“About this time there was quite a sensation in New York city concerning the ‘Little Church Around the Corner.’ At the time of which I write, Dr. T. C. Iliff, now of Salt Lake City, was stationed in Missoula as a Methodist minister, and was quite a young man. He had in the summer of 1872 erected the church in Missoula now known as the Methodist church, and during the winter of 1872-73 he, with some other preachers, were holding a protracted meeting in the church. They had quite a revival. One day, during the time the meeting was in progress, I wrote a short local notice of it, in which I referred to the revival in the little church around the corner, and said something to the effect that Brother Iliff had brought into the fold ‘Tapioca’ and some other tough cases, and that, having succeeded so well with them, there was hope for ‘Yeast Powder Bill’ and some others in town.
“Be it known that there were then in town two rather hard cases, known by these titles. ‘Tapioca’ joined the church and became a bright and shining light--for a short time. Well, Brother Iliff and my other Methodist friends took great umbrage at my little item and appointed a committee, headed by Brother Iliff, to wait on me and demand some kind of a retraction, all of which they did not get.
“However, the storm soon blew over and Brother Iliff and I have ever since been the warmest kind of friends. Such were a few of the amenities of early journalism in the Wild and Woolly West.”
Frank H. Woody is now, and has been since his election in 1892, the district judge for the Fourth judicial district of Montana, which comprises Missoula and Ravalli counties.
Thus, in brief, is the history of the first settlement in the state of Montana, and also a short biography of one of her first pioneers.
Montana! The name carries with it the “legend of the aborigines” who called it “Tay-a-be-shock-up,” or “Country of the Mountain,” a name appropriate and expressive that its beautiful significance will ever suggest a synonym as permanent as “The everlasting hills.”
It was created a territory by act of congress approved May 26, 1864, and admitted as a state into the Union February 22d, 1889. As now constituted, Montana covers all that vast region lying between the 45th and 49th parallels of north latitude, and the 104th and 116th meridians of west longitude, extending 550 miles from east to west, and nearly 300 north to south, a total of about 150,000 square miles, or nearly 100,000,000 acres. We can more fully appreciate the meaning of these figures when we remember that the six New England states and the great state of New York would not cover this area, that Minnesota and Iowa could be turned over upon it and a margin left for Connecticut to rest upon, or that England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland combined do not near equal it in size.