SQUARE AND COMPASS BRAND

Dean M. Lindahl, Grand Secretary

Displayed in the Grand Lodge Museum is a replica of the square and compass branding iron. I wish it were the first one used by Poindexter and Orr.  Unfortunately it is not, however, it was used by the Poindexter and Orr Cattle Company.

 

In the 1850’s two fellows, Phillip H. Poindexter and William C. Orr, got together in the northern part of California and formed a partnership that lasted for life.

 

They came to what is now Montana and became permanent settlers around present day Dillon in what was then Idaho territory.  The main or home ranch was on Blacktail Deer Creek.  Their brand was the square and compass.

 

Montana became a territory in 1864 and the square and compass brand is claimed to be the first brand registered in Montana Territory.

 

Poindexter and Orr were Masons and also members of the York Rite Bodies in Dillon.  They both were charter members of Bannack Lodge No. 16 when it was chartered in 1871.    Poindexter was the treasurer; Orr was a member.  They were charter members of Dillon Lodge No. 30 when it was chartered in 1884.  Orr was the Senior Warden.

 

Poindexter served as Worshipful Master of Dillon No. 30 in 1889; and Orr was Worshipful Master in1900.  Orr also served as Treasurer from 1884 to 1887.  They both died a Master Mason in Good Standing; Orr in 1901 and Poindexter in 1911.   We have no record of their ages at death, but their ages must have been in the 70s or perhaps 80s, particularly when you consider the fact that in the 1850s they formed a partnership in the cattle ranching business.

 

Brother Orr’s youngest son, John T. Orr, was Grand Master of Montana Masons in 1940.

 

The square and compass brand is still being used. My research shows it is owned by four ranching organizations and/or individuals – it is owned by the Matador Cattle Company of Wichita, Kansas; William Earl Miller, a member of Saints John Lodge No. 92, Hardin; Michael Stuckslager of Great Falls; and the Bum Steer, Inc., in care of Don Hacker of Lakeside, Montana.

 

Brother Hacker, a member of Bigfork Lodge No. 150, died in 1986.  When he was alive and active in Masonry, he would receive donations and contributions and then purchase a beef, feed it out and donate it to our Montana Masonic Home. I did not know this man personally, however I did meet him once or twice during the years when we both were attending Grand Lodge.

 

To our distinguished guests from other Grand Jurisdictions, I would like to extend to each of you my personal invitation to visit our Grand Lodge Museum whenever you are in Helena.  We are open 8 to 5 Mondays to Fridays. However, I will open the museum on Saturdays and Sundays upon request.

 

We have several interesting and priceless items, including a 9 by 15 foot mural in oil unofficially appraised about four or five years ago at a half a million dollars; the Masonic Apron owned by our Brother Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark expedition fame.  I would not even try to guess the value of that apron; a gold threaded satin Knights Templar banner that is a century old; and a 104 year old Grand Master’s ring made of pinkish colored gold from the Virginia City area. If you want to see what that ring looks like, our Grand Master wears a replica of the original on display in our museum.

 

THE SQUARE AND COMPASS BRAND

Brother Lew L. Callaway

 

One of the early permanent settlements of the Territory of Montana, then Idaho, was a segment of a valley between two canyons about 18 miles apart. The river through the valley was named by Lewis and Clark the Philanthropy, as they named also the Wisdom – two of the main streams which form the Jefferson near present Twin Bridges, so called by the explorers “in commemoration of two of those cardinal virtues, which have so eminently marked that deservedly selebrated (sic) character through life,” referring to the expedition’s sponsor, Mr. Jefferson.  “Posterity, alas, transformed Wisdom River into the Big Hole and Philanthropy into the Stinking Water,” observes Mr. Bakeless.  To those who have dwelt among the pioneers the reason for the change to Big Hole is clear enough, but why to Stinking Water? The lovely stream does not deserve such gross treatment. Three reasons are given, but one, the last, is reasonable: (1) On its lands Indian tribes fought a fierce battle leaving many dead; (2) the Indians left the remains of countless buffalo at the foot of a cliff to rot; (3) the malodorous vapor from the thermal springs in which Indian and white man in succession cured his ailments, polluted the air. More than a hundred years ago there did not remain any evidence of an Indian battle, and although there were numerous ancient buffalo skulls scattered in the meadows, the trappers said the oldest Indians reported that their grandfathers had never seen a live buffalo in the valley.

 

It is true that the odors are not pleasant, but Montana’s first fashionable “watering place” was Puller’s Springs, in the seventies or before. The white man, afflicted with various maladies, generally called “rheumatiz,” came on stretchers, and under directions of a physician some of the worst beset were thrust into the hot mud in a spring called Beelzebub.  Into this inferno they entered shrieking with pain imploring divine assistance. This amused healthy boys who were sure the sufferer would be fishing in the river running nearby with grasshopper bait in two weeks or less.

 

It is likely that the name Stinking Water was given the river by the Bannocks, a Shoshonean tribe, and their friends the trappers. These Bannocks at an early time lived in southeastern Idaho about Fort Hall, ranging into what became Montana, claiming the territory now including the areas about Virginia City, Three Forks and Bozeman. Our first Capital, Bannack, takes its name from these Indians. A kindred Shoshonean tribe, the Snakes, had a name for the river.  They called it the Passamari, the water of the Cottonwood groves, and by that pleasant name it first appears on the Government maps; but the offensive Stinking Water continued to prevail.  However, the river runs near the Easterly and Northerly base of the range of mountains which occasionally in the morning or evening gleam like rubies in the sunlight; hence the name the Ruby range.  Someone, with the zeal of a poet, caused to be enacted in the Legislature of 1877 an Act changing the name of the river forever after to the Ruby.  Praise be.

 

From an early time the Salt Lake road crossed the Red Rock river, ran through Price’s Canyon and to the Blacktail Deer Creek, went over the “big hill” (it was big, and with no water), and for some miles paralleled Sweet Water Creek to its confluence with the Stinking Water.  The original telegraph line ran beside the road for many miles, and to Virginia City. Near a famous spring flowing into the Sweet Water, a pioneer established Belmont Park, the first standard trottinghorse establishment in the Territory.  The valley also contained the ranches upon which purebred shorthorn cattle brought from Kentucky were bred first in Montana, Alexander Metzel’s York Ranch being the pioneer. Mr. Metzel was the largest cattle owner in the valley for many years, his brand being the Circle A – an A within a circle. O my, how it did “blotch.”  Seen in considerable numbers was the Square and Compass brand of the great firm of Poindexter & Orr, whose main ranch was at the crossing of the highway (the Salt Lake road) at Blacktail Deer Creek. This brand looked like the badge my father wore, except that it did not have a letter in the center. Afterwards it was observed widely in the Miles City country.

 

Its owners were Philip H. Poindexter and William C. Orr. These gentlemen had got together in northern California in the 1850’s where they formed a partnership which lasted for life.  Mr. Orr drove a herd of cattle to Bannack in 1865 and thence to the Black Tail. The next year he returned to California for the remainder of the Poindexter and Orr herd, which he drove to the Black Tail, the home ranch. The cattle throve and were numerous on that range and ours.

 

We knew the P. & O. people in the Seventies.  Mr. Orr sent one of his elder sons, Matt, to the Virginia City schools. Matt and I were friends.

 

The cattlemen of the Upper Ruby Valley, after 1877 built large corrals as a community enterprise at a central point in the valley, commonly called the Roundup corral. The great event in the spring was the roundup in which “everybody” took part. Our neighbors from the Blacktail sent representative cowboys. From this custom comes the inspiration for this narrative.

 

About the first of May, 1882, then in my fourteenth year, I was at the Callaway ranch in the Upper Ruby, then occupied by Capt. James Williams, famed head of the Vigilantes aforetime, who was in the partnership with my father in the cattle business. Capt. Williams received word from Poindexter and Orr that they were intending to have a big roundup in the Blacktail Valley and as the Ruby and Blacktail cattle crossed the “Sweetwater Divide” and intermingled, and the P. & O. intended to sell a large number of the cattle from their range, he had better come over and protect his interests. So Captain concluded to go to the P. & O. ranch taking his oldest son, Jim, and me with him.

 

It was about a 30-mile ride, took practically all day. We took our blankets with us. Arriving and taking off our saddles we inquired where we should turn our horses. The P. & O. man said, “Turn ‘em in the calf pasture.” The calf pasture on our ranch at home was a field of, say, 10 acres. I asked, “Where is the calf pasture?” And the cowboy said, “O, here, anywhere.” So I asked where is the next fence? And he answered, “About 10 miles; turn ‘em out, we’ll get ‘em in the morning.” We made our beds on the ground. It was my first big roundup. We spent several days at the P. & O. ranch. The Blacktail was high, generally unfordable. The weather was warm for May. We rose before sunrise; indeed, it seemed daybreak to me, and it was cold. We got into our clothes in a hurry, caught our horses who were ill-tempered. They shrunk from the frigid saddle-blankets, saddles and bridles; stood humped over which was a warning. Some bucked when the riders mounted. In the meantime the cook yelled “grub-pile!” and breakfast was ready. (Goodness knows how long the cook had been out of bed.) It consisted of black coffee which you got from the pot in a pint tin cup. No sugar. Hot baking powder bread from Dutch ovens, fried meat. Same at noon or thereabouts, except that the meat was boiled in chunks. At night the meal was much the same. But after each meal all the riders were good natured, happy one might say.   We rode all day and after a talkative supper got early to bed.

 

An outstanding incident of this affair was the presence of a number of Englishmen representing in one capacity or another the intending purchasers. Nowadays we would say they were dressed up as drugstore cowboys. They were gentlemen, evidently well educated, complete strangers in a strange environment. While doubtless they considered us natives of a frontier region and curiosities in our mannerisms and speech, they spoke with an accent unknown to us, hard for us to understand.  Our speech must have puzzled them. Our use of such words as latigo, lariat, quirt, cinch and corral, to mention a few only, were new to those recently from England. Some told us they had learned to ride in the British army. We doubted if they had learned to ride anywhere. They were friendly people, not inclined to offend or “high hat.” Without realizing it, some of us were absorbing some needed education. Perhaps they were also.

 

Finally, six thousand head, or so we were told at the time, were sold for $150,000.00 to an English syndicate to be driven to McLeod, Alberta. I helped drive the herd, the largest I ever saw, from the P. & O. ranch over the mountain ridge into the Red Rock Valley. From thence the herd was driven into Canada; they were making history there.

 

Imagine my delight, some two or three years ago, when my friend Dudley White, of Columbus, Montana, retired rancher and book collecter, sent me by mail, a rare book, “Ranching with Lords and Commons.” A major incident of which tells of that very roundup on the Blacktail.

 

The reader will agree that it was fun to be a boy in Territorial days in Montana.

 

 

The older P. & O. men were Masons – eventually they were members of the Dillon Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter and Commandery. “Uncle Phil” became head of the Royal Arch Masons in Montana in 1893. His nephew, Joe to me, was born in the valley of the John Day River in Oregon. He and I were fellow District Judges in the early years of this century, and later Joe was appointed a Territorial Judge of Hawaii and later Governor. Mr. Orr’s youngest, John T. Orr, was Grand Master of Montana in 1940.

 

 

“Early Montana Masons”By: Lew L. Callaway, 1951,Western Litho-Print Press-Billings, MT