Patrick James McIntrye, Havre, Montana [Genealogy]
Contributed by Peter J. DesRosier, April 2008
P.J. McIntyre
Occupying positions of public trust responsibility and identified with an important line of business enterprise, the subject of this review is known as one of the representative and progressive citizens of the attractive village of Havre, Choteau county, (now Hill county) Montana, while his prestige is due to his ability and unswerving integrity of character.
My Great-Grandfather was Patrick James (P. J.) McIntyre. He was a native of Arnprior, Ontario, Canada. He was born on May 28, 1854, the son of Philip and Ellen /Cavanagh/ McIntyre, both of whom were natives of the Dominion of Canada, where they lived their entire lives.
Philip, my great-great grandfather, was a wheelwright by trade, but devoted the greater portion of his life to agricultural pursuits. Philip and Ellen were both born in Montreal, Canada and both died in 1856, when P.J. was a child of but two years. Patrick James was raised in Arnprior, completing a course of study in the local high school, where he graduated at the age of fifteen years. Upon leaving school he entered a drug store in Arnprior and served an apprenticeship of three years’ duration and then remained two years as assistant, thus completing the practice course in pharmacy and gaining title to registration as a fully qualified pharmacist. He married my Great-Grandmother, Mary Margaret Martin; she went by Margaret, at Arnprior, Canada of November 27, 1873. Mary Margaret Martin was born at Pembrook, Canada on June 22 1856 and died in Havre March 30, 1920. They had two children that were born Arnprior; my grandmother Emma Jane, born June 3, 1879 and an older brother, Albert John James, who my grandmother, Emma Jane, called, Bertie, born August 28, 1874.
In 1883 P.J. and the family moved to St. Paul Minn., where he secured a position as a bookkeeper for Langdon, Shepherd & Co., railroad contractors and remained with the firm for a period of two years. From 1885 until 1891 he was individually engaged in contracting in connection with the construction of the Great Northern Railroad in Dakota and Montana. On April 27, 1885 my great-Aunt Mary Sarah Lauretta, we called Aunt Laura, was born in North Dakota. It was in Fargo, ND where their son Albert John James (Bertie) died on May 14, 1886. He was buried there. Three years later, 1889, the family moved to Havre, Montana, where on Nov. 9, 1890 a daughter Lula Florena was born. She died two years later on Jan. 2, 1892 and is buried in Havre. She was first buried in a cemetery down by the Milk River, but after one of Havre’s flash floods when many graves were washed away, P.J. had her reburied in a family plot in the Havre Catholic Cemetery up on the hill. P.J. McIntyre was one of the contractors to help build The Great Northern over the Rocky Mountain summit.
My Grandmother, Emma Jane, would tell the story of when she was 12 years old and her family traveled from Havre to Essex in a wagon, a distance of about 210 miles, They had a milk cow tied on the back of the wagon so they would have milk for her baby sister Lula. She said that to cross the Two Medicine River Gorge at Midvale, now called East Glacier, it would take a full day.
They would camp at the top the night before and in the morning they would put the animals on the back and lower the wagon down then move the animals around to the front and pull the wagon up to the top and camp there for the night before moving on. P.J. McIntyre used to buy beef from Joe Kipp for his construction crew at McCartyville, just west of the summit. McCartyville, near the Blacktail Bend of the railroad on Bear Creek, was primitive railroad town. It was sometimes known as "Death Valley" due to the fact that the Great Northern used to pay its crew men off in gold. Many a man was found dead in the brush around McCartyville, murdered for his pay. Joe Kipp had a sawmill there. Jack Hyde sold flatcars of cordwood there. Mike Connolly, who ran about 1,500 head of stock on the reservation, supplied most of McCarthyville’s meat.
After the completion of those contracts, in 1891, he took up his permanent residence at Havre where he raised his family. Within the first year of his residence here Mr. McIntyre was appointed to the office of justice of the peace by the county commissioners, and as a candidate of the Democratic Party he has been consecutively chosen as his own successor at each election since that time. He was a notary public since 1894 and United States land commissioner since 1896, and in each of these positions he has shown himself to be a capable and conscientious executive, gaining and retaining the respect and confidence of all with whom he is thrown in contact. In 1895 Mr. McIntyre engaged in the insurance business in Havre, and he has secured a large and representative clientage, being one of the most successful underwriters in this section of the State. He also built and ran an Opera House in Havre.
Politically he has taken an active interest in the cause of the Democratic Party, being prominent in its local affairs and a staunch advocate of its principles and policies. Fraternally he is identified with Allendale Lodge No. 35, Knights of Pythias, and Assinniboine Lodge No.56, I.O.O.F., at Havre.
He was contracting for the railroad at Vaughn, Montana when he caught pneumonia. He died in Havre November 2, 1907 and is buried there in the McIntyre plot he bought when he had his daughter Lula Florena reburied.
DesRosier Side of the Family
My Great Grandfather was Joseph DesRosiers. He was born at St. Michelle Vincennes, Quebec on Feb. 14,1832 and died Feb. 28,1906. He married Dorothy Pepin in Feb. of 1852 at St. Michelle. She died on the 21st of Sept. 1891. She was born into a large French Canadian family on July 9, 1835.
Her father, Samuel Pepin, was a substantial farmer. Her mother, Marie/Perino/Pepin died when she was 9 years old. Joseph and Dorothy had eight children that I know of: Joseph, Amelia, Theophile,Resime, who were probably born in Canada, and Marie, John, Peter, and Henry, who were all born in Rhode Island. Dorothy’s brother was Simon Pepin. He was the reason his nephews came to Montana.
I was told that there were seven nephews of Uncle Simon, as my family called him, that came to Montana to work for him, but I only knew of three, my Grandfather, Peter DesRosier, and my Great Uncles, Uncle John and Uncle Henry. They dropped the s at the end of their name, because it sounded plural in English. They came out to work as freighters and traders for the Diamond R. Freighting Company and as cowboys for the P Cross Ranch, in the Bear Paw Mountains, about 20 miles south of the city Havre, which then was called Bull Hook Bottoms, They also worked at Fort Assiniboine in the meat department. It was working for his Uncle Simon that my Grandfather, Peter DesRosier, who could speak both French, and English, learned to speak Cree and then later on, Blackfeet. Simon purchased the homestead lands of his several nephews, who had field claims both north of the Milk River and in the bottoms of Bull Hook Creek. I still have ¼ share of the mineral rights on a homestead just west of Havre on the Milk River. In addition to a fair purchase price Uncle Simon guaranteed his relatives lifetime jobs in his burgeoning enterprises or assistance in starting their own business. My Uncle John and my Uncle Henry were master carpenters and helped build the Pepin home and the Havre Hotel.
James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad later employed them as Bridge and Builders.
Uncle Simon had worked for Charles Broadwater as a trader. In association with Charles Broadwater’s cousin, Edward T. Broadwater, They formed the Broadwater–Pepin Mercantile Company, which became one of the largest general merchandise networks on the Hi–line. My Grandfather, Peter DesRosier, became a representive of the store in Havre. When the Blackfeet Agency was moved to Browning in 1894. The company sent my Grandfather to Browning to establish a Broadwater–Pepin branch in Browning. The Blackfeet gave him the name “Cree Talker.” He returned to Havre. In 1897 he returned to Browning. He married my Grandmother, Emma Jane McIntyre, daughter of Patrick James McIntyre and Margaret/Martin/ McIntyre, on April 27, 1898 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 1900 Peter formed the DesRosier-Newman Mercantile Company. By 1903 he acquired his partner’s interest in the company and was sole owner. In 1909 he returned to work for the Broadwater– Pepin Company, managing the trading post on the Blackfeet Reservation at Browning from then on. At this time he brought his wife, Emma J., and their children, all of who were born in Havre, to Browning. Along with French, English, and Cree, he then learned to speak the Blackfeet language. Broadwater–Pepin sold out after the death of Simon in 1914. Before it did go out of business, Peter DesRosier started his own businesses.
In 1912, he built the first theater, The Orpheum, in Browning. It burned down and was replaced by another theater of the same name, which was abandoned for a more modern facility, the Park Theater. He established a drug store, which operated as the Glacier Drug. The first films were, of course, all silent. A piano, fiddler, or an occasional orchestra would provide the mood music while the pictures, starring big names like Theda Bara, Cowboy Bill, Bill Hart, and later Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, the Costellos and Z.Z. Pitts. Rolled and titles flashed on the screen. Initial entrance fee was a quarter for adults and a dime for children. Cowboy pictures were always well attended in Browning, mainly because the original cowboys and Indians who watched them found them a great source of amusement. The first sound came on platters, similar to phonograph records. Being a Frenchman, the first sound movie he showed was not, “The Jazz Singer,” staring Al Jolsen, but a movie by the French World I hero and great entertainer, Maurice Chevalier.
Around 1918 or 1919, Browning was incorporated into a city. Peter Des Rosier and Charles Devereaux were being considered for the first mayor’s job. DesRosier figured that since Devereaux was a native of the area, he should be given the honor. DesRosier was on the city council and served as the Chairman and member of the School Board for years, but always declined the mayor’s job. In addition, he was postmaster at Browning from 1915 until 1921 and raised cattle on the Reservation.
He was a member of several different fraternal organizations. His wife, Emma Jane, was active in several in several community activities in Browning, including the American Red Cross and the Women’s Club. Peter and Emma Jane DesRosier had four children: Lauretta May /DesRosier/ Leadbetter, Peter LeRoy, Joseph Stuart, and Patricia Alouise /DesRosier/ McCourt.
Additional Resources
- Bowen, A. W. & Co. Progressive Men of the State Of Montana. Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co. 190?.
- Progressive Men of the State Of Montana online
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