George Benjamin Conway
George Conway was
a prominent figure in Montana business life for nearly sixty five years
having spent nearly his entire adult life in the State of Montana. He
arrived from Indianapolis, Indiana on April 04, 1881 at Dillon, many
years prior to the “ushering in” of Statehood for the Territory of Montana
which was admitted in 1889. For more than a quarter of a century he was
connected with the Hecla Consolidated Mining Company which chartered in
1877 and through his business dealings with Elias Atkins and Henry
Knippenberg, partners in the Atkins Saw Works, George Conway found
himself and his new Bride en-route to the mining camp of Glendale, Montana
where he would serve as cashier for the struggling Hecla Mining Company
whose years of success were yet to be realized. Under the Knippenberg and
Conway Administration, the Hecla Consolidated Mining Company would prosper
and pay handsome dividends for more than twenty years.
George B. Conway Glendale
George Benjamin
Conway was born December 17, 1859 in his native city of Wheeling being at
that time in old Virginia, and four years later became the capital of the
new state of West Virginia. In the paternal line he is of Welsh ancestry.
His Grandfather, Benjamin Conway was born in Wales. He was an English
soldier during the Napoleonic wars, and was at the
Battle of Waterloo under the Duke of
Wellington. Later he came to this country and died in the United States.
William B. Conway, Father of George, was born at Abersuchyn, Wales in
1837, and lived there to the age of nineteen. About 1856, he came to the
United States, living for a time in New York, then in Wheeling, following
his trade as an iron worker in both places. In 1871 he became Manager of
the Capital City Iron Works at Indianapolis, and
held that post of responsibility until 1880. For several years following,
he was a manufacturer of iron specialties at Youngstown,
Ohio and he also lived in Montana two
years, from 1886 to 1888. William Conway was interested in Mining at
Glendale. It was not long after, that William left Montana and headed to
Buffalo, New York where he died in 1900. He was a republican and a devout Baptist being a
regular supporter of the church. He was affiliated with the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows.
William Conway
married Leonora Harriet Smith who was born at Kent, England in 1840 and
died at Oil City, Pennsylvania in 1870. She was the Mother to three
children with George being the oldest.
George Benjamin Conway
William Conway Jr.
owned a newspaper in Wilmington, Pennsylvania and their sister Emily died
in infancy. George Conway received most of his schooling in his native
city of Wheeling. For a time he also attended high school at Indianapolis
but an illness forced George to leave his schooling behind and at the age
of fourteen, he went to work as messenger boy in the Capital City Iron
Works of which his Father had served as Manager. After working for two
years, he went to work at the offices of the E.C. Atkins and Co. Saw Works
of Indianapolis, the largest business of it’s kind in America. He was with
that firm from 1879 until 1881, when he made the decision to head to
Montana Territory. It was through this
position that George would become acquainted with Henry Knippenberg and
Atkins. George arrived at Glendale on April 4, 1881 with his new bride,
ready to begin the task of company business.
George served the capacity of
cashier at Glendale and in 1886 would also serve as vice president of the Hecla Mercantile and Banking Company which was a subsidiary of the Hecla
Consolidated Mining Company.
After the
shutdown, business interests required George to spend time in New York
City but he would return to Montana where in 1909, Governor Norris
appointed him the position of State Accountant which required George and
his family to move to the Capital City of Helena, Montana. He served as
accountant to the state for four years, after which he became secretary
and general manager of the Montana Livestock and Casualty Insurance
Company. In 1917, this company was sold to the Iowa state Livestock
Insurance company and George handled business from his office at 26 west
Sixth Street in Helena serving the capacity of district manager. He also
served as secretary of H.B. Palmer & Company, but the charter of this
corporation was not renewed after it expired in November, 1919. George
Conway was a republican voter and served as trustee and deacon of the
First Baptist Church at Helena. He was
affiliated with the King Solomon Lodge No.9, A.F., and A.M., and had
attained the thirty second degree in Scottish Rite, being affiliated with
Helena Consistory No.3.
George Conway and
his family resided at their home which was 315 Clark Street. He married Lillie Ella Hunt on
March 25, 1881, just prior to the journey west. Lillie Ella Hunt was born
April 07, 1860 at Springfield, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. Henry C. Hunt.
Henry C. Hunt
Lillie Ella Hunt Conway
Lillie Conway
graduated from The Indianapolis High School and was very active
in the social circles of Helena. She was a member of the Women’s Club of
Helena and for several years was regent of the Daughters of the American
Revolution in Oro Fino Chapter of Helena. George and Lillie had eight
children all born at Glendale during the 1880s and 1890s. They lost one
daughter to scarlet Fever when she was just shy of six years old at
Glendale. The eldest of their children was Helen, born in 1882, married
William J. Cushing, an attorney at Dillon Montana. They had a daughter ,
Josephine who was born in 1904. Josephine attended high school in Dillon,
Montana and married Nelson Maxwell. They would move to
Spokane,
Washington.
Florence Conway
was born in 1885 and married Anthony H. French of Argenta.
Ora Conway, Dillon Montana
Ora born in 1887
and Alice in 1889, both graduated with Bachelors of Pedagogy from the
State Normal College at Dillon and
were both teachers in the public schools of Helena. Ruth, born in 1891,
married Gustav Bohstedt, who worked for the Department of Agriculture at
the State University at Madison, Wisconsin. They had two sons, Carl Conway
and James born in 1919 and 1925.
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Walter Conway (Second from right)
Walter Lincoln
Conway, born in
1894, graduated
from the University of Montana and served as the Superintendent of rural
and city schools in the Columbia Falls district of
Montana.
Eunice Conway, the
youngest of the Conway children was born in 1898 and graduated High school
in Helena with the class of 1918. she worked as a stenographer for the
Internal Revenue Office in Helena.
Death of Eunice Conway Bratcher
George and Lillie
celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary on March 25, 1931 in Helena
with all their children present.
Lillie Passed away
in Helena on November 29, 1934.
The demise of the
Hecla Consolidated Mining Company was due largely in part to the
devaluation of Silver and the high costs associate with mining and
smelting . It became more profitable to ship ore out for smelting than to
process it locally. The company found itself in a position where they
could no longer pay their employees and litigations forced them to shut
down operations and the Glendale Smelter was dismantled. The town of
Glendale nearly disappeared from the map as families moved, taking
everything with them, including their homes which were dismantled and
relocated at Melrose. Many of the Miners moved on to Colorado and Idaho
where mines were still operating successfully. For a short time, the Mines
of the former Hecla Mining Company were idle and in 1906, Henry
Knippenberg acquired the properties for about 28,000 which amounted to the
debt owed him by the company. The Mines would pass into private ownership
and would eventually be disposed of by Knippenberg. The Longmaid Brothers
of Helena would also acquire the properties and eventually a corporation
of Philadelphia Capitalists would form the New Hecla Consolidated Mining
Company of which Harry A. Stone of Philadelphia was President.
During the 1930s
and 1940s, Leasers would work the mine dumps of the former Hecla
Properties and Wilhelm and Norris of Melrose would truck the slag out for
shipment via the railroad.
The following
information shows an overview of the activity of the Bryant Mining
District and George Conway’s involvement:
District Activity After 1904
Knippenberg acquired ownership of the properties in 1904 at a sheriff's
sale. (Date of acquisition was more likely 1906 as Federal documents point
out) The Penobscot Mining Company then mined the Atlantus, True Fissure,
Trapper, Cleve, and Franklin lodes from 1913 to 1915, under an agreement
with Knippenberg. A 20-stamp concentrator was constructed at Lion City and
ore valued at $243,427 was mined by the company. When the mines closed in
1915, the district continued to prosper from the ore and slag piles at the
old smelter at Glendale with nearly $903,000 worth of ore being shipped
from 1916 to 1922 (Geach 1972).
The Hecla properties then went through a series of convoluted ownership
changes starting in 1923, when the properties were sold for $230,000 to
the Hecla Development Syndicate which continued development work and
processed the ore, slag and mill tailings from previous mining operations.
The district was then open to leasers in 1926 under the supervision of G.
B. Conway. The following year the properties were acquired by the United
States Smelting, Refining, and Exploration Company who did development
work on the Cleve-Avon. Later, in 1928, Conway acquired ownership of the
properties and sold them on option to the Foundation Company of Utah. The
company spent $80,000 on development and exploration work but did not
quite break even after shipping $78,376 worth of ore and slag. In 1930,
the claims and mines reverted to Conway who again turned the district into
a leasers' camp. During the later 1930s, the district produced small
amounts of ore, which yielded $175,452 in metals. L. D. Foreman of Dillon
acquired the option for the properties following Conway's death in 1945.
Some years later, Leonard Lively of Melrose picked up the option and in
1965 held title to most of the old Hecla Company assets (Gilbert 1935;
Sassman 1941; Trauerman 1940, 1942 & 1950; Crowley 1960 & 1962; Geach
1964, 1966 & 1972; Lawson 1976 & 1977).
During the district's long, productive period from 1873 to 1965, it
produced 656,078 tons of ore which yielded 18,250 ounces of gold,
13,384,722 ounces of silver, 8,271,136 pounds of copper, 112,482,388
pounds of lead and 3,831,254 pounds of zinc, all of which have been
estimated to be worth over $19,651,000 (Geach 1972; Krohn and Weist 1977).
George B. Conway
lived out his life in Montana having passed away at the home of his
daughter on November 05, 1945 in Dillon. The Bryant Mining District of
Montana witnessed the transitions of thousands of people and many years of
operations. Alot of money taken from the Lion Mountain properties which
not only paid for the survival of the Miners and their families trying to
make ends meet but also lined the pockets of Eastern Capitalists who would
make their money and not blink an eye as to the fate of the Company that
generated their millions. Throughout the decades of the Bryant Mining
District’s existence, The one constant fixture and the one who showed the
most faith and confidence in the Company, the Mines and their potential
was that of Mr. George Benjamin Conway. Many years prior to his death,
George Conway asked Hampton Norris and his Son Andy, to truck a boulder
that George handpicked from the Trapper Mine, over to Helena. George
placed the large granite boulder at the head of his wife Lillie’s grave
which remains there today as a personal gesture toward the memory of the
Mining district that He and his family called home for more than two
decades.
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