Jim Harmon

He was born in Canton, New York in 1839. He died in Bozeman, Montana in 1919, at age 79. His name is still well known in Bozeman today, even to newcomers, since a well-traveled city street still bears his name. Do you think you might know who he is?

He attended public schools in New York state before going on to a military school.

Later, he worked as a clerk for a couple of years before joining the Union Army in 1861. He fought at Antietam in 1862, before being badly wounded in 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia.

Photo - Lester Sebastion Willson 1898
Photo - Lester Sebastion Willson 1898
loading...

He achieved a rank of Brevet Brigadier General in the 60th New York Volunteers during the Civil War. Once the war ended, he was given the rank of colonel and was appointed assistant quartermaster-general of the New York State Militia.

But he just couldn’t sit still. Hearing stories of the western frontier, he knew he had to go. He convinced his brother Davis, cousin Charles Rich, and army friend Loren Tuller to partner with him on a mercantile business in Montana.

When they reached Omaha, Nebraska, in May 1866, they purchased $5000 in supplies and began the journey “along the Platte River Road to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and then northwest to Virginia City.

There, the retired general met with Thomas Meagher, the Territorial Governor of Montana, before continuing on to Bozeman on September 2, 1866, where Rich, Tuller and our mystery man set up a large tent and opened their mercantile store.

Photo - Lester Sebastian Willson (1839-1919) - Find a Grave Website
Photo - Lester Sebastian Willson (1839-1919) - Find a Grave Website
loading...

Business was good, bringing in supplies for the nearby mining camps. Within a couple of months they expanded to a nearby cabin and affixed a sign reading, "Tuller and Rich – Cheap Cash Store.” They dubbed the adjoining stables the “Empire Corral.”

In 1867, before heading west, the General had met Miss Emma D. Weeks of Vermont. Within a year, he returned to New York and proposed to her. By 1869 they were married.

The couple returned to Montana first by steamboat up the Missouri, then by pack train to Bozeman, Emma’s piano and all. They moved into the remodeled Daniel Rouse cabin, described at the time as “one of the finest residences in Bozeman.”

In the years that followed, the General served as a board member on the first executive board of the Agricultural College of Montana and, with others, created the Gallatin Valley National Bank. It failed in the Panic of 1893.

He was instrumental in the establishment of a Bozeman chapter of the Republican Union League and in 1868 won a seat in the Territorial Legislature representing Gallatin County. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

He sold his business in 1914, just a few years before his death in 1919.

Who was he? None other than Lester Sebastian Willson (Willson avenue, Willson school, Willson auditorium, Willson Residences Condos, etc.). After his death, the city renamed Central Avenue to Willson Avenue.

In 1919, Willson was posthumously honored at Montana State College for his work on the state’s first “college board.”

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported, “Reverend R.P. Smith addressed the young people on The Life and Work of General L. S. Willson, stating that during his 24 years in the state of Montana, he had met and known personally many fine pioneers of the state, but among them all he had never met, or had ever seen, any finer character than that of General L.S. Willson.”

Bozeman Daily Chronicle Clipping - Honoring Willson 1919
Bozeman Daily Chronicle Clipping - Honoring Willson 1919
loading...

“He also emphasized that to have known him was to feel enriched forever, for he influenced all who knew him to be better and stronger characters in every step and walk of life.”

General Willson’s “finest contribution to the community,” according to Rev. Smith, “was his wholesome and pure character that leads toward inspiration and high ideals.”

Only one of the three Willson children, Fred Fielding Willson, survived to adulthood. He became an architect, designing such buildings as the Gallatin County High School, later renamed Willson School. Today it serves as the Bozeman Public Schools administration building.

Funeral Notice Bozeman Daily Chronicle January 28, 1919
Funeral Notice Bozeman Daily Chronicle January 28, 1919
loading...

General Willson died on January 26, 1919, and is buried in the family plot at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Bozeman. The home Lester and Emma built at 504 Central Avenue (now, Willson Avenue) still stands today.

Jim Harmon is a longtime Missoula news broadcaster, now retired, who writes a weekly history column for Missoula Current. You can contact Jim at fuzzyfossil187@gmail.com. His best-selling book, “The Sneakin’est Man That Ever Was,” a collection of 46 vignettes of Western Montana history, is available at harmonshistories.com.