JAMES C. CLIFFORD

From 'Fanning the Embers', published 1971, Range Rider Reps, Miles City, Montana

By Mrs. Harry Kennedy

James Clifford was born in Galena, Ill., the home town of Gen. U.S. Grant. He enlisted in the Union Army at 18 and served during the Civil War, being discharged a First Lieutenant. After he left the army he met and married Catherine Bloomer, a native of Ireland, at St. Joseph, Mo., where they made their home for the next 10 years while he was employed in the post office. In 1876 he went to the Black Hills of South Dakota where gold had been discovered in 1874. He worked there two years as a freighter and stage driver, going overland to Ft. Keogh in 1878. He worked there and in Miles City for the next two years and built one of the first frame houses there on property that he bought on the north side of Main Street, between 10th and 11th. The Sacred Heart Catholic Church was built on the southwest corner of the block and Mr. Clifford owned the balance. The brick courthouse was built just across the street in 1883. Mrs. Clifford and their three children arrived at Old Town by steamboat in 1880. The children were Mary Agnes, James Arthur and Edward Michael. Mr. Clifford owned and operated a horse ranch in the Pine Hills for a few years until purchasing a ranch on the lower Rosebud where he continued in the livestock business until he was appointed Superintendent of the Tongue River Indian Agency of the Northern Cheyennes, with headquarters at Lame Deer in 1896. Mrs. Clifford died there in 1902, at 62 years of age. The ranch on the Rosebud was sold to Mert H. Francis who lived there for many years. After serving for about 10 years as Agent at Lame Deer, Mr. Clifford was transferred to an Indian Agency in Texas, later being sent to Wahpeton, N.D., to supervise the governmentoperated Indian Boys school there. One of the students in attendance was Miles S. Horn, formerly of Lame Deer. He later became the noted Indian artist, White Crow, whose paintings of Indian and Pioneer life and western scenery are on display throughout the west. Mr. Clifford remained in government service until his death in 1913. He is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Among the surviving relatives are two granddaughters, Mrs. Harry Kennedy of Billings, Mont. and Mrs. Clifford E. Carpenter of Santa Monica, Calif.