FIFTY-FIVE years ago this week a young North Carolinian was trudging down the Bitter Root valley, swinging a whip over a four-yoke bull team and heading for the Hell Gate river as unknown to him as the Nile but to which he had contracted to pilot that team of plodding steers. October 15, 1856, just 55 years ago it will be on Sunday, this young man and his party reached their destination. The tar was so well worn from the heels of this North Carolina boy that when he reached the Hell Gate (one word unreadable) he stayed there and ever since it has been his home.

And thus it happens that Sunday upon which this story will be printed is the anniversary of the arrival in the Missoula valley of the man who is the oldest white citizen of Montana in point of length of residence, a citizen who is honored by his fellows and respected by all, Judge Frank H. Woody, of Missoula.

I esteem it an unusual privilege that I have been admitted to some degree of intimacy with Judge Woody. In the visits we have had together during the 20 years that we have been friends, he has given me the clearest idea I have ever obtained from anybody of the conditions and customs of Montana’s early days. But more than that, the pleasant association which I have had with Judge Woody has given me a good insight into the sturdiness of the men who made Montana. It has implanted in me a wholesome respect for the effort which they made and for the hardships which they passed through to build this state for us who came later.

It is not that Judge Woody has preached or has ever complained. I have never heard from him a story which was not happily told and in which the humorous side of the situation was not given the prominence which it deserved. His word-pictures are always painted in bright colors, but the are portrayed in such accurate detail that they afford the listener the opportunity to see for himself the incidents which they depict. It is, therefore, rather from the studied of these details that I have formed my impressions than from any appeal which the judge ever made for sympathy for the pioneer or from any gallery play which he might have made for applause, for he has never done one or the other.

I sat in Judge Woody’s office the other day and asked him if there was any detail he wish to add to the story which he had already told me of his arrival in Montana.

"I guess not" he answered with a laugh. " I never think of coming over the Big Hole pass on that trip that I do not recall just how fast we came down that hill. I don’t know as I ever told you how fast we came but I don’t know if I could tell you if I tried. I never traveled so fast before down any hill and I know I haven’t since. There was just a streak of wagons and oxen in an atmosphere of dust and profanity. It was a regular toboggan slide and we slide it. That is the one feature of the crossing of the divide into the Bitter Root that I see first when ever the thought of the trip comes to me. I think the record we made that day for speed on a mountain will never be equaled, I don’t want to be on the trip if it is."

"I went to the office of Capt. Hopper to draw some money when Capt. Hopper stopped me an asked if I could drive oxen. O told the Capt. that I could certainly drive oxen and he said there was a man in town who wanted to go to the Flathead country to trade with the Indians for horses."

"The result was that my chum and I contracted to take these ox-teams to the Hell Gate river, 600 miles or so, for $15 a month and to start in two or three days. Our boss was a Mormon named Van Eaten. Hopper & William’s sent a tree team outfit along with our two teams. Both of our teams were oxen, four yokes each. The other outfit had two similar teams and one mule team. Early in September we headed north. Our route was along the lake and then up the Malade valley, then over Bannack moutain and down the river of the same name, across country to Port Neuf river and north to the Snake river at Fort Hall. Then we followed the Snake until we could ford it, then over to Market lake and Medicine Lodge creek, where we struck an Indian trail which took us over the Rocky mountains and down to Red Rock creek."

"This brought us into what is now Montana. As nearly as I can remember , it was about the first of October that we struck this place and for the first time I saw our state, not formed then. The journey had been without mishap and we had made good time. Ahead of us loomed the montains that marked the location of the Bitter Root and we turned across Horse Prairie to the Big Hole basin."

"Over the Big Hole country we moved rapidly. It was a wonderful valley we thought then and I think so now. Such grass I had never seen before. The stock got fat, dispite the pace at which we moved. Soon, one night found us at the very head of the Big Hole. We faced the steep pass of the continental divide. We camped there on Trail creek that night and pulled out the next morning for the climb over the pass."

" That was the worst teaming we had on the trip. The streams, and there were a good many of them, had cut deep channels in the soft soil of the valley. It was terrible fording. I managed to upset my outfit and had a lively scene with the boss. But I got righted after a while and we struggled on out of the valley and up the hill. All day we pounded those steers up that hill, they pulled and heaved and strained but it was night before we reached the open glade that was the summit and I’am sure the animals were as glad as we were when we made camp. It was a beautiful park and didn’t seem except for the chill air as if we were on the top of the divide. We slept well that night."

"In the morning came the preparation for the descent on the Bitter Root side. We prospected the trail and found that we had two miles of straight down trail ahead of us. There was no road, just an old Indian trail. One wagon outfit had been over the pass the year before, but it was lightly loaded and had made no road. Emanuel Martin, known as Old Manwell the Spaniard, had taken three wagons over, we learned later but it didn’t help us much. We looked over the old Indian trail and followed that."

"The Indians were better road makers than most of the civil engineers, they didn’t much about grades and levels, but they had good sense in picking a route. Our trail ran a little to the east than the present road, but it was practically the same road, and you know how steep it is now. It was just as steep then, only it hadn’t been dig in at all anywhere."

" We rough-locked the wagon wheels and took the two swing yokes of oxen and hitched them behind to pull back. With the leaders and wheelers in front and the swing teams behind, we started down the hill. Two men pounding the swing teams over the heads to make them pull back, they just slid down the hill. And the dust the made! The yells and the snorts and the dust made a Bedlam. But we got to the bottom all right and were mighty thankful to find everyone there and everything right side up. That was the hardest bit of traveling that I ever did."

"We straightened out and went down along the stream to Ross Hole. There is a good road down the Bitter Root from there now, but there was none at all through the canyon then and we had to make a detour over small but steep mountain on the east side before we got into the Bitter Root proper. We did this however, with out accident and entered the famous valley."

"The rest of the day was easy going. When we reached the mouth of Willow creek, just below the site of Corvallis, we found the first sign of white settlement. Here were the cabins of Lt. Mullan’s camp of 1853. There were a couple of white men there then, herding some stock. At old Fort Owen we found a log stocked and a little group of cabins. Major Owen was away at Benton at the time, but there were three white men at the fort, Henri M. Chase being in charge. The journey from there to the Hell Gate river was with out incident and we reached the end of our journey October 15. That was my first glimpse of the Missoula valley. Where Missoula now stands, there were that day 300 lodges of Indians, camped for trading with Owen when he should come back from Benton. I have been away from this valley for short periods of time since then, but this place has ever since been my home and it is as good a place I have ever found. There have been a good many changes since then, but the picture of the valley as it looked to me that day is now as distinct as if it was only yesterday. And I have never since traveled as fast as I did that day coming down the Big Hole Pass." October 14, 1911