“The first train over the Northern Pacific railroad reached Missoula August 7, 1883, and the last spike connecting the east and west divisions of the road was driven at a point between Garrison and Gold Creek by Henry Villard, president of the road, on September 8, 1883.”
Judge Woody came to what is now Montana in October, 1856, when the western portion of the state of Montana was a part of Washington Territory. He has resided in the country ever since, and nearly all of this time in Missoula county, thus giving him a residence in Montana of over forty-four years. During all this time he has, without moving, been an inhabitant of three territories and one state. The western portion of Montana was, in 1856, Washington Territory, then became Idaho Territory, Montana Territory and finally the state of Montana.
Judge Woody was born in Chatham county, North Carolina, on December 10, 1833, and on his paternal side was of Quaker descent, and on his maternal side of good old revolutionary stock. His early life was that of a farmer with very limited educational advantages. At the age of eighteen he entered New Garden Boarding school (now Guilford college), a Quaker institution of learning near Greensboro, North Carolina. After remaining at this institution one year, he taught school in the eastern portion of the state for six months. He then, in the summer of 1853, attended another Quaker school in Indiana, after which he taught school in that state until April, 1855, when he removed to Kansas. Not being satisfied with the country, and with a desire to see more of the West, he joined a merchant wagon train bound for Great Salt Lake, and remained with the train until it reached a point west of Fort Laramie. He then joined an emigrant party bound for Shoalwater bay, in the Territory of Washington, and remained with it until it reached Independence Rock, a once noted point on the Sweetwater river, near the South Pass, in the state of Wyoming. At this point he became sick and was forced to remain several days and eventually fell in with a party of Mormons bound for Salt Lake and went with them, reaching there August, 1855.
He remained in Utah until the fall of 1856, when he joined a party of traders coming to the “Flathead country” (now Missoula and Ravalli counties), to trade with the Indians, and about the middle of October arrived on the Hell Gate river, near where the town of Missoula now stands.
From that time until February, 1866, he followed different pursuits, engaging in freighting, mining and merchandising, and, on the last date named was, by the board of county commissioners, appointed county clerk and recorder of Missoula county, which office he held continuously by re-election until the fall of 1880, when he refused to again become a candidate. During a portion of this time he also filled the office of probate judge, which office had been consolidated with that of county clerk and recorder. For eight years of this time he also served as deputy clerk of the second judicial district court of the county of Missoula. While acting in the latter capacity, he began the study of law and was admitted to the bar in January, 1877. He soon built up an extensive clientage and took rank as one of the leading lawyers of western Montana. In 1869 he was elected a member of the legislative council for the counties of Missoula and Deer Lodge.
He once edited a weekly newspaper, and at a period when editors labored under difficulties and disadvantages of which the present generation can scarcely conceive. Then mails were but weekly and later on tri-weekly, and often in the winter it was from eight to twelve days between deliveries, therefore an Eastern or California paper was seldom to be obtained so that the old-time editors had great difficulty in making up their editorial columns or securing clippings for the general news page. But, after all, the infrequent arrival of the mails was in favor of the Montana editor, for in those days few of the general readers of the territorial papers ever read an Eastern or a Pacific coast paper, consequently everything printed in their home paper was news to them, and the editor, who was supposed to be the writer, was praised as a smart fellow, when, in fact, it was often copied from other papers.
At the annual meeting of the Montana Press Association at Anaconda last fall, Judge Woody was present and was called upon to give his experiences as an editor. The judge arose, and, in a humorous way, said:
“I remember well when we received the news of the death of Napoleon III., in 1873. I wanted to write an editorial about him and give a short sketch of his career, but there was not a work of reference in town. Fortunately the San Francisco Chronicle, which was received, contained an account of his death and also an elaborate editorial on his life and achievements, and from this I constructed an editorial which would have astonished the editor who wrote the one for the Chronicle.
“These pilferings were hardly legitimate, but were excusable under the plea of ‘military necessity.’ In the early days the editors of many of our weekly papers were not only editors, but ‘local,’ and often proprietors, and they were required to furnish not only the copy, but the means to keep the paper running, which was not always easy to do when we shipped our paper by express from Helena to Missoula at twelve and one-half cents per pound, cash down, before we could get it out of the express office. Talk about ‘steamer day!’ No one ever rustled on steamer day as we were compelled to on the day when the express arrived with our week’s supply of paper. We never failed to get our paper out of the express office, but it sometimes made us sweat blood to do it. In those days there was never a circus in the vicinity. There were no shows of any kind, and complimentary tickets to such entertainments were never seen by the editorial ‘staff.’
“In those days, while we did not get any complimentaries, and but little wedding cake and wine, we received our regular supply of threatened lickings, and the kickers of those days were more robust, muscular and dangerous than the kickers of the present time. Most of them wore six-shooters, which had a decidedly ugly look. It was not always safe to write what we deemed a complimentary personal, and on more than one occasion I raised a storm by printing what I deemed an innocent local. I wrote a harmless item—as I thought—concerning some school mams who were coming to Missoula to spend their vacation and incidentally mentioned that a bachelor of the town, hearing of the intended visit of these school mams, had caused a new picket fence to be constructed around his bachelor quarters in order to protect himself from invasion. Now I thought this was exceedingly clever, but just here I made a mistake. The bachelor friend was highly indignant and did not speak to me for more than a month, and when I received the next number of the New Northwest, of Deer Lodge, it contained a letter from one of the aforesaid school mams, in which she walked all over me with spikes in her shoes. This was a good opening, and in our next issue I returned to the fray a little, just vigorously enough to get the lady to go another bout. She came back sharper than ever in the next issued of the New Northwest, and thus it went until Captain Mills, the editor, shut her off, and that ended the fight.