Somewhere in Ohio he entered into partnership with his former employer, James Maze, but in April, 1867 (or possibly a year earlier), he left for Fort Benton, Montana Territory, up the Missouri River. The trip took two months. Reaching the fort, he rode on for another 250 miles or so, following the rough wagon road which climbed up the foothills of the Tobacco Mountains to the gold gulch town of Virginia City, 5,778 feet above sea level. That was a place and time when it was said that “no man considered himself safe without a brace of six-shooters strapped about his person and a bowie knife in his bootleg’ It may be assumed that twenty-three-year-old Horace Brown was so equipped and would have known how to use his weapons in an emergency. In a six weeks’ period from December, 1863, to February, 1864, twenty-four road agents had been hanged by Virginia City vigilantes, but life there was still perilous. Indicating the dangers of travel between that lofty mining camp and the outside world was this item in the September 15, 1866, issue of the Montana Post:
Trains arrived. — During the week the following trains arrived in Virginia City : Twenty-three wagons for Tootle, Leach & Co., which left Platts Mouth on May 26. We regret to learn that the wagon master, Thos. Dillon, was murdered by the Indians on July 23. Eight wagons for and Vaile & Robinsonand Vaile & Robinson.
At the Big Horn the Indians stole forty mules from Mr. Beers’ train and thirty from Vaile & Robinson.
Virginia City was the county seat of Madison County, Montana. In the five years following the discovery of gold at that point in 1863, the yield of this mining camp was $40,000,000. The wealth from the camp built Montana Territory from 1863 to 1866 and attracted twenty thousand persons to the vicinity in a two-year period. In 1864 there were five thousand people in Virginia City and on August 27, 1864, the Montana Post, Montana’s first newspaper (except for the short-lived News Letter at Bannack), was started in the cellar of a log cabin. Horace Brown secured employment on and set type for the Montana Post and, later, for the Democrat, Montana’s second newspaper, founded in Virginia City in November, 1865.
On the Post Brown worked under James H. Mills, its third editor, with whom his association continued for many years. Mills became known as the “Nestor of Montana journalism.” He had served during the four years of the Civil War with the Fortieth Pennsylvania Infantry, in which he rose from private to brevet lieutenant colonel through personal bravery on the battlefield.
In 1868 Horace Brown moved to Helena, some 126 miles distant, to work on the Herald. That job proved temporary and before long he was setting type for the New Northwest, which his former chief, James Mills, was conducting in Deer Lodge. While there he married Mary E. Rose. By midyear, 1874, he was back in Virginia City, this time as manager of the Alontanian, started there four years before and currently edited by Henry M. Blake.
But another Montana mining town, Butte City, was attracting attention. His good friend, James Mills, with Harry Kessler, planned to start a paper at that camp and they wanted Brown to go in with them. He agreed and again moved westward. These three men, Kessler, Mills, and Brown, established the Butte Miner, first newspaper in Butte, Vol. I, No. 1 being dated June 1, 1876. Then a four-page, six-column triweekly, it became a weekly three months later, a daily and weekly August 5, 1879. On November 1, 1881, the Miner Publishing Company was incorporated with Joseph A. Hyde, president; H. T. Brown, vice-president; J. R. Clark, treasurer; and Daniel Searles, secretary. It was capitalized for $14,000. H. T. Brown was elected a member of the executive committee of the Territorial Press Association at its first meeting in Helena, February 1o, 1885.
For one of his nomadic nature, Brown had stayed put a long, long time — due, we may infer, to the steadying influence of family responsibilities, for besides Mary Rose Brown there were now a boy and girl, named after their parents, to take into account, and the soldier-printer was a highly conscientious man. However, the family doctor was emphatic in saying that Mary Rose should move to a milder climate; so, after ten years as part owner and business man- ager of the Butte Miner, Brown sold his interest in that paper. Early in 1886, in search for a new opening, he visited Spokane Falls. His enthusiasm for the town is indicated by a quotation from an exchange printed in the March 13, 1886, issue of the Spokane Falls Review. It was from the Butte Free Press and read :
Mr. H. T. Brown, late of the Miner, is hack from a trip to Spokane Falls, with which town he is more than pleased. He says it is the prettiest town in the mountains.
It wasn’t long before the soldier-printer was back in the community that had impressed him so favorably. On March 23, he and his family registered at the California House, just across the street from the Spokane Falls Review’s place of business. Dwellings were scarce but the Browns were able to rent a rambling frame structure on Fifth Avenue and on April 1, 1886, the ex-soldier wrote a check on the First National Bank of Spokane Falls for some dishes and, soon afterward, other checks for furniture and a carpet, evidence that he was getting his family settled in the new location. And since he was an ex-cavalryman, it is not surprising that before too long he wrote a check — for the goodly figure of two hundred dollars — for a horse.
Brown was a tall, angular man with pointed features, blue eyes, brown hair and drooping mustache, with the energy, boldness, and resourcefulness in evidence during his years of soldiering. A hard, conscientious worker, he felt more comfortable in the sort of clothes favored by the frontiersmen.
“I don’t ever recall seeing Father wearing a white shirt,” said his daughter, Mrs. Alex Howie.
Rumors were abroad in Spokane Falls that Horace Brown intended to establish a Democratic daily in town with full Associated Press dispatches. Dallam beat him to the punch in signing up for the AP service himself — then sold Brown a one-third interest in his paper to help finance the deal. On July 2, 1886, Brown wrote a check for $1,875, binding the bargain.
A third man, Henry W. Grecnberg, was admitted to the firm. After learning to set type in his native Minnesota, Greenberg had run a string of small country weeklies in the Middle West. When he came to Spokane Falls in the fall of 1883, the missionary-publisher, H. T. Cowlcy, gave him a job in the Chronicle’s “type-setting room,” as it was then called. Greenberg became foreman, at times acted as reporter. He and Cowley would go out and get the news, then come back, set the type, and print it.
Each of the three partners on the Review concentrated on a single phase of the enterprise: Dallam, editorial; Brown, business; Grecnbcrg, mechanical.
Footnotes
- The 10th Michigan Cavalry did not participate in the Atlanta Campaign, March to the Sea, or Franklin-Nashville campaign as a regiment; those campaigns primarily involved the 10th Michigan Infantry Regiment or other units of the 23rd Corps (which moved to Tennessee after Atlanta). The cavalry regiment remained primarily focused on operations in the East Tennessee theater. Further, the 10th Michigan Cavalry was never under the command of General Judson Kilpatrick who initially commanded the Michigan Cavalry Brigade (which included the 1st, 5th, 6th, and 7th Michigan Cavalry regiments) in the Eastern Theater with the Army of the Potomac. He was later transferred to the Western Theater to command the 3rd Division of the Cavalry Corps under General William T. Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas Campaign. ↩︎
- 10th Regiment Michigan Volunteer Cavalry
Organized at Grand Rapids, Mich., September 18 to November 23, 1863.
Mustered in November 18, 1863.
Left State for Lexington, Ky., December 1, 1863.
Attached to District of North Central Kentucky, 1st Division, 23rd Army Corps, Dept. of the Ohio to April, 1864.
2nd Brigade, 4th Division, 23rd Army Corps to February, 1865.
2nd Brigade, 4th Division, District of East Tennessee, Dept. of the Cumberland to July, 1865.
Cavalry Brigade, District of East Tennessee, Dept. of the Cumberland to November, 1865.
Mustered out November 11, 1865.
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