Duncans in Flathead Co. MT

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Duncan research files of
Mary Ann (Duncan) Dobson
the Genealogy Bug

Last revised August 27, 2007

FLATHEAD CO. MT
Formed 1893 from Missoula
Lincoln formed 1909 from Flathead
Lake formed 1923 from Flathead, Missoula
 

DIRECTORIES

"R.L. Polk & Co's Kalispell City Directory and Flathead County [Montana] City Directory 1905 - 1906." R.L. Polk & Co; Evans & McMurray Publishers, Mansfield Library, Special Collections Section, University of Montana, Missoula MT, 59802, 1905 - 1906. (from Kathy Cawley 6/2004)
      Andrew R Duncan, physician and surgeon Adams block, residence 226 Third avenue East, Kalispell
      Edgar Duncan, Kalispell, moved to Wilcox, Neb
      George Duncan, Kalispell, moved to San Diego, Cal
      Mrs Jemima Duncan, Kalispell, moved to Whitefish, Montana
      John A Duncan, teamster, residence eastside Fifth avenue East 2 North of Oregon, Duncan Add, Kalispell
      Nellie Duncan, boards JA Duncan, Kalispell
      Nellie M Duncan, domestic, 119 Fourth avenue East, Kalispell
      Stella Duncan, teacher, boards 226 Third avenue East, Kalispell
      Tyson D Duncan, fruit grower, residence California northeast Seventh avenue East, Duncan Add, RFD Route No 1, Kalispell
      Wm Duncan, Kalispell, moved to Chicago, Ill
      E Catherine Duncan, boards JA Duncan, Whitefish
      Mrs Jemima A Duncan, lodging house, Whitefish
 

HISTORIES before 1923

"Montana, its story and biography : a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood" by L.E. Munson, ed. by Tom Stout; pub. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1921, 2791 pgs. (LH12734, HeritageQuest images 5/2007 & 8/2007; FHL book 978.6 H2s v.2 and film 1,000,175)
      Vol.III, pg.850: J.A. SAMSON. Although he is now retired, J.A. Samson has been very active in Whitefish and has done much to develop the place as a real estate operator. ... birth occurred in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, he being a son of James and Olive (Churchill) Samson. ... when he was nineteen years old, going west as far as Minnesota where he spent five years. He then returned to Pennsylvania and was married to Miss Belle Lyman, after which he went to New York state for eight years, then West Virginia for two years, then Kentucky for eight years, in Jackson and Winchester. In 1907 he came to Montana, and making Whitefish his headquarters embarked in the business of buying railroad ties. (MAD: Whitefish, Flathead Co. MT; Glendive, Dawson Co. MT)
            Mrs. Samson dying, he took her body back to Pennsylvania for burial. Their two children had also died, and upon his return to Whitefish ... in one of his business transactions he met a Mrs. Duncan and interested her in a project he had in mind, the erection of a first-class apartment. After due consideration Mrs. Duncan decided to join him in its construction, and the association then begun resulted in the marriage of the widow and widower. Mrs. Samson was born on Prince Edward Island, a daughter of George and Sophia (Mutch) Mason. She came to Montana in January, 1883, locating at Glendive, she became the wife of Dr. A.R. Duncan on Prince Edward Island, but their children were born in Glendive, Montana. She came to Whitefish in 1905, when the Divisional terminal of the Great Northern Railroad was changed from Kalispell to Whitefish, and erected and conducted the only hotel in the place that was heated by a furnace. ... At the time of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Samson, the following was published in the Whitefish Pilot. "Duncan-Samson Nuptials. Wedding bells were ringing on Wednesday eve, November 30, ... two well known Whitefish people, namely J.A. Samson and Mrs. J. Duncan, ... Rev. J.W. Gaston officiating, with Mrs. J.W. Goodell and Miss Mary Gaston as witnesses. ...." (MAD: elipses mine)
            By her first marriage Mrs. Samson had the following children: Stella, who married Charles Malloy of Spokane, Washington, has a daughter Catherine, who is married and has a daughter, Dorothy Goodell; and Gladys, who is Mrs. Scott of Great Falls, Montana, has two sons, George and Jack. Fraternally Mr. Samson is a Mason. He belongs to the Seventh Day Advent Christian Church. In politics he is a strong republican ...
 

"Montana, its story and biography : a history of aboriginal and territorial Montana and three decades of statehood" by L.E. Munson, ed. by Tom Stout; pub. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1921, 2791 pgs. (LH12734, HeritageQuest images 5/2007 & 8/2007; FHL book 978.6 H2s v.2 and film 1,000,175)
      Vol.III, pg.1014-1017: TYSON D. DUNCAN. ... one of the best known ranchmen, now retired, in the Flathead Valley. Mr. Duncan might be called twice a pioneer of Montana. He first came in the ... sixties, as one of the younger members of the Duncan family. Later, after an absence of a number of years, he returned again, and in the early eighties he and his wife were among the first to settled in the wonderful Flathead country, at what is now Kalispell. ... He is of pioneer American stock. About 1795 his grandfather migrated from Maryland to Kentucky, which had just been admitted to the Union but was still a part of the Western wilderness. The family lived there until 1817, and then with wife and five children, two sons and three daughters, the grandfather migrated to Howard County, Missouri, which marked another Western frontier. They made their home five miles east of Fayette, the county seat, and started the clearing of the land and the building of a home. About two years later, while out hunting, the grandfather Duncan was mistaken for a bear by a neighbor, and his death was one of the tragedies of the frontier community. ... The grandmother showed the courage of many pioneer women and with the aid of her boys eventually saw her ambition fulfilled for a comfortable home. The children grew up and married and settled down in homes of their own.
            When the family moved from Kentucky to Missouri, Ashley Duncan, the youngest son, was about nine years of age. Ashley Duncan remained in Howard County until 1848, when he bought a tract of land in the abandoned Mormon settlement in Northwest Missouri, at Far West, in Caldwell County, about seven miles from the county seat of Kingston. ... He and his family moved into that house in the spring of 1849 and lived there two or three years until he could erect a more suitable dwelling.
            At that time Tyson D. Duncan was about a year and a half old. He was born at the old home near Fayette, September 28, 1847, son of Ashley and Eliza (Sproul) Duncan. He was the twelfth of their thirteen children. Mr. Duncan's early memories and associations are all centered at the old neighborhood at Far West. He was early put to work, and at the age of fourteen was considered a good hand on the farm. ... In time all the Duncan boys went West except one who went South and entered the army, but returned after the war.
            Two of his brothers and two half-brothers and Mr. Duncan's only sister came to Montana in 1864. The party traveled overland with ox teams. Then in the spring of 1865, his father, having sold the farm, went to St. Joseph, and April 25th he and his wife and younger children, including Tyson, took passage on the steamer Cora bound for Fort Benton, Montana. ... About June 20th, relates Mr. Duncan, the boat landed at the mouth of the Maries River, where two of the Duncan boys were waiting with ox teams to take the family on to Helena. ... They reached Helena about July 10th, and within a month the family suffered the grievous loss of the death of the mother. ... The Duncan family located in the Boulder Valley, thirty miles south of Helena, and Tyson Duncan remained there until the following spring ... The next seventeen years of his life Mr. Duncan lived chiefly in Missouri, two years in Jackson County, in the vicinity of Kansas City. In November, 1868, he went to St.Clair County, Missouri, and there on November 25, 1869, married Miss Sarah Caton. It is appropriate to look ahead from that date just fifty years to November 25, 1919, when Mr. and Mrs. Duncan ... celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.
            During the early seventies Mr. Duncan spent two years in Colorado, six months in Bent County and the rest of the time at Silver Cliff in Custer County. In the spring of 1881, while in Missouri, Mr. Duncan contracted a severe case of western fever, and in February, 1882, having sold his little farm, he joined a party of about thirty bound for the West and Northwest. They left Kansas City March 1, 1882, ... to Rogue River Valley in Oregon. The stay in Oregon was brief, only ten days. Mr. Duncan ... continued his journey to Portland, and on the 30th of May took boat and went back up the Columbia River to The Dalles, thence taking the trail over the mountains to Montana. ... Here began his second period of pioneering in Montana. His plans being unsettled, Mrs. Duncan soon returned to Missouri, but he remained there until the following April, when ... to Flathead Valley ... April 16, 1883, they reached the Flathead Valley at the west side of the [Flathead] Lake. ... He filed a claim, stopped at Helena to complete the filing, about the first of June went on to Boulder Valley and assembled his possessions. ... Near Anaconda he took employment with a rancher, helping him put up hay, and about the 15th of August his wife joined him after coming from Missouri, and on the 27th of the same month they loaded their few belongings into a wagon and started for their new home in Flathead Valley ... reached September 9, 1883. ... His nearest neighbor and the first settler in that part of the valley was Nicholas P. Moon, who had located there about three years before. ... In the fall of 1884, Flathead Valley held its first election ... Missoula County, Mr. Duncan was elected justice [of the peace] ... the founding of the new Town of Kalispell, 15 April 1891 ... Politically Mr. Duncan gives his support to the democratic party, religiously he is a member of the Free Methodist Church and Mrs. Duncan is of the Presbyterian faith. ... (MAD: 1880 Custer Co. CO census indexed as "Lyson" Duncan)
 

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