+~~~~+~~~~****+~~~~+~~~~~~+++~~~~MCCORMICK~~~~+++~~~~~~+~~~~+****~~~~+~~~~+
Frank McCormick was born in 1847, in the small rural New York community of Greenwood or Rexville, the two villages being just a mile or two apart, when his mother Margaret was about 42 and his father James somewhere between 47 and 56 years old. He appears to have been the youngest of the couple's nine children.
His given name was Francis D. McCormick. A Centralia/Grand Rapids, Wisconsin newspaper article written in 1890 when he was 43 years old, indicated that he had a "strawberry" mustache and beard. He was in town to sell a herd of Montana horses.
In his teens and maybe his 20's, as his older brothers left New York and established themselves in the rough frontier towns of Montana, Frank stayed with "Wisconsin relatives" -- this fact was recorded in a Billings Gazette article, written in 1932, on the history of the McCormick family.
It is probable then, that Frank stayed in the farm home of his older brother Hugh and his wife Mary J. Ray, both before and after Hugh's premature death in 1871. Hugh and Mary had established a farm in Hancock, Wisconsin by 1860, the year that Frank would have been 13. Hugh died the year that Frank turned 24, so Frank may have stayed on after this sad event, in order to help Mary who had been left with 6 children under the age of 10, including a newborn. Five years later, in 1876, Mary had another baby, with a younger neighbor who she declined to marry. Around the same time, Frank married in Wisconsin, and he had one son born there in 1879 who he named Wilbur. The prior year in 1878, Mary's 12 year old son Charles died in New York, where he had been sent to live with his grandfather James and two uncles Robert and Alphonsus who had returned there from Montana. Frank's wife unfortunately died after just a few years of marriage of unknown causes, and therefore perhaps his sister-in-law Mary provided some reciprocal assistance in helping Frank care for his young son.
Frank was the last of the McCormicks to arrive in the frontier river town of Junction City, Montana sometime after 1880, when he was 33 years old. In 1884, he was a widower with 5 year old Wilbur. After being the McCormick "baby of the family", Frank proved himself to his older brothers by becoming deputy sheriff of the town. He was reputed to be an able and respected lawman, who disliked the use of guns, but who was nevertheless able to impose the rule of law by force of personality in most cases.
In 1884 when he was 37, Frank married a second time, to a 24 year old widow named Mrs. (Lillian) W.H. Colvin with a son Lineas L. and a daughter Edith V. Colvin. She may have been otherwise known as Lillian Malvina Martin, who was born on 16 Mar 1868, in Bellaire, Ohio. She is buried in Mountview Cemetery, Billings, MT (died 28 February 1932) as Mrs. Frank McCormick. [Note: she remarried Francis DeSales after Frank's death.]
Along with his older brothers, Frank relocated to Billings, Montana by 1895, after the little town of Junction City died out. He appears to have built a large hotel there, called the Cottage Inn, which later became the Montana Hotel. His brothers Paul and Robert ran a huge cattle and sheep ranching operation, called the Custer Cattle and Sheep Company. Paul became a locally famous character, who built a large mansion in Billings, and knew Teddy Roosevelt as a personal friend.
Frank and Lillian did have one child together in 1890, who did not survive to adulthood - this was thought to have been Mary Mabel McCormick, who died in Billings in 1898 at the age of 8. Sadly, Frank also lost his only other child Wilbur, who died in 1903 at the age of just 24, maybe of tuberculosis that he had contracted as a soldier during the Spanish-American War. Therefore, it appears that Frank left no blood heirs, though he was survived by many nieces and nephews through his seven brothers and one sister.
Frank died on March 3, 1926 at age 78, in Billings, Montana, having lived an illustrious and accomplished life. In the same cemetery as his resting place, are the burial sites of Frank's brothers Robert and Paul McCormick, and their wives and some of their offspring.
Also buried very near to Frank and Wilbur, are two of Frank's McCormick first cousins who were also Billings residents - Mary Jane McCormick Belanger and her younger unmarried brother Arthur F. McCormick, the daughter and son of Frank's Uncle Thomas McCormick and Aunt Roseanna Ray McCormick.
Mary Jane McCormick Belanger died 13 years after Frank, in 1939, at the age of 91. Montana was her third state of residence in her lifetime - she lived there for the last 35 years of her life. Right near or next to Mary Jane's gravesite, is the resting place of her youngest brother, Arthur F. McCormick, who had moved to Billings from Kansas with his mother Rose around 1900-1904. Arthur, a train conductor, died in Montana at the young age of 34 when he was hit and killed by a train in 1905, predeceasing his mother Rose who was living in Billings at the time. His given name was actually Frederick Arthur, but he was known as Arthur.
Mary Jane was the very last survivor of all the McCormick first cousins in Montana. The family's last direct connection to Ireland was Mary Jane's older first cousin (and Frank D.'s only sister) Mary McCormick McKinley, who had been born in County Antrim, northern Ireland in 1830, and died in Billings in 1917.
Frank and his first cousin Mary Jane Belanger had been born just a year apart (1847 and 1848) in Rexville, New York, and had lived there together as children until they were 7 or 8 years old. In 1855, Mary Jane was taken to Wisconsin by her parents Tom and Rose McCormick. Frank finished growing up in New York under the care of his parents James and Margaret McCormick, later living in Wisconsin with his brother Hugh's family, not far from Mary Jane and her six children. Therefore, one may conclude that the two cousins knew each other well across their lifetimes and three states.
Mary Jane, one of the older of 12 children, had many younger brothers, among them a brother named Emmett McCormick. Born in Wisconsin in 1859, Emmett was 12 years younger than his first cousin Frank. Before 1890, Emmett decided to join Frank and Frank's brothers in Montana, either working with them or for them as an employee in their general store, ranching, and transportation businesses. In one of the original newspaper accounts below, Frank and Emmett are working in partnership, buying horses for the "7 Bar 7" cattle company owned by Frank's brother Paul McCormick.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Centralia Tribune
Centralia, Wisconsin (the west side of the present city of Wisconsin Rapids)
11 Jan 1890
Mr. F. (Frank) D. McCormick of Junction City, MT has a part of a car-load of horses stabled in the Jackson barn in this city, which he brought from Montana. If any of our readers want a team of light horses, whose enduring qualities are unsurpassed, the gentleman with a strawberry mustache and goatee will be pleased to accommodate them.
Junction City, Montana
April 24, 1890
"Paul McCormick was seen making medicine for rain one day last week. He has a wolf tail hanging at the corner of his store and the Crows claim that to be a heap good. Joe Graham gets a thousand cords of wood to put in to Fort Custer; price $7.17 per cord: Paul McCormick gets the other three thousand cords at a higher rate. J.J. (James) McCormick, the new manager for the Paul McCormick & Company, takes to the business and is winning friends daily. Charlie Skinner, of Big Horn, had a 12-horse team at Custer Station Tuesday loading freight for his store. Monigan & Emmerson's mule teams pulled out Tuesday for Crow Agency, loaded with flour. Billy Sales, with an 8-yoke bull team is here loading for S. A. Leverton & Co., Sheridan. William Haux two 12-horse teams pulled out Monday loaded with potatoes for the commissary at Fort Custer. Fort Custer hay went for $16.00 per ton. If it does not rain, the contractor will wish he was at the bottom of the sea with McGinty! ......Frank D. & Emmet McCormick returned last Friday from Wyoming with a load of saddle horses they had purchased over there for the 7-7. Four 4-horse teams passed through Junction last Thursday from Sheridan, Wyo., enroute to Maiden and Great Falls, all young men looking for work. That's right, Montana has plenty of work for working men. Idlers had better stay away."
Frank S. McCormick (correct middle initial is D)
Home in 1900: Billings, Yellowstone, Montana
Age: 52
Birth Date: Jun 1847
Birthplace: New York
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relationship to head-of-house: Head
Father's Birthplace: Ireland (James)
Mother's Birthplace: Ireland (Margaret)
Spouse's Name: Lillian Mccormick
Marriage year: 1884
Marital Status: Married
Years married: 16 (married in 1884)
Occupation: Hotel Keeper (the hotel had over 25 occupants including the staff)
Household Members:
Name Age
Frank S Mccormick 52
Lillian Mccormick 42
Edith V Colvin 23 stepdaughter
Lineaus L Colvin 20 stepson
Wilbur Mccormick 22 son
Frank McCormick was born in 1847, in the small rural New York community of Greenwood or Rexville, the two villages being just a mile or two apart, when his mother Margaret was about 42 and his father James somewhere between 47 and 56 years old. He appears to have been the youngest of the couple's nine children.
His given name was Francis D. McCormick. A Centralia/Grand Rapids, Wisconsin newspaper article written in 1890 when he was 43 years old, indicated that he had a "strawberry" mustache and beard. He was in town to sell a herd of Montana horses.
In his teens and maybe his 20's, as his older brothers left New York and established themselves in the rough frontier towns of Montana, Frank stayed with "Wisconsin relatives" -- this fact was recorded in a Billings Gazette article, written in 1932, on the history of the McCormick family.
It is probable then, that Frank stayed in the farm home of his older brother Hugh and his wife Mary J. Ray, both before and after Hugh's premature death in 1871. Hugh and Mary had established a farm in Hancock, Wisconsin by 1860, the year that Frank would have been 13. Hugh died the year that Frank turned 24, so Frank may have stayed on after this sad event, in order to help Mary who had been left with 6 children under the age of 10, including a newborn. Five years later, in 1876, Mary had another baby, with a younger neighbor who she declined to marry. Around the same time, Frank married in Wisconsin, and he had one son born there in 1879 who he named Wilbur. The prior year in 1878, Mary's 12 year old son Charles died in New York, where he had been sent to live with his grandfather James and two uncles Robert and Alphonsus who had returned there from Montana. Frank's wife unfortunately died after just a few years of marriage of unknown causes, and therefore perhaps his sister-in-law Mary provided some reciprocal assistance in helping Frank care for his young son.
Frank was the last of the McCormicks to arrive in the frontier river town of Junction City, Montana sometime after 1880, when he was 33 years old. In 1884, he was a widower with 5 year old Wilbur. After being the McCormick "baby of the family", Frank proved himself to his older brothers by becoming deputy sheriff of the town. He was reputed to be an able and respected lawman, who disliked the use of guns, but who was nevertheless able to impose the rule of law by force of personality in most cases.
In 1884 when he was 37, Frank married a second time, to a 24 year old widow named Mrs. (Lillian) W.H. Colvin with a son Lineas L. and a daughter Edith V. Colvin. She may have been otherwise known as Lillian Malvina Martin, who was born on 16 Mar 1868, in Bellaire, Ohio. She is buried in Mountview Cemetery, Billings, MT (died 28 February 1932) as Mrs. Frank McCormick. [Note: she remarried Francis DeSales after Frank's death.]
Along with his older brothers, Frank relocated to Billings, Montana by 1895, after the little town of Junction City died out. He appears to have built a large hotel there, called the Cottage Inn, which later became the Montana Hotel. His brothers Paul and Robert ran a huge cattle and sheep ranching operation, called the Custer Cattle and Sheep Company. Paul became a locally famous character, who built a large mansion in Billings, and knew Teddy Roosevelt as a personal friend.
Frank and Lillian did have one child together in 1890, who did not survive to adulthood - this was thought to have been Mary Mabel McCormick, who died in Billings in 1898 at the age of 8. Sadly, Frank also lost his only other child Wilbur, who died in 1903 at the age of just 24, maybe of tuberculosis that he had contracted as a soldier during the Spanish-American War. Therefore, it appears that Frank left no blood heirs, though he was survived by many nieces and nephews through his seven brothers and one sister.
Frank died on March 3, 1926 at age 78, in Billings, Montana, having lived an illustrious and accomplished life. In the same cemetery as his resting place, are the burial sites of Frank's brothers Robert and Paul McCormick, and their wives and some of their offspring.
Also buried very near to Frank and Wilbur, are two of Frank's McCormick first cousins who were also Billings residents - Mary Jane McCormick Belanger and her younger unmarried brother Arthur F. McCormick, the daughter and son of Frank's Uncle Thomas McCormick and Aunt Roseanna Ray McCormick.
Mary Jane McCormick Belanger died 13 years after Frank, in 1939, at the age of 91. Montana was her third state of residence in her lifetime - she lived there for the last 35 years of her life. Right near or next to Mary Jane's gravesite, is the resting place of her youngest brother, Arthur F. McCormick, who had moved to Billings from Kansas with his mother Rose around 1900-1904. Arthur, a train conductor, died in Montana at the young age of 34 when he was hit and killed by a train in 1905, predeceasing his mother Rose who was living in Billings at the time. His given name was actually Frederick Arthur, but he was known as Arthur.
Mary Jane was the very last survivor of all the McCormick first cousins in Montana. The family's last direct connection to Ireland was Mary Jane's older first cousin (and Frank D.'s only sister) Mary McCormick McKinley, who had been born in County Antrim, northern Ireland in 1830, and died in Billings in 1917.
Frank and his first cousin Mary Jane Belanger had been born just a year apart (1847 and 1848) in Rexville, New York, and had lived there together as children until they were 7 or 8 years old. In 1855, Mary Jane was taken to Wisconsin by her parents Tom and Rose McCormick. Frank finished growing up in New York under the care of his parents James and Margaret McCormick, later living in Wisconsin with his brother Hugh's family, not far from Mary Jane and her six children. Therefore, one may conclude that the two cousins knew each other well across their lifetimes and three states.
Mary Jane, one of the older of 12 children, had many younger brothers, among them a brother named Emmett McCormick. Born in Wisconsin in 1859, Emmett was 12 years younger than his first cousin Frank. Before 1890, Emmett decided to join Frank and Frank's brothers in Montana, either working with them or for them as an employee in their general store, ranching, and transportation businesses. In one of the original newspaper accounts below, Frank and Emmett are working in partnership, buying horses for the "7 Bar 7" cattle company owned by Frank's brother Paul McCormick.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Centralia Tribune
Centralia, Wisconsin (the west side of the present city of Wisconsin Rapids)
11 Jan 1890
Mr. F. (Frank) D. McCormick of Junction City, MT has a part of a car-load of horses stabled in the Jackson barn in this city, which he brought from Montana. If any of our readers want a team of light horses, whose enduring qualities are unsurpassed, the gentleman with a strawberry mustache and goatee will be pleased to accommodate them.
Junction City, Montana
April 24, 1890
"Paul McCormick was seen making medicine for rain one day last week. He has a wolf tail hanging at the corner of his store and the Crows claim that to be a heap good. Joe Graham gets a thousand cords of wood to put in to Fort Custer; price $7.17 per cord: Paul McCormick gets the other three thousand cords at a higher rate. J.J. (James) McCormick, the new manager for the Paul McCormick & Company, takes to the business and is winning friends daily. Charlie Skinner, of Big Horn, had a 12-horse team at Custer Station Tuesday loading freight for his store. Monigan & Emmerson's mule teams pulled out Tuesday for Crow Agency, loaded with flour. Billy Sales, with an 8-yoke bull team is here loading for S. A. Leverton & Co., Sheridan. William Haux two 12-horse teams pulled out Monday loaded with potatoes for the commissary at Fort Custer. Fort Custer hay went for $16.00 per ton. If it does not rain, the contractor will wish he was at the bottom of the sea with McGinty! ......Frank D. & Emmet McCormick returned last Friday from Wyoming with a load of saddle horses they had purchased over there for the 7-7. Four 4-horse teams passed through Junction last Thursday from Sheridan, Wyo., enroute to Maiden and Great Falls, all young men looking for work. That's right, Montana has plenty of work for working men. Idlers had better stay away."
Frank S. McCormick (correct middle initial is D)
Home in 1900: Billings, Yellowstone, Montana
Age: 52
Birth Date: Jun 1847
Birthplace: New York
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relationship to head-of-house: Head
Father's Birthplace: Ireland (James)
Mother's Birthplace: Ireland (Margaret)
Spouse's Name: Lillian Mccormick
Marriage year: 1884
Marital Status: Married
Years married: 16 (married in 1884)
Occupation: Hotel Keeper (the hotel had over 25 occupants including the staff)
Household Members:
Name Age
Frank S Mccormick 52
Lillian Mccormick 42
Edith V Colvin 23 stepdaughter
Lineaus L Colvin 20 stepson
Wilbur Mccormick 22 son
+~~~~+~~~~****+~~~~+~~~~~~+++~~~~MCCORMICK~~~~+++~~~~~~+~~~~+****~~~~+~~~~+
Frank McCormick was born in 1847, in the small rural New York community of Greenwood or Rexville, the two villages being just a mile or two apart, when his mother Margaret was about 42 and his father James somewhere between 47 and 56 years old. He appears to have been the youngest of the couple's nine children.
His given name was Francis D. McCormick. A Centralia/Grand Rapids, Wisconsin newspaper article written in 1890 when he was 43 years old, indicated that he had a "strawberry" mustache and beard. He was in town to sell a herd of Montana horses.
In his teens and maybe his 20's, as his older brothers left New York and established themselves in the rough frontier towns of Montana, Frank stayed with "Wisconsin relatives" -- this fact was recorded in a Billings Gazette article, written in 1932, on the history of the McCormick family.
It is probable then, that Frank stayed in the farm home of his older brother Hugh and his wife Mary J. Ray, both before and after Hugh's premature death in 1871. Hugh and Mary had established a farm in Hancock, Wisconsin by 1860, the year that Frank would have been 13. Hugh died the year that Frank turned 24, so Frank may have stayed on after this sad event, in order to help Mary who had been left with 6 children under the age of 10, including a newborn. Five years later, in 1876, Mary had another baby, with a younger neighbor who she declined to marry. Around the same time, Frank married in Wisconsin, and he had one son born there in 1879 who he named Wilbur. The prior year in 1878, Mary's 12 year old son Charles died in New York, where he had been sent to live with his grandfather James and two uncles Robert and Alphonsus who had returned there from Montana. Frank's wife unfortunately died after just a few years of marriage of unknown causes, and therefore perhaps his sister-in-law Mary provided some reciprocal assistance in helping Frank care for his young son.
Frank was the last of the McCormicks to arrive in the frontier river town of Junction City, Montana sometime after 1880, when he was 33 years old. In 1884, he was a widower with 5 year old Wilbur. After being the McCormick "baby of the family", Frank proved himself to his older brothers by becoming deputy sheriff of the town. He was reputed to be an able and respected lawman, who disliked the use of guns, but who was nevertheless able to impose the rule of law by force of personality in most cases.
In 1884 when he was 37, Frank married a second time, to a 24 year old widow named Mrs. (Lillian) W.H. Colvin with a son Lineas L. and a daughter Edith V. Colvin. She may have been otherwise known as Lillian Malvina Martin, who was born on 16 Mar 1868, in Bellaire, Ohio. She is buried in Mountview Cemetery, Billings, MT (died 28 February 1932) as Mrs. Frank McCormick. [Note: she remarried Francis DeSales after Frank's death.]
Along with his older brothers, Frank relocated to Billings, Montana by 1895, after the little town of Junction City died out. He appears to have built a large hotel there, called the Cottage Inn, which later became the Montana Hotel. His brothers Paul and Robert ran a huge cattle and sheep ranching operation, called the Custer Cattle and Sheep Company. Paul became a locally famous character, who built a large mansion in Billings, and knew Teddy Roosevelt as a personal friend.
Frank and Lillian did have one child together in 1890, who did not survive to adulthood - this was thought to have been Mary Mabel McCormick, who died in Billings in 1898 at the age of 8. Sadly, Frank also lost his only other child Wilbur, who died in 1903 at the age of just 24, maybe of tuberculosis that he had contracted as a soldier during the Spanish-American War. Therefore, it appears that Frank left no blood heirs, though he was survived by many nieces and nephews through his seven brothers and one sister.
Frank died on March 3, 1926 at age 78, in Billings, Montana, having lived an illustrious and accomplished life. In the same cemetery as his resting place, are the burial sites of Frank's brothers Robert and Paul McCormick, and their wives and some of their offspring.
Also buried very near to Frank and Wilbur, are two of Frank's McCormick first cousins who were also Billings residents - Mary Jane McCormick Belanger and her younger unmarried brother Arthur F. McCormick, the daughter and son of Frank's Uncle Thomas McCormick and Aunt Roseanna Ray McCormick.
Mary Jane McCormick Belanger died 13 years after Frank, in 1939, at the age of 91. Montana was her third state of residence in her lifetime - she lived there for the last 35 years of her life. Right near or next to Mary Jane's gravesite, is the resting place of her youngest brother, Arthur F. McCormick, who had moved to Billings from Kansas with his mother Rose around 1900-1904. Arthur, a train conductor, died in Montana at the young age of 34 when he was hit and killed by a train in 1905, predeceasing his mother Rose who was living in Billings at the time. His given name was actually Frederick Arthur, but he was known as Arthur.
Mary Jane was the very last survivor of all the McCormick first cousins in Montana. The family's last direct connection to Ireland was Mary Jane's older first cousin (and Frank D.'s only sister) Mary McCormick McKinley, who had been born in County Antrim, northern Ireland in 1830, and died in Billings in 1917.
Frank and his first cousin Mary Jane Belanger had been born just a year apart (1847 and 1848) in Rexville, New York, and had lived there together as children until they were 7 or 8 years old. In 1855, Mary Jane was taken to Wisconsin by her parents Tom and Rose McCormick. Frank finished growing up in New York under the care of his parents James and Margaret McCormick, later living in Wisconsin with his brother Hugh's family, not far from Mary Jane and her six children. Therefore, one may conclude that the two cousins knew each other well across their lifetimes and three states.
Mary Jane, one of the older of 12 children, had many younger brothers, among them a brother named Emmett McCormick. Born in Wisconsin in 1859, Emmett was 12 years younger than his first cousin Frank. Before 1890, Emmett decided to join Frank and Frank's brothers in Montana, either working with them or for them as an employee in their general store, ranching, and transportation businesses. In one of the original newspaper accounts below, Frank and Emmett are working in partnership, buying horses for the "7 Bar 7" cattle company owned by Frank's brother Paul McCormick.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Centralia Tribune
Centralia, Wisconsin (the west side of the present city of Wisconsin Rapids)
11 Jan 1890
Mr. F. (Frank) D. McCormick of Junction City, MT has a part of a car-load of horses stabled in the Jackson barn in this city, which he brought from Montana. If any of our readers want a team of light horses, whose enduring qualities are unsurpassed, the gentleman with a strawberry mustache and goatee will be pleased to accommodate them.
Junction City, Montana
April 24, 1890
"Paul McCormick was seen making medicine for rain one day last week. He has a wolf tail hanging at the corner of his store and the Crows claim that to be a heap good. Joe Graham gets a thousand cords of wood to put in to Fort Custer; price $7.17 per cord: Paul McCormick gets the other three thousand cords at a higher rate. J.J. (James) McCormick, the new manager for the Paul McCormick & Company, takes to the business and is winning friends daily. Charlie Skinner, of Big Horn, had a 12-horse team at Custer Station Tuesday loading freight for his store. Monigan & Emmerson's mule teams pulled out Tuesday for Crow Agency, loaded with flour. Billy Sales, with an 8-yoke bull team is here loading for S. A. Leverton & Co., Sheridan. William Haux two 12-horse teams pulled out Monday loaded with potatoes for the commissary at Fort Custer. Fort Custer hay went for $16.00 per ton. If it does not rain, the contractor will wish he was at the bottom of the sea with McGinty! ......Frank D. & Emmet McCormick returned last Friday from Wyoming with a load of saddle horses they had purchased over there for the 7-7. Four 4-horse teams passed through Junction last Thursday from Sheridan, Wyo., enroute to Maiden and Great Falls, all young men looking for work. That's right, Montana has plenty of work for working men. Idlers had better stay away."
Frank S. McCormick (correct middle initial is D)
Home in 1900: Billings, Yellowstone, Montana
Age: 52
Birth Date: Jun 1847
Birthplace: New York
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relationship to head-of-house: Head
Father's Birthplace: Ireland (James)
Mother's Birthplace: Ireland (Margaret)
Spouse's Name: Lillian Mccormick
Marriage year: 1884
Marital Status: Married
Years married: 16 (married in 1884)
Occupation: Hotel Keeper (the hotel had over 25 occupants including the staff)
Household Members:
Name Age
Frank S Mccormick 52
Lillian Mccormick 42
Edith V Colvin 23 stepdaughter
Lineaus L Colvin 20 stepson
Wilbur Mccormick 22 son
Frank McCormick was born in 1847, in the small rural New York community of Greenwood or Rexville, the two villages being just a mile or two apart, when his mother Margaret was about 42 and his father James somewhere between 47 and 56 years old. He appears to have been the youngest of the couple's nine children.
His given name was Francis D. McCormick. A Centralia/Grand Rapids, Wisconsin newspaper article written in 1890 when he was 43 years old, indicated that he had a "strawberry" mustache and beard. He was in town to sell a herd of Montana horses.
In his teens and maybe his 20's, as his older brothers left New York and established themselves in the rough frontier towns of Montana, Frank stayed with "Wisconsin relatives" -- this fact was recorded in a Billings Gazette article, written in 1932, on the history of the McCormick family.
It is probable then, that Frank stayed in the farm home of his older brother Hugh and his wife Mary J. Ray, both before and after Hugh's premature death in 1871. Hugh and Mary had established a farm in Hancock, Wisconsin by 1860, the year that Frank would have been 13. Hugh died the year that Frank turned 24, so Frank may have stayed on after this sad event, in order to help Mary who had been left with 6 children under the age of 10, including a newborn. Five years later, in 1876, Mary had another baby, with a younger neighbor who she declined to marry. Around the same time, Frank married in Wisconsin, and he had one son born there in 1879 who he named Wilbur. The prior year in 1878, Mary's 12 year old son Charles died in New York, where he had been sent to live with his grandfather James and two uncles Robert and Alphonsus who had returned there from Montana. Frank's wife unfortunately died after just a few years of marriage of unknown causes, and therefore perhaps his sister-in-law Mary provided some reciprocal assistance in helping Frank care for his young son.
Frank was the last of the McCormicks to arrive in the frontier river town of Junction City, Montana sometime after 1880, when he was 33 years old. In 1884, he was a widower with 5 year old Wilbur. After being the McCormick "baby of the family", Frank proved himself to his older brothers by becoming deputy sheriff of the town. He was reputed to be an able and respected lawman, who disliked the use of guns, but who was nevertheless able to impose the rule of law by force of personality in most cases.
In 1884 when he was 37, Frank married a second time, to a 24 year old widow named Mrs. (Lillian) W.H. Colvin with a son Lineas L. and a daughter Edith V. Colvin. She may have been otherwise known as Lillian Malvina Martin, who was born on 16 Mar 1868, in Bellaire, Ohio. She is buried in Mountview Cemetery, Billings, MT (died 28 February 1932) as Mrs. Frank McCormick. [Note: she remarried Francis DeSales after Frank's death.]
Along with his older brothers, Frank relocated to Billings, Montana by 1895, after the little town of Junction City died out. He appears to have built a large hotel there, called the Cottage Inn, which later became the Montana Hotel. His brothers Paul and Robert ran a huge cattle and sheep ranching operation, called the Custer Cattle and Sheep Company. Paul became a locally famous character, who built a large mansion in Billings, and knew Teddy Roosevelt as a personal friend.
Frank and Lillian did have one child together in 1890, who did not survive to adulthood - this was thought to have been Mary Mabel McCormick, who died in Billings in 1898 at the age of 8. Sadly, Frank also lost his only other child Wilbur, who died in 1903 at the age of just 24, maybe of tuberculosis that he had contracted as a soldier during the Spanish-American War. Therefore, it appears that Frank left no blood heirs, though he was survived by many nieces and nephews through his seven brothers and one sister.
Frank died on March 3, 1926 at age 78, in Billings, Montana, having lived an illustrious and accomplished life. In the same cemetery as his resting place, are the burial sites of Frank's brothers Robert and Paul McCormick, and their wives and some of their offspring.
Also buried very near to Frank and Wilbur, are two of Frank's McCormick first cousins who were also Billings residents - Mary Jane McCormick Belanger and her younger unmarried brother Arthur F. McCormick, the daughter and son of Frank's Uncle Thomas McCormick and Aunt Roseanna Ray McCormick.
Mary Jane McCormick Belanger died 13 years after Frank, in 1939, at the age of 91. Montana was her third state of residence in her lifetime - she lived there for the last 35 years of her life. Right near or next to Mary Jane's gravesite, is the resting place of her youngest brother, Arthur F. McCormick, who had moved to Billings from Kansas with his mother Rose around 1900-1904. Arthur, a train conductor, died in Montana at the young age of 34 when he was hit and killed by a train in 1905, predeceasing his mother Rose who was living in Billings at the time. His given name was actually Frederick Arthur, but he was known as Arthur.
Mary Jane was the very last survivor of all the McCormick first cousins in Montana. The family's last direct connection to Ireland was Mary Jane's older first cousin (and Frank D.'s only sister) Mary McCormick McKinley, who had been born in County Antrim, northern Ireland in 1830, and died in Billings in 1917.
Frank and his first cousin Mary Jane Belanger had been born just a year apart (1847 and 1848) in Rexville, New York, and had lived there together as children until they were 7 or 8 years old. In 1855, Mary Jane was taken to Wisconsin by her parents Tom and Rose McCormick. Frank finished growing up in New York under the care of his parents James and Margaret McCormick, later living in Wisconsin with his brother Hugh's family, not far from Mary Jane and her six children. Therefore, one may conclude that the two cousins knew each other well across their lifetimes and three states.
Mary Jane, one of the older of 12 children, had many younger brothers, among them a brother named Emmett McCormick. Born in Wisconsin in 1859, Emmett was 12 years younger than his first cousin Frank. Before 1890, Emmett decided to join Frank and Frank's brothers in Montana, either working with them or for them as an employee in their general store, ranching, and transportation businesses. In one of the original newspaper accounts below, Frank and Emmett are working in partnership, buying horses for the "7 Bar 7" cattle company owned by Frank's brother Paul McCormick.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Centralia Tribune
Centralia, Wisconsin (the west side of the present city of Wisconsin Rapids)
11 Jan 1890
Mr. F. (Frank) D. McCormick of Junction City, MT has a part of a car-load of horses stabled in the Jackson barn in this city, which he brought from Montana. If any of our readers want a team of light horses, whose enduring qualities are unsurpassed, the gentleman with a strawberry mustache and goatee will be pleased to accommodate them.
Junction City, Montana
April 24, 1890
"Paul McCormick was seen making medicine for rain one day last week. He has a wolf tail hanging at the corner of his store and the Crows claim that to be a heap good. Joe Graham gets a thousand cords of wood to put in to Fort Custer; price $7.17 per cord: Paul McCormick gets the other three thousand cords at a higher rate. J.J. (James) McCormick, the new manager for the Paul McCormick & Company, takes to the business and is winning friends daily. Charlie Skinner, of Big Horn, had a 12-horse team at Custer Station Tuesday loading freight for his store. Monigan & Emmerson's mule teams pulled out Tuesday for Crow Agency, loaded with flour. Billy Sales, with an 8-yoke bull team is here loading for S. A. Leverton & Co., Sheridan. William Haux two 12-horse teams pulled out Monday loaded with potatoes for the commissary at Fort Custer. Fort Custer hay went for $16.00 per ton. If it does not rain, the contractor will wish he was at the bottom of the sea with McGinty! ......Frank D. & Emmet McCormick returned last Friday from Wyoming with a load of saddle horses they had purchased over there for the 7-7. Four 4-horse teams passed through Junction last Thursday from Sheridan, Wyo., enroute to Maiden and Great Falls, all young men looking for work. That's right, Montana has plenty of work for working men. Idlers had better stay away."
Frank S. McCormick (correct middle initial is D)
Home in 1900: Billings, Yellowstone, Montana
Age: 52
Birth Date: Jun 1847
Birthplace: New York
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relationship to head-of-house: Head
Father's Birthplace: Ireland (James)
Mother's Birthplace: Ireland (Margaret)
Spouse's Name: Lillian Mccormick
Marriage year: 1884
Marital Status: Married
Years married: 16 (married in 1884)
Occupation: Hotel Keeper (the hotel had over 25 occupants including the staff)
Household Members:
Name Age
Frank S Mccormick 52
Lillian Mccormick 42
Edith V Colvin 23 stepdaughter
Lineaus L Colvin 20 stepson
Wilbur Mccormick 22 son
Family Members
Siblings
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