Frederick Billings Biography
[Extracted from Billings Gazette Files
September 1960, BLM & YGF Deed Abstracts]
Revised 10 May 2003
Fredrick Billings was one of 11 children reared in Woodstock,
Vt., after his family moved from Royalton, VT.
He was born September 27, 1823. He attended the University
of Vermont, studying law, and was
admitted to the bar in Woodstock,
Vt. in 1848. In 1849 he visited California and early in
the gold-rush days formed a law partnership with Archibald C. Peachy,
specializing in advice to businessmen. He was counselor to General Riley, and
was in England
with General Fremont helping to dispose of his valuable Mariposa Estate, when
the Civil War started. He returned to America
and made his third trip to California
in 1865, going overland by train. He was
impressed with its vast resources and lack of communication. He became ill, and
had to return home to Woodstock,
the recovery lasting about a year. Politically he was a prominent Unionist, and
helped swing California
to the party. He refused a nomination to Congress, and was considered for a
member of Lincoln’s
Cabinet.
He became associated with the Northern Pacific in 1869 by purchasing 1/12th
interest from Hiram Walbridge. He was director of the lines from 1870 onward.
In 1873 this line collapsed, and he became its president in 1879. In 1881 he
resigned and Henry Villard became president of the line and had controlling
interest. His main duties were to organize and manage the land department, a
function he held until 1875. In 1871 he, and the then president Smith and other
directors located the Red River Crossing, followed by the Puget Sound Terminus.
In 1873 he sought financial backing from San Francisco
for the Pacific Coast construction. At this time the
Jay, Cooke & Co was their bonding agent, and the Northern Pacific bonds
were un-salable. He arranged for pledging three dollars of securities for every
dollar of real money. Newspapers heralded this act as “a scheme to
build a railroad from nowhere, through no man’s land, to no place.”
Billings was up to the task, and started
bankruptcy proceedings in New York
with Northern Pacific president George W. Cass acting as receiver. The
property and holdings were foreclosed, and re-purchased in the interests of the
bondholders to form the Northern Pacific Railway Co. within one year 80%
of the bonds were converted to preferred stock, debt was eliminated, the group
possessed 550 miles of roadway, and had earned a land grant of 10 million
acres, with 30 million more to be earned by completion of the line. Due to the
stock panic of 1873, preferred stock had only brought 25 to 30 cents on the
dollar.
To construct the line in the Missouri-Yellowstone sections, Billings appealed to Congress in 1878 for
funds, and was turned down. He raised $2,500,000 in private capital for bonds
secured by a mortgage on the land sections. This included a 25,000 acres land
grant for mile of track laid. He continued this form of financing until the
line was completed.
In 1883, September 8th, the East and west portions of line were
completed, meeting together at Gold Creek, MT. General Ulysses S. Grant helped
drive the gold spike to complete the link.
Billings previously had formed a company to
build an Atlantic-Pacific canal across Central America through Lake Nicaragua. This canal wasn’t built, and the United States built the Panama
Canal instead. He was a founding partner in the Minnesota and Montana Land Improvement Co
(many of the files are retained by the Forum).
In 1883 he married Julia Parmly of New
York City. The Billings Parmly Library is named after
Parmly Billings, his eldest child. He and Julia had seven children. The
Congregational Church, first one in Billings,
was aided in its construction by a $10,000 donation by his wife.
On March 2, 1882 George B. Hulme transferred to Fredrick Billings all of Lot
#1, Section 4, Township 1 South, Range 26 East (Bozeman Land Office) along with
all of the original covenants. George Hulme had received the property from
Anton Manderfeld, who acquired the land on November 10, 1901 (Custer county
Homestead filing.) This made him a landowner in Billings, West Side Addition.
·
At the time of his
death he had a significant amount of real estate holdings in the Billings area. Samuel E.
Kilner was the surviving Executer and Trustee, with Dumont Clark
administrator of his will. Frederick
died September 30, 1890 in VT.
It was reported in John J. Walk’s biography
that he sold his CASH entry homestead to Frederick Billings after he resided
there for two years. Property was located on Section 28, N1/2 SW, Range 26E,
Township 1N.