On a Friday morning in early July 1873, Mary Montgomery (1846-1942) leaves a Northern Pacific Railroad construction camp in present-day Thurston County on horseback, the beginning of a two-day dash to Portland and back to secure payroll for workers scheduled to be paid on Sunday. Montgomery is married to railroad builder James B. Montgomery, who cannot afford a work stoppage as he races to complete the line to Tacoma by December 1873. Mary Montgomery returns to camp Saturday evening with $60,000 and construction continues.
Prominent Missourians
Mary Anne (or Ann) Phelps (sometimes called "Mollie") was born in Springfield, Missouri on July 4, 1846, to Mary Whitney and John S. Phelps. Her father was a Connecticut native and lawyer who was a Missouri legislator, Congressman, and Governor of the state from 1877-1881. Mary Whitney, from Maine, was a businesswoman and suffragist.
The slave-owning Phelps had a large plantation near Springfield, Missouri. In a life not short on drama, Mary Anne often related that in 1858, she and her mother rode on a stage coach with transportation pioneer John Butterfield (1801-1869) from Springfield to Tipton, Missouri, meeting the rail head to prove that Butterfield's overland stage line was the superior route for mail delivery. Mary Anne was educated at a private academy in St. Louis in the early 1860s, but returned to find her Springfield home in the center of conflict during the Civil War. Although slave owners, her father and mother were staunch Unionists. Her father, serving in Congress at the outbreak of the war, organized a Union Regiment. Her brother, John Elisha Phelps, enlisted for the North and was brevetted Lieutenant Colonel for his service. Montgomery’s father was named as military Governor of Arkansas for a short time by President Lincoln in 1862.
The Phelps home was near the Civil War battles of Wilson Creek and Pea Ridge. Mary Whitney Phelps became well-known for her care of both Union and Confederate Soldiers at her home during the war. In fact, Congress awarded her $20,000 for her service to soldiers during the war, which she used to fund a school for orphans from both sides of the conflict. On a trip from their home to St. Louis in 1862, Mary Anne and her mother concealed several thousand dollars (amounts vary in different sources) in vouchers for Union soldiers, which they protected from "bushwackers" along the route, pre-figuring Mary Anne’s later role as a courier for funds to pay railroad workers in Washington Territory.
Moving West
After additional education in New York, Mary returned to Springfield, where she met and later married railroad builder James B. Montgomery, a widower with one son in 1866. A Pennsylvanian, Montgomery worked in newspapers and then began building railroads in the state including the Bedford & Hopewell and Philadelphia & Erie railroads. He was also associated with the Baltimore and Potomac railroad and the Kansas Pacific, among others, and invested $50,000 in Northern Pacific Railroad bonds. On an 1870 trip to explore the Northwest, the couple traveled from their home in Philadelphia by rail to San Francisco and then by steamer to Portland onto The Dalles and Walla and Walla, later coming to Olympia, where they rented a house. J. B. Montgomery returned to Philadelphia to successfully bid on the construction of the Northern Pacific line from Kalama to Puget Sound, while Mary later established a permanent home in Portland.
J. B. Montgomery contracted with the Northern Pacific to build the first 25 miles of railroad line north from Kalama to three miles beyond the Toutle River beginning in May 1871, completed by the fall of 1872. He recalled the task as moving 1 million cubic yards of earth and rock and constructing trestles and bridges. He hired hundreds of Chinese and non-Chinese to build the road. Montgomery signed on for an additional 10 miles of the line northward. J. L. Hallett built the remaining 30 miles to Tenino, where Montgomery again took over for the final 40 miles (although a longer mileage figure was given) from Tenino to Tacoma.
Montgomery's Mad Dash
Mary Montgomery remembered that she and their children joined her husband at construction sites during the summer months, living in tents. She received a special assignment in 1873. "Early in July of 1873, my husband, on a Thursday morning came to me and said, 'I must have $60,000 to pay the men on a Sunday morning and there is no one but you to send to Portland for the money'" (Building a State, 537). She set off on a Friday morning on horseback accompanied by two men, including Montgomery’s chief clerk Ed Bingham, for 10 miles to the construction terminus, where she boarded a locomotive to the Toutle River, followed by a regular train to Kalama, where she caught an Astoria steamer to Portland.
She described the transaction securing the funds in Building a State, published in 1940 to celebrate 50 years of statehood: "I reached Portland about six o’clock that evening and immediately called upon James Steele, the Cashier of the First National Bank of Portland. I gave him my husband’s check and a letter saying he must have the $60,000 by Sunday morning." On the return trip, she missed the Astoria steamer and had to take a Dalles boat instead. "I walked across the gangplank from The Dalles boat to the Astoria boat. The two men carried the sacks of money. I had the most delightful journey in the Pilot House to Kalama. Here, again, two men carried off the money and put it with the Wells-Fargo Bank until time for the train, and I resumed my journey, the first twenty-five miles by train, then on the construction train. When we reached the end of the line, I was met by Ed Bingham with my horse, a horse to carry the money and two men to act as guards. I reached our camp about nine o‘clock the Saturday evening. A full moon was shining overhead” (Building a State, 537).
The Montgomerys returned to Philadelphia later in 1873 and learned that Jay Cooke & Co., financiers for the Northern Pacific Railroad, had failed, which suspended work for a time on the construction to Tacoma. The Montgomerys continued to fund the railroad from their own funds, but 12 miles from Tacoma other arrangements were made to complete the line to meet the December 1873 congressional deadline to connect the Northern Pacific to Puget Sound. The line was declared finished on December 14, 1873. The Mongomerys were owed over $220,000 for the work. J. B. Montgomery accepted Northern Pacific bonds in lieu of cash and purchased timberlands along the line in the mid-1870s. In the late-1870s Montgomery built a rail line in the Willamette Valley. In 1883, he contracted with the Northern Pacific to build the line from Portland along the Willamette to a point opposite Kalama at Goble, where a train ferry then connected with the line north, finally linking Portland and Tacoma.
