How the West was Won

In the early 1950's, Frank Ralston lived in retirement in Burbank California. When his young grandson, Stephen wanted to dress as a cowboy like Roy Rogers for a school Halloween party, Frank told him, "that's not the way cowboys used to dress. They didn't carry pistols. They carried ropes to lasso cattle." He took Stephen to the hardware store and bought him a length of rope and showed him how to make a lasso and throw it at an imaginary steer. One day, he fashioned a bow and arrows from the branches of a bush in the yard. He skinned and notched the bow and tied string to it and whittled arrows to shoot.
Sometimes, Stephen would watch Spade Cooley singing cowboy songs or watch Bob Steele ride the range in old movies on their television set, but his grandfather had been there and he knew what he was talking about.
Samuel Franklin Ralston, Jr. was born in the Territory of Montana in 1864 and grew up with the real cowboys and Indians. He was eleven years old when Custer fought Sitting Bull at the Little Big Horn a hundred miles away at the Little Big Horn. He was a ranch hand and a deputy sheriff when the massacre of Wounded Knee took place.
Frank Ralston was in his late 80's when he told his grandson stories of the real west, the west that had already disappeared by the time Gene Autry was singing "Back in the Saddle."

The Ralston and Gregg Families

The hundred year history of the Ralstons in Montana began when S. F. Ralston, Sr. and his wife Mary Gregg Ralston arrived in Highland, Montana, above Virginia City in 1864.

The couple had married in 1857 in Kentucky and left from Independence, Missouri by ox team for Pike's Peak, Colorado in 1859. The Ralstons stayed in Colorado for four years, venturing on to Florence, Idaho in 1863. The gold rush was over by the time they got there, so they spent the winter and headed for Alder Gulch in Montana. They arrived in Highland, Montana on July 4, 1864. The Ralstons moved on from gulch to gulch, first to Alder Gulch, then to Last Chance Gulch in 1865 and then to Nelson Gulch, Lincoln Gulch and eventually Silver City. They lived in Helena, where SFR Sr opened a meat market and livery stable and finally entered the cattle business, starting a ranch in the Prickly Pear Valley.

Mary Ralston's family, the Greggs, had come from Kentucky, via Illinois, to Missouri in 1812. The couple's son, Jacob, became a sheriff in Independence, and later traveled as a trader on the Santa Fe Trail to the Spanish settlement of Santa Fe. His younger brother, Josiah followed in his footsteps, writing the American classic, Commerce of the Prairies.
Jacob married Nancy and they had six children, five sons and a daughter, Mary. The sons all fought in the Civil War. Mary's brother, Riley, was killed in the war, but Louis, Frank, Josiah and Will all survived.

Jacob and Nancy Lewis Gregg's son William was born on February 8, 1838. As an adult, Captain William Henry Gregg, served under Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill from December, 1861 through 1864. He rode with his brother Frank and with Jesse and Frank James and Cole and Jim Younger during the war. He was a key soldier in the raid on Lawrence, Kansas of August 21, 1863. Quantrill gave Captain Gregg a rear guard of sixty men during the sack of Lawrence. His sister, Mary Gregg Ralston, would live until 1912, extolling the virtues of the Confederacy. Her bother Frank Gregg survived the Civil War and settled in Independence Missouri. Her brother William, the Captain, became a prominent farmer and deputy sheriff in Jackson County, Missouri. He wrote a manuscript about Jesse James and was pall bearer to both John and Cole Younger. Captain William Gregg died on April 22, 1916.

Captain Will Gregg wrote A Little Dab of History Without Embellishment, a memoir written in 1906 about his days with Quantrill.

Will Foster ran the SFR store in Bynum, where the Ralstons had a ranch.

The six sons of SFR Sr. and Marry Gregg were:
Frank Jr. "The most moral of the siblings.
Jake, murdered. J. K. Ralston: Jake "could ride anything that would stay on its feet."
William Riley, father of Ken Ralston
Jose, pronounced Josey.
Jim
Harry, the youngest.

The five daughters were:
Minny, the oldest. J. K. Ralston: "Hell of a fine gal."
Jenny
Stella
Lou
Lizzie, the youngest.

S. F. Ralston, Jr, born in the Territory of Montana in 1864 lived throughout the industrial revolution on through the inventions of the telephone, electricity, automobile, airplanes, motion pictures, radio and television. H died in southern California in 1954. He was a true Montana pioneer from a family of pioneers. He was a rancher, deputy sheriff, game warden, Montana state senator, Supervisor of Glacier National Park, road builder and superintendent of the Rockefeller affairs in Seal Harbor, Maine. His brother Will, father of artst, James Kenneth Ralston, was also a rancher. In July of 1932, ill and dying, he wrote younger brother Frank, "The pioneer people were my people and I loved them all. But they are almost gone. Scarce a corporals guard left to carry on. We the children of the early '60's, the second generation of pioneers, will all too soon be but a memory."

Brother Jim was a professional gambler. Harry, the baby of the family, was a poor gambler. Jenny was a teacher in Choteau. Will was a rancher. Jake was murdered. Jose?

Will Ralston, Ken's father wrote a touching letter to his brother Frank, who was living in Seal Harbor Maine. It was July 30, 1932 and he was writing from Broxton, Montana. He was remembering the early days of the family in Montana. He wrote in part,

As I sat pondering time rolled back. I was a boy again in old Helena Town in the 60's. I could hear the rumble of the old Overland six horse coach as they rolled up to the house offices.

I could hear the sharp crack of the whips and the whoa haw-gee of the pioneer freighters as they piloted their wagons and 9 and 10 yoke teams up old Main Street. I could see Mt. Helena cowling behind her foot hills at eve. with now and then twinkle- twinkle of the stars at twilight. Well, after all the pioneer people were my people and I loved them. But they are almost gone- scarce a corporals guard left to carry on. And we the children of the early 60's- the second generation of pioneers will all too soon be but a memory of the yester years- a tribute to a people and a time that can never return. I am old Frank, older than my years and I am tired and it must soon be me for the House Ranch on Peaceful Creek across the Great Divide.


Mary went wherever her husband went. The ranch in Bynum had a couple of hundred head of horses and 50 to 60 sheep and cows. J. K. "Ken" Ralston said they were not particularly a close family. Frank junior was the most moral of them, he said. S. F. Ralston, Sr. died of cancer of the liver. He and Mary both died around 1912 and are buried next to each other just outside of Helena.

When S. F. Ralston Senior died in 1905, Joseph Oker wrote of him in the Montanian newspaper: I first met Mr. Ralston in Marysville in 1886. He was then an active advocate of the secret ballot system. In. December of 1888, just prior to the convening of the 16th territorial legislature, a meeting was held at Helena to take up the question of bringing the matter before the coming session." "in October of the same year, a state election was held under the provisions of the new law, thus making Montana the first state in the Union voting the secret ballot." He also quoted Mr. Ralston, saying"my mother taught me to believe that chattel slavery was a divine institution. That i was sanctioned by the good book, protected by the law, and had the prestige of time back o it. While I have all the respect cor my mother that any man has for his mother, nevertheless, mother taught me that which is erroneous."

The Ralstons had a ranch in Prickly Pear Valley in 1877, with about 800 head of cattle. They sold 1,350 head six years later. In 1903, SFR was running the ranch. In 1878, he took the cattle to the Tetons. They had a butcher shop on the ranch in Helena. Also a livery stable; Also had a house in Helena. On main street, livery stable near the Montana Club. Maybe four blocks.

Marysville, about 22 miles northwest of Helena, was named after Mary Ralston by it's leading citizen, Tommy Cruz, who owned the silver and gold producing mine, the Drumlummon. The town, or village near the mine, which was at the headwaters of Silver Creek, had about 75 houses and six hotels, a restaurant, two saloons and a hardware store in the late 1870's. By the mid to late 1880's, Marysville had grown to about 1,200 and now had churches, schools and more saloons. It was connected to the outside world by a branch line of the Northern Pacific Railroad. By 1892, Marysville had about 2,200 citizens.

Mary, formally Mary Gregg of Missouri, was the granddaughter of Jacob Gregg, the brother of Josiah Gregg, who was the author of Commerce of the Prairie. Mary had five brothers who fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. Four rode with Quantrill's Raiders. Captain Will Gregg, Louis, Frank and Josiah all survived. One brother, Riley, was killed in the war.

The Galer and Smith Families

Under construction

Washington Galer, son of a German immigrant who crossed the Atlantic to America in 1775, was born in Ohio in 1823. He lived in Ohio as a young boy, then Illinois as a young man and then moved to Iowa in 1852. In 1864, he joined the army and served in the First Iowa Battery. After the war, he was appointed postmaster by President Johnson and served a total of 26 years, until the second administration of President Cleveland.

In 1850, Washington married Lucinda Terrell in Michigan. They had five children, four of whom lived to adulthood. Clara Bell Galer was born on March 30, 1853. Her brother, Roger Sherman Galer, was born on March 8, 1855.

In 1864, he joined the army and served in the First Iowa Barttery. After the war, he was appointed to postmaster by President Johnson and served 26 years, untl the second administration of President Cleveland. Washington Galer died on March 17, 1905.

The Great Love Affair

Clara Galer and Ben Smith began a love affair that lasted fifty years. They suffered tragedies and heartbreak, but survived it all to be despite the odds. They had lost two young children to illness within days of each other and gave birth to a daughter who would carry on the family, losing two young sons early in her own marriage. The times were tough for the pioneering people of Montana. Though the famous live forever, the common people are forgotten as soon as the last person who remembers them dies. But through their letters and family stories, Clara and Ben's story lives.

The family bible that Ben recorded the births and deaths in survives more than a hundred years later, as do the stories of the two from their granddaughter, Grace Ralston. Grace remembered Clara as an unhappy grandmother, confined to a wheelchair with arthritus in her later years. Ben, Grace remembered as a kind man who reminded her of Santa a Clause with his white hair and kindly manner. After their daughter Mabel married Frank Ralston, Clara declined in health and died in the 1920's and Ben moved from Montana to Maine with his daughter and son in law.
Ben wrote his wife in the Anacortes General Hospital in Washington, "xxxx."


Clara married Benjamin L. Smith. Benjamin Smith, was born on March 8, 1855, son of Mumford Smith. Clara and Ben had one child, Mabel Smith, born in 1884.



Mabel's uncle, Roger Sherman Galer, an attorney from Mount Pleasant, Iowa, wrote A Layman's Religion, published in 1921 and Old Testament Law for Bible Students in 1922. Roger was born June 27, 1863 in Hillsboro, Iowa. He was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1893 and had a long, prominent career.

Frank and Mabel 1904

When Frank married Mabel, he was forty years old. She was twenty. She had grown up in Montana, living in Dillon when they met. They were married in 1904. Frank had been elected to the state senate in 1903. They moved at some time to northern Montana, settling in Kalispell. They had four children, a son, SFR III and another son, Sidney, both of whom died very young. Their first daughter, Dorothy, was born in Libby in 1908 and their youngest daughter, Grace, born in Kalispell in 1911. Around this time Mabel worked for the Daily Inter lake newspaper and Frank worked as a guide and eventually supervisor of Glacier National Park. After he retired from the Park in 1917, he returned as a guide for several well known visitors, including Mary Roberts Reinhardt and Emerson Hough. He met the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. family in the early 1920's and was offered a job working for the Rockefeller's in Seal Harbor , Maine. He agreed, and moved his family to Mt Desert Island in 1924.

Frank Ralston

And who was Frank Ralston, son of the first wave of pioneers to reach Montana in the early 1860's?

His daughters remembered him as their dignified, daddy, whose shoulders were so broad they couldn't sit three abreast in the front seat of their car. He was the man whose hand Grace had to piece back together when it was run over by a railroad car, the man who had teeth fixed at the dentists without novicain. He was the man was too old for both World Wars, but admired General MacArthur and whose favorite actress was Jeannette MacDonald. He was the older father who married his twenty year old bride when he was forty and outlived her by four years. He was the one his daughters dates stayed and talked with when they wanted to go to the movies or out dancing. How many times did they sigh, "Oh, Daddy!" They loved him and he took good care of them when dates and husbands didn't measure up. He was the man who made them gasp when he finally shaved his handle bar moustache off when it looked old fashioned. He never gained weight, never lost his hair and, in his eighties, asked his doctor if a shot of whiskey at night to help him sleep would become habit forming. He was the man at 86, after his wife's death, told his daughter that he bought a new house for himself. And then he ordered a life subscription to Life Magazine.

As the years passed, he moved on with his life, returning to Montana to visit old friends and family. He was always a son of Montana and attended Montana Pioneer Picnics in California and kept up with old friends until his death at 90 in Los Angeles. Although he never returned to live in his native state, his daughters, both moved to Montana in their mid lives in the 1970's. Dot's son, Jay Cahoon, moved to Helena in the 1970's and eventually brought his mother to the Prickly Pear Valley. She returned to Hollywood, her adopted home in the late 1970's and died there. Grace's son, Stephen, transfered to Havre from Los Angeles with Amtrak on June 25, 1976, the one hundredth anniversary of Custer's Last Stand. He moved his mother there shortly afterwards. Stephanie and Alexis Snow born in Havre in 1978 and 1979 to Stephen and Hilda Snow.

The family returned to Los Angeles in 1980. It had been over one hundred years of family history in Montana, from territory to state.