Person:Harry Weydemeyer (1)

CENSUS: 1880 Federal Census, Tuscola Co., MI, Cass City. Philetus Weydemeyer, age 41, hardware merchant, born NJ, father born NJ. Mary Weydemeyer, wife, [no age], keeps house, born MI. Homer C. Weydemeyer, age 11, at school, b. MI. Harry P. Weydemeyer, age 2, born MI. Jenette Bond, W, F, age 15, boarder, listed as housekeeper.

WEYDEMEYER, HARRY (1910 U.S. Census) MONTANA , LINCOLN, SCHOOL DIST 14Age: 32, Male, Race: WHITE, Born: MISeries: T624 Roll: 833 Page: 19 26 26 Weydemeyer, Harry, head, 32, married, 10, -, -, b. Michigan.

                                Margret, wife, 32, married, 10, 3, 3, b. Michigan.
                                Olga, dau, f, w, 9, S, -, -, -, b. Montana.
                                Winton, son, m, w, 7, S, -, -, -, b. Michigan.
                                 Donald, son, m, w, 4, S,  -, -, -, b. Montana.

26 27 Weydemeyer, Philetus, head, m, w, 71, M 1, 45, -, -, b. New Jersey.

                                Mary E., wife, f, w, 64, M 1, 45, 4, 1, b. Michigan.
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WEYDEMEYER, HARRY P (1920 U.S. Census) MONTANA , LINCOLN, FORTINE; SCHOOL DIST 14Age: 42, Male, Race: WHITE, Born: MISeries: T625 Roll: 972 Page: 121 130 Weydemeyer, Harry, head, 0, M, m, w, 42, married, 10, -, -, -, -, yes, yes, b. Michigan, f. b . NJ, m. b . Mich., -, yes, Operator, own farm, OA, ??.

                              Margaret, wife, -, -, f, w, 43, married, -, -, -, -, yes, yes, b. Michigan, f. b . Mich., m. b. Canada, English, yes, none.

                               Olga C., dau, -, -, f, w, 18, S, -, -, -, yes, yes, yes, b. Montana, f. b . Mich., m. b. Mich., -, yes, none.
                                Winton W., son, -, -, m, w, 16, S, -, -, -, no, yes, yes, b. Mich, f. b . Mich., m. b. Mich., -, farm laborer, home farm, W.
                                Donald R.,  son, -, -, m, w, 14, S, -, -, -, yes, yes, yes, b. Montana, f. b . Mich., m. b. Mich., -, yes, none.
                                Lucretia A.,  dau, -, -, f, w, 9, S, -, -, -, yes, yes, yes, b. Montana, f. b . Mich., m. b. Mich., -, yes, none.

                                Marion L., dau, -, -, f, w, 6, S, -, -, -, yes, yes, yes, b. Montana, f. b . Mich., m. b. Mich., -, yes, none.

MARRIAGE: Harry P. Weydemeyer, age 23, of Cass City, born Cass City, MI; is a bookkeeper. His father is Philetus R. Weydemeyer, mother is Mary Nash. Harry marries Margaret E. Campbell, age 23 of Cass City, born Ellington, Mi; is a teacher. Her father is William J. Campbell and her mother is Laura Hutchinson. Date of marriage is April 22, 1901 at Cass City, MI. Marriage peformed by Chas. N. Morgan, clergyman. Witnesses: William J. Campbell and Mary Weydemeyer, both of Cass City. Date of license is 20 Apr. 1901. SOURCE: Tuscola Co., MI Marriage Records, 1887-1904, SLC FILM 983109 5/10/85.

HISTORY: "A good share of the homesteaders who came to the Fortine area at this time settled in the Mud Creek - Grave Creek section. From Michigan came a whole tribe of relatives and acquaintances from the vicinity of Detroit, some of whom remained to become long-time residents of the valley. On upper Mud Creek there were Mr. & Mrs. Warren Weydemeyer and their daughter & son-in-law, the Roscoe Johnsons (who later went on to the Oregon coast); Mrs. Warren Weydemeyer's mother, Mrs. Predmore; Warren's brother, P. R. Weydemeyer and his wife, her brother, Emory Nash, and their son, Harry, and Harry's wife, the former Margaret Campbell. Margaret Weydemeyer's parents and brothers and sisters livere also for a year or two, and in later years became residents of Kalispell, where Grant and Harry Campbell still live. P. R. Weydemeyer filed one of the earliest water-rights on Grave Creek......Many of the settlers here had never before lived in the country, even in the East; some of them were fresh out of colleges. The P. R. Weydemeyer family had lived in Washington D. C. during the '80's. The first cabins were hasty and crude; and the timber hemmed them in to the door, with the high mountains crowding close behind. Mrs. P. R. Weydemeyer found the endless silence of the windless seasons almost unbearable. She even missed the Michigan dandelions -- the taste of them as greens, and the cheerful sight of the blossoms in the fields; she sent back home for dandelion seed to sow in Montana. When the men were away working or hunting or driving to Kalispell for supplies, women alone in cabins trembled at the thought of those grizzly tracks that had been seen behind the barn, and imagined that every screech-owl was a mountain lion. Harry Weydemyer was glad to do the hunting and fishing for all the relatives.." By Margaret & Harry Weydemeyer, page 164-5, "The Story of the Tobacco Plains Country", edited by Olga Weydemeyer (Mrs. Pete Johnson), published 1950 by the "Pioneers of the Tobacco Plains Country."

BIRTH: MARRIAGE: DEATH: Records of Olga Johnson & Winton Weydemeyer. 1977.

HISTORY:

    So began an exodus of the Michigan Weydemeyers.  Yet, Harry Weydemeyer, who with his wife, the former Margaret Campbell, was the first to follow "PR" to Montana.  Harry was one of Michigan's outstanding and popular all-around college athletes -- prominent in football, baseball, track, tennis, cycling. And his wife Margaret was a college graduate with training in liberal arts and languages, who had taught school before completing her senior year at Albion College. 
    Harry had grown up in Cass City, Michigan, where both "PR" Weydemeyer and Harry's future father-in-law, William Campbell, were charter members of the Cass City Summer Home Club, organized in 1894.  (Perhaps members had summer homes on Lake Michigan, as mentioned by descendants). 
    For at least one year, Harry, and perhaps also his brother Homer, attended school in Washington, D. C.  A copy of the Cass City newspaper in Winton's possession included the "class prophecy" presented by Harry Weydemeyer, a member of the 1894 high school graduating class.  The prophecy opened by presuming that Harry returned to Cass City in 1929, "having cut loose from my sheep ranch in Colorado" for a vacation. 
    From 1894 until 1898 Harry worked as bookkeeper and clerk 

for his uncle-by-marriage, O. K. Janes. This was before he became a student at Michigan State College in Lansing, where he starred as an athlete. He was slight, and used to tell how after a tackle in a football game, he would walk right over the bodies of the tumbled players, carrying the ball -- perhaps to a touchdown. Winton has copies of Harry's track records showing he once hop-skip-jumped 45 feet -- a figure that was an Olympic record in 1900.

    Also following P. R. and Harry to the Mud Creek locale were P. R. Weydemeyer's brother Warren, with his wife and child, and Warren's wife's mother, Mrs. Predmore, whose grave was the first one in the Eureka cemetery on Tobacco Plains.  Emery Nash, a brother of Philetus' wife Mary, settled on land farther down the creek, along the Kalispell Trail to Tobacco Plains.  Then Margaret Campbell Weydemeyer's parents, the W. J. Campbells, with her brothers and sisters, also came west, and lived about a year in the house left by the departing Warren Weydemeyers, who had gone on into Idaho. 
    Soon after the Weydemeyers arrived in western Montana, a branch railroad line was begun from Columbia Falls, to pass thru Tobacco Valley and down the Kootenai.  A civil engineer by training, Harry Weydemeyer served as one of the 2 topographic engineers on the survey crew for locating the route.  After completion of this line, Harry and family spent the summer of 1906 along the Palouse River in Washington, working for Dahlberg who had a railroad construction contract out there. 
    Earlier, Mike Petery took over homestead land relinquished by William Anderson and proved up on the property which was to become Harry Weydemeyer's second location in Montana.  This location was along Fortine Creek, a tributary of the Tobacco River which passes thru Tobacco Plains to join the Kootenai River further west.  While building the railroad, Dahlberg purchased the land and established a camp here, near the present route of US 93 thru the westernmost field of the Weydemeyer ranch-to-be. 
    As the Weydemeyer children approached school age, Harry purchased this land from Dahlberg and moved the family some 5 miles south from Mud Creek, where they lived first in a house near the old Dahlberg construction camp. 

From here, Margaret and children crossed the creek on a now long-gone bridge and walked up the ralroad track to the little town of Fortine to attend Sunday School. For many years Margaret and Mrs. Mike Petery kept the Sunday School alive, alternating terms as Superintendent.

    Moving a half mile eastward to a site closer to Fortine, the family began developing a farm, gradually clearing more land from the timber bordering the natural meadows, raising milk cows, pigs and chickens, and growing a large garden each year.  Several natural cold-water springs on this upper meadow inspired the name, Meadow Springs Ranch.  Off-the-farm income was essential, and Harry worked at various part-time jobs:  logging, hauling ties, and serving as bookkeeper for P. V. Kline at his store in Fortine. 
    Harry and Margaret's daughter Olga was born in 1901 in a log cabin on the homestead along Mud Creek.  For the birth of her brother Winton in 1903, Margaret went back to Michigan where her parents still lived, making the journey both ways by train, with Olga going along.  The third child, Donald, was born in the first house on the former Dahlberg property, and the two youngest children, Lucretia and Marian, were born in the second house, on the upper meadow. 
    During the early years on this ranch, Harry Weydemeyer's brother Homer came west from Pontiac, Michigan.  Winton has a copy of the telegram Homer sent to his father from Pontiac on June 12, 1906, announcing that he would soon be arriving in Montana.  However, Homer died in Montana that same year, and his body was shipped back to Michigan for burial.  His daughter Christine believes that he died of cancer, though I have some recollection that he suffered from consumption (possibly an erroneous memory). 
    Homer Weydemyer's widow had been born Flora McClean.  According to Homer's daughter Pauline:  "Mother's father's name was Hugh McClean, and he had been born in the land of Scotland.  He must have moved to Canada, for there he met and married Katherine Graham, and there their children were born. 
    "Mother's father died before she was married, but they had moved to North Branch, Michigan, buying a house there.  After his death (Hugh McClean), Mother and her Mother had a boarding home, I presume to bring in a livelihood.  It was there that Flora met Homer Weydemeyer who had a job at North Branch.  Romance! They must have moved back and forth from North Branch to Pontiac, as Christine was born in Pontiac, and I was born in North Branch.  Father had a job in Pontiac at about this time, as manager of the Western Union Telegraph Office. The house in North Branch must have been sold, as Grandmother Graham was living with us at Pontiac when we were children." 
    The three older Weydemeyer children all graduated from Montana State College in Bozeman.  Harry dreamed of having his sons develop a dairy farm on Meadow Springs Ranch, but the boys had had enough of milking cows; they went into beef cattle, purchasing the farm when their father retired.  Over the years they bought up various acreages of cut-over timberland in the vicinity, and earned a nice seasonal income cutting natural Christmas trees from their outlying property. 
    During the early years on Meadow Springs Ranch, Grandpa Philetus Weydemeyer and his wife moved onto this place, building a frame house on the hill above the meadow where Harry and family had their own two-story frame house.  Here Grandma died when we were small, and was buried temporarily near the home; later her remains were removed to the Fortine Community Cemetery. After Grandma's death, Harry and his family moved up to the Philetus Weydemeyer house, adding new rooms; this location was less frosty than the garden spot in the meadow.  For quite a number of years the house in the meadow was rented to Margaret's brother Andrew and his family.  William Campbell, father of Margaret and Andrew, also built a home on Meadow Springs Ranch, where the family lived before moving to Kalispell. 
    Harry Weydemeyer served four years as County Treasurer of Lincoln County, living during this period at Libby, the county seat, further down the Kootenai. 
The home ranch was rented out.  Some twenty years later, Harry was appointed a deputy county Assessor, and when the Assessor died in office, Harry was appointed to fill out his term, then was elected to another term.  By this time the older children were in college, and the boys operated the ranch during the summer months... 
    In later years the two sons of Harry Weydemeyer purchased the home place from their father.  Besides raising beef cattle, and harvesting Christmas trees on the original acreage and on several hundred additional acres of cut-over land which the brothers purchased, Winton found time to serve in the Montana Senate, and to help organize and then head the Montana Conservation Council, and to serve as Montana's state Grange Master for many years.  Donald at different periods was an official of thelocal Rural Electric Co-operative, and of the state Christmas Tree Organization. 
    When Olga, now a widow, took her parents to Arizona for the winter, her father was heard to mutter in the back seat as they passed into the desert, "I think two weeks of this will be enough for me."  But Harry was an enthusiastic photographer, and soon became interested in recording the photogenic desert scenes with his camera, developing and printing his own pictures.  During a second winter in Arizona, he became ill, and was flown by ambulance plane, with nurse in attendance, to Portland, Oregon, where his daughter Marian lived at that time near a convenient nursing home.  But Harry died of cardiac arrest the day after his arrival.  He was buried at Fortine.  Olga and her mother had proceeded home in Olga's car; but that summer Margaret died of Hodgins Disease and was buried at Fortine beside her husband. 
    During a visit to Montana from Oregon in the summer of 1983, Olga was told by Winton that some new settler in the Mud Creek area had torn down the old Harry Weydemeyer homestead house and had used the logs to build his own "new" home... Even in the "backwoods" locality, as in most of the far west, there is an influx now of modern homeseekers. 

SOURCE: From information sent to Howard Johnston from Olga Johnson, 7001 Rogue River Hiway, Space 48, Grants Pass, OR 97527. 1984.

DIRECTORY:

Surname: Weydemeyer
     Given Name: Harry P
     Land Description: 35, 36, 26, ?, $35
     City: Harrisburg

Source: Flathead County, MT, 1905 - 1906 Kalispell City Directory and Flathead County Directory.

DEATH: http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ordeath&h=1440638&indiv=try&o_iid=024455&o_lid=024455&offerid=76%3a0%3a0 Oregon Death Index, 1903-98about Harry P Weydemeyer Name: Weydemeyer, Harry P County: Multnomah Death Date: 14 Apr 1960 Certificate: 5426 Spouse: Margare Source Information: Ancestry.com. Oregon Death Index, 1903-98 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. Original data: State of Oregon. Oregon Death Index, 1903-1998. Salem, OR, USA: Oregon State Archives and Records Center.