in Fort Benton. Prices for everyday items are included in the day book. As a matter of intrerest, one dollar in 1885 was worth $18 in 2001. [4]

15 pounds of salt, 45 cents

25 pounds of potatoes, 25 cents

two pounds of tobacco, $1.50

three pounds of peas, 25 cents

eggs were 25 cents a dozen

box of cartridges for a 45 colt, $1.00

2 sacks of flour, $9

20 pounds of rice, 42.00

17 pounds of prunes, $3.75

12 pounds of oatmeal, $1.00

one pound of coffee, 15 cents

pair of overalls, $1.00

pair of gum boots, $5.00

The Cowboy

Joseph told his children he was a cowboy in his youth. That may have been his occupation while he was in Montana, part of the "old wild West."

The weekly Fort Benton newspaper, the River Press, was searched for mention of Joseph's declaration of intent to become a citizen. The August 1888 issues [5] did not include courthouse items, but there were some snippets of news, including a bit about the cattle business. From the "Local Notes" in the August 15^th issue: There was "a marked restoration of confidence in western cattle circles", suggesting that the cattle business had been unfavorable prior to this [6] .

An item in "Local Notes" in the August 15th issue [7] refers to the muddy Missouri "The waters of the Missouri are as clear as the conscience of a democrat." The Steamer Missouri left Bismarck for Fort Benton on August l7th. Prospectors were at work in the Bear Paw Mountains, looking for gold and silver

The cowboy life was rough. It was one of the original 24/7 jobs where a person was always on duty.

A poem, written by D. J. O'Malley, tells the story. [8]

Pilgrims, tenderfeet, and greenhorns, your attention I would claim,

            For just one holy minute, if to you it's all the same;

For you have many notions about a cowboy's life,

            In which mistakes, to say the least, are numerously rife.

But I can post you better, for many a year has gone by now

            Since I began to punch the wily steer and festive cow.

It was in good old Montana, near the big Missouri's shore,

            Upon the general roundup in the spring of eighty-four,

That's where I started punching, a boy 'mongst grown-up men

            I began by wrangling horses for the good old N Bar N.

The life is no such picnic as the movies do relate

            Nor is every second cowhand a Harvard graduate.

On many a stormy night, when the thunder overhead

            Would make sufficient racket to resurrect the dead,

I've circled 'round the herd on my wiry little steed,

            Waving quirt and madly shouting to check the wind stampede.

When just a prairie dog hole or the crossing of his feet,

            And the horse would hurl his rider an awful death to meet.

And for many a weary mile, across the sun-baked plain,

            Where feed was scarce, the only water, stagnant pools of rain,

I've held the saddle down beneath the scorching sun,

            And when the night came on at last, our work had scarce begun.

Throughout the night, watch by watch, each must his vigil keep,

            Long are the cowboy's hours of toil and few his hours of sleep.

Such are the cowboy's duties upon the wary trail

            Where many of them have left their bones to tell the gruesome tale

Of hardships passed and dangers braved till death at last should come

            King Death, to whose harsh rule, alone, the cowboy will succumb.

Joseph Stariha could have left Fort Benton by railroad or by foot. The Northern Pacific completed their transcontinental railroad in 1883. The Mullan Road, a 624-mile military road from Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla, via Spokane, carried wagon trains and travelers. The thriftiest way to travel would be to sign on as a helper on a wagon train.