GRANT-KOHRS RANCH FOUNDATION

Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on September 18, 2014

The emigrant ancestors of John Grant left Scotland in the mid-1700s, possibly to escape all the turmoil following the Jacobite Rebellion.

John Grant’s grandfather William Grant arrived in Quebec as a teen with his father John and brother. By 1769 William was working in the Canadian fur trade, where he became a prosperous merchant. Settling in Trois Rivieres, near Quebec, he married Marguerite Fafard dit Laframboise. One of their sons, Richard, also joined the fur trade, eventually marrying Marie Ann Breland and being promoted to factor at Fort Hall, in Idaho Territory, by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Richard’s son John Francis also gravitated into trading, arriving in Montana Territory in the 1850s and settling in the Deer Lodge Valley as a rancher in 1862.

A few years ago, this New World branch of Grants was recognized as a cadet branch of Clan Grant in Scotland. They are now known as the MacRobbie Grants of Trois Rivieres. Anita Grant Steele, descendant of John Grant’s brother and William Grant himself, serves on the board of the Grant-Kohrs Ranch Foundation.

See more on Clan Grant at:
http://william-grant-of-trois-rivieres-genealogy.ca/index.html)

(Tintype of John Grant courtesy Connie Stewart, from http://william-grant-of-trois-rivieres-genealogy.ca/index.html)

Possible photograph of Shoshone Chief Tendoy and Johnny Grant.

Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on February 25, 2016.

MYSTERY PHOTO. On the back of this cabinet photo, it says "J. B. Allison, traveling photographer, Deer Lodge, Montana," and "Montana Territory." Who are the two men? They might be Chief Tendoy and John Grant. According to seller information on eBay, the taller man has been identified as a Shoshoni chief. In 1863 the (then) Shoshoni chief, Snag, was murdered in Bannack by Buck Stinson, one of the "road agents" later hung by the Vigilantes. After that, Snag's nephew Tendoy became chief. The man in this photo strongly resembles Tendoy as seen in other photos.

Tendoy often visited the Deer Lodge area to see his sister Quarra Grant and brother-in-law John Grant. He had other relatives in the area too. His mother was living in a lodge near the Grant ranch house. Another sister, Margaret Bright Star, was married to Deer Lodge pioneer Robert Dempsey.

The shorter man strongly resembles a youngish John Grant. He is wearing a buffalo overcoat, as well as a Métis-style mustache and beginnings of a beard. (In later photographs, Grant sports a very full beard.) Grant had a warm friendship with his Shoshoni brother-in-law and mentioned him frequently in his later autobiography. It would be logical for the two men to be photographed together.

If Tendoy and Grant are the two men in the photo, and the photo was taken in Deer Lodge, then it has to date before spring 1867, when Grant moved his family back to Canada. After the move, Grant did not see Tendoy again till the early 1880s, when he returned to Montana for a visit. But his reunion with Tendoy didn't take place in Montana. He had to travel all the way into Idaho, where Tendoy was living on the reservation. Seeing his old friend again was a heart-wrenching experience for Grant, according to his later account.

(Cabinet photo from eBay seller pahaskabooks -- http://www.ebay.com/…/Buffalo-Man-SHOSHONE-IN…/371247795056…)

Charles Alexander Grant

Son of John F. Grant & Clotilde Bruneau. Charles Grant looks very similar to the man standing next to the Shoshone Chief in the previous picture.

Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on February 18, 2013

Here's where it all started -- John Grant's home and trading post. In 1860, Grant persuaded a number of other Métis families, most of them headed by French Canadians, to settle in the area. Horses and cattle were the foundation of Grant's fortune. He spent part of that fortune on the house -- it was the first frame dwelling in the territory, with an extravagent number of windows, whose glass panes were shipped clear from St.Louis. The place was famed for its hospitality to all comers, with dances and horse racing. "They fed us to the eyes," one Blackfoot chief said. Grant lived here for just four years with his Bannack wife Quarra and children.

The other families settled in log homes along nearby Cottonwood Creek. In no time an infant town with business fronts was springing up. But Grant decided to return to his native Canada. The gold rush had brought Civil-War-era violence to the region, with some of it directed at the tribes and Métis. Quarra's uncle, Chief Snag of the Lemhi Shoshonis, was murdered by white outlaws. So in 1866 Grant sold the ranch to his friend, Conrad Kohrs. That winter, Johnny went down to St. Louis to put his oldest daughter in a boarding school.

When Grant returned in spring 1867, he found that Quarra had died. She was buried at the new Catholic church in town. Dozens of other Métis families had also decided to leave. They all made the wagon trek north to Canada with Grant. Some members of these families, however, did remain in Deer Lodge. They or their descendants were still living in the town after 1900.

(Photo of Granville Stuart drawing from the GRKO archives. Information compiled by Patricia Warren.)

Image may contain: horse, sky, outdoor and nature

Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on November 15, 2018.

By the year 1861, John and Quarra Grant were settled there with their children, living in the brand-new cabin row that is now the bunkhouse and building the big ranch house. Grant's prized horses had the protection of the first fenced pasture on the place, while his cattle sheltered in the cottonwood groves and willow brakes along the river. Perhaps they had put up some hay for the first time. As a trader, he would have been able to lay in adequate provisions for the winter, with hopes for plenty of snow to ensure good grass in the coming year. (NPS photo by Austin Bousquet)

Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on September 27, 2015

UNSENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. Did John Grant ever revisit the ranch? Yes, he did, in the mid-1880s. It was during a trip from his Canadian home to Montana in an effort to collect on some old debts. He'd fallen on hard times, owing to business deals gone bad, and needed money. Railroad mogul Jim Hill sent free passes for himself and a nephew for the long train trip. In his autobiography, Grant later related how he stayed in Deer Lodge for 10 days, and was shocked at how the area had changed, with few old-timers left and the copper industry spreading across the upper valley.

Enjoying hospitality with the Kohrses and John Bielenberg, Grant was impressed at how the ranch had prospered. The house he'd built, where he'd lived with the late Quarra and their children, was still little changed, except for the trees now growing in the front yard.

Con Kohrs covered Grant's extra travel expenses around the area. Grant visited in town, where he was interviewed by the newspaper and found himself remembered as "the man who built Deer Lodge." But nary a repayment of debt was forthcoming.

From there, a disappointed Grant made a tiring overland trip into Idaho, with a team and vehicle loaned by the Kohrses, to visit his brother-in-law Chief Tendoy (Quarra's brother). He found himself warmly remembered by the Shoshonis, who were now confined to a reservation. Hundreds of them escorted him on horseback when he and the nephew finally departed. The whole trip was a whirlwind of emotions for the aging trader.

Grant's full-length memoirs, just recently published, are a great historical read. Available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Son-Fur-Trade-Memoirs-Johnny/dp/0888644914/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443394494&sr=1-1&keywords=Son+of+the+Fur+Trade

(Photo of John Grant in the late 1870s, with his last wife Clothilde and some of his children. Photo from Anita Grant Steele's "William Grant of Trois Rivieres" -- http://william-grant-of-trois-rivieres-genealogy.ca/)

Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on September 18, 2014

The emigrant ancestors of John Grant left Scotland in the mid-1700s, possibly to escape all the turmoil following the Jacobite Rebellion.

John Grant’s grandfather William Grant arrived in Quebec as a teen with his father John and brother. By 1769 William was working in the Canadian fur trade, where he became a prosperous merchant. Settling in Trois Rivieres, near Quebec, he married Marguerite Fafard dit Laframboise. One of their sons, Richard, also joined the fur trade, eventually marrying Marie Ann Breland and being promoted to factor at Fort Hall, in Idaho Territory, by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Richard’s son John Francis also gravitated into trading, arriving in Montana Territory in the 1850s and settling in the Deer Lodge Valley as a rancher in 1862.

A few years ago, this New World branch of Grants was recognized as a cadet branch of Clan Grant in Scotland. They are now known as the MacRobbie Grants of Trois Rivieres. Anita Grant Steele, descendant of John Grant’s brother and William Grant himself, serves on the board of the Grant-Kohrs Ranch Foundation.

See more on Clan Grant at:
http://william-grant-of-trois-rivieres-genealogy.ca/index.html)

(Tintype of John Grant courtesy Connie Stewart, from http://william-grant-of-trois-rivieres-genealogy.ca/index.html)

Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on September 17, 2015

THE JIMMY GRANT PLACE. It’s interesting to look at the “archeology” – i.e. layers of ownership back through time – of some parts of the Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS site. Example: the little piece (see photo, top) where the GRKO visitors center sits today, which also included the big hayfield west of the tracks, before the railroad came. In 1884, Kohrs & Bielenberg purchased it from Thomas Stuart. According to historian Avana Andrade, Stuart had purchased this parcel from Colonel J. C. Thornton in 1880, and lived there with his family and horse business for four years.

However, this property evidently had a history predating the Tom Stuarts. Conrad Kohrs mentions a ranch located between his ranch and the town of Deer Lodge, that he called the “Jimmy Grant place.” The only property that fits this description is the former Stuart ranch. According to the Kohrs autobiography, at one point this ranch belonged to Pemberton and Kelly, early-day cattlemen partners who settled in Deer Lodge. John Pemberton had trailed a fine herd of Missouri beef cattle to Montana. In 1873 Kohrs bought these cattle.

In turn, Pemberton and Kelly had apparently obtained this property from a member of the Grant family that we haven’t mentioned till now. This was James “Jimmy” Cuthbert Grant (photo, bottom), Johnny Grant’s younger half-brother, who had been associated with Johnny in cattle-trading since they both lived at Fort Hall with their father Richard Grant, the Hudson’s Bay factor at the trading fort there. When John Grant’s mother died, Richard Grant had married again, a woman said to have been a Chippewa named Sarah. Jimmy Grant was a child of this second marriage.

Apparently, when John and Quarra Grant settled in the Deer Lodge area in 1862, Jimmy Grant settled on his own pied a terre right nearby. Indeed, he may have constructed the first cabin, maybe also a barn, on this spot. According to Grant family historian Anita Grant Steele, Jimmy continued to work with his half-brother on cattle trading now and then.

Around 1864, in or near Deer Lodge, Jimmy married Marie Cadotte. She may have been a Métis daughter of Pierre Cadotte, noted Montana trapper, hunter and guide, after whom Cadotte’s Pass is named in the nearby mountains. Jimmy and Marie had several children together.

In 1866, when John Grant sold his ranch to Con Kohrs and left the valley, Jimmy Grant elected not to return to Canada with his brother. Eventually he sold his Deer Lodge foothold, possibly to Pemberton & Kelly, and re-settled his family farther north in Montana Territory. This new home was a cabin near Dupuyer and the Blackfoot Agency. There he enjoyed a position as foreman for Missoula founding father C. P. Higgins, who was ranging cattle in that area. The connection to Higgins was Julia Grant, beloved sister of John and Jimmy, who had become Higgins’s wife.

Jimmy Grant lived and worked at his Dupuyer place until 1883, when he was shot and killed in a dispute with a Blackfoot man over suspected attentions paid to Jimmy’s wife. His death was reported in the Deer Lodge paper New Northwest, which called Jimmy a “pioneer in this valley.” The paper commented: “Jimmy Grant lived for a long time in Deer Lodge where he was highly regarded as an honest, industrious and sober citizen. At the time of his death, he had charge of W.J. McCormick and Capt. C. P. Higgins cattle. His many friends will be sorry to learn of his tragic death.”

Today the site of Jimmy’s grave, and those of two of his children who died of measles, is still known in the Dupuyer area. A granddaughter of Jimmy Grant was still living on the Blackfoot Reservation in the 1980s.

So the timeline of this little piece of land appears to go from Jimmy Grant and his family, to Pemberton & Kelly, to Col. Thornton, to Tom Stuart. When Kohrs & Bielenberg finally bought it in 1884, they may have been hoping to own it for some time, as it provided them with new water rights, a big addition to their hayfields, and a buffer between the home ranch and the expanding town of Deer Lodge