The Betters Came to Montana From Vermont Through Wisconsin and the Dakota Territory

During my last visit to the Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections, I discovered a newspaper clipping that offered greater clarity on how and when the Betters arrived in Montana from Vermont. The article, from the March 8, 1966 edition of The Missoulian, was primarily about 95-year-old Fannie (Betters) Nettle and her 72-year-old son, Ernest Terry, signing up for the newly created Medicare program and their daily habit of drinking mineral-rich water from Ern's mine in the Wallace Mining District. But this is the part that interested me:

With this information, we can eliminate my previous theory that the Betters came to Montana on the Utah & Northern (U&N) Railway. Knowing that Austin came to Montana first, and his family joined him later explains some previously incongruous information.

As I noted before, Austin's obituary stated that he came to Montana in 1881, and Fannie said the same thing when Don Omundson interviewed her in 1961. The fact that a letter for Austin was waiting in the Butte post office on September 30, 1881, lends further credence to this timing.

The eastern railhead for the Northern Pacific Railroad in the summer of 1881 was Glendive, Montana, on the Yellowstone River. The first train pulled into Glendive on July 5, 1881. If the Betters were living in Wisconsin in 1881, it would make sense that Austin would take the Northern Pacific from Minneapolis to the end of the line at Glendive. 

Glendive to Butte is roughly 445 miles. If we assume Austin walked 10-20 miles per day, it would take him 3-7 weeks to make it to Butte. This scenario could also provide some explanation for the letter waiting for him in Butte. One can imagine that Austin would have written to his family about his plans to walk to Butte when he was in Glendive, so they would have known to write to him in Butte.

What this new information does not tell us is whether Austin stayed in Butte in 1881 or continued on to present-day Clinton. If he had run out of money in Glendive, I could see him trying to make some money in Butte before continuing his journey. Butte was seeing a huge influx of miners at that time.

If he did spend some time in Butte, he was not there long, because on December 11, 1882, he, along with William Sheiley, John Murnen, and Gus E. Pratt bought the All Cash Lode in the Wallace Mining District from Benjamin F. Evans and Benjamin D. Hellum for $150. The following April, Austin bought the Pine Grove House with Charles Harris. This would become the Betters Family homestead.

I have not found any records of the Betters in Wisconsin, but I also haven't been looking there. I had assumed that the family traveled from Vermont to Montana on one trip. This article is the first evidence that they actually lived in Wisconsin for a time. Fannie's sister, Grace, was born in Salem, Vermont, on April 5, 1879, so they must have moved to Wisconsin between 1879 and 1881. As I have noted before, I have been unable to find the Betters in the 1880 census. One possibility is that they were en route from Vermont to Wisconsin at the time, and maybe even in Canada. Austin's parents both died in 1879, but I wonder if they were visiting or traveling with other family members. One newspaper article I have referenced in the reported that Fannie said she traveled to Montana on the train with her parents and great-grandmother.

Whether Austin came back to Wisconsin to retrieve his family or they traveled to meet him, another Missoulian article about Fannie from May 15, 1960 gives us a pretty good idea about when that happened:

The golden spike was driven on September 8, 1883, which means Jane (age 31), Fannie (age 13), Gilbert (age 8), and Grace (age 4), and possibly Austin and one other family member arrived in Montana around December 8, 1883.