Harmon’s Histories: A hodgepodge of long-ago storms, free fruit and well-cured hams
By Jim Harmon
Now and then I find myself a brick short of a wagon load, a few keys shy of a piano, in the way of fodder for this column.
I have a lot of old newspaper clippings, but none really worthy of a full story. So today I share some of those short, disconnected clippings in hopes you’ll find them interesting, while I clear my attic of clutter.
The April 6, 1883 Missoulian newspaper included an account of a severe storm: “Among the particular features of the late storm is the fact that its severity slaughtered the birds in a singular manner. All over the fields and hills are bluebirds and robins turned toes up. They perished by the thousands.”
The July 7, 1933 headline in the Wolf Point Herald read, “Gypsy Caravan Here Invited Not to Linger.” Well, “invited” was a rather gentle term for how the local constabulary greeted the visitors to their local rodeo celebration.
“Sheriff Henry Lowe took them in tow amid vociferous protestations,” after receiving word from Glasgow that the travelers had “robbed a woman of $10.” They rounded up the “colorful group” and identified the guilty party, who was made to settle up, and sent the gypsies on their way.”
“They would have liked to stay for the Stampede, but the Sheriff was firm and “the group was given safe police escort to the city limits and beyond.”
More disconnected clippings: In the early days of local newspapers (the 1870s and 1880s) it seems there was a habit of dropping off gifts to the papers' editors – often in the form of edibles for the table.
August 15, 1884: “A dozen ears of the nicest corn we have seen so far this year were sent to us this week from the Sisters’ garden. The ears were well filled and evidence the fact that the ladies who have charge of the hospital understand the art of gardening as well as the care of the sick or education of the young.”
Often the food gifts morphed into advertisements. “The editor of this paper desires to return thanks to Thomas E. Rives, Esq., for the present of a ham of no mean proportions, it being a regular twenty-four pounder, and cured and smoked in a style that may be equaled but not excelled.”
In October 1895, there appeared this short item: “The Missoulian office has nuts to crack which are the gift of A. M. Stevens, who left a sack full yesterday as a sample of his goods.”
The Bass Brothers of the Bitter Root valley were among the trend-setters of food gifting in Missoula’s earliest days.
Editor, Weekly Missoulian, March 12, 1874: “Just after we had been informed by the good lady who presides over the culinary affairs of our household that our larder was very low and seriously needed replenishing, we received by Bitter Root express a package, addressed to the Missoulian.”
“Upon prospecting, we found it contained two 25 pound sacks of excellent cornmeal and two well-cured canvassed hams, all of which bore the brand of “Bass Bros.,” who will please accept our thanks for this timely remembrance of the printer.”
The next summer, the editor penned another brief note: “James Dixson, the canned-fruit man, placed on our table August 31st a good-sized, ripe tomato grown in his garden back of town.”
These days, of course, it would be quite improper for a man of the pen to accept any gratuity – no matter how pleased a reader might be of a particular quill-pusher’s brilliant articles.
It’s a shame. I openly admit my love of fresh summer corn, or a fine locally grown melon. But standards are standards, and they shall not be lowered in any circumstance. Still, a guy can dream of those smokehouse-filled, mouth-watering days of early journalism.