Archives West Finding Aid

Ethel Augustus Maynard was born on the family farm in Portland, Michigan, on October. 4, 1841, the fourth child of Gardner and Parnell Maynard, both originally from New York state. He had three brothers and four sisters, but four of these siblings died in their youth. He began his career as a local schoolteacher and then opened a trading post in 1861.

In 1864 he set out in search of gold in the West with his brother-in-law, James G. Bower, and his nephew, Alexander Bower. They had a new wagon and three horses, but not many supplies. They walked or rode their horses and rode the rails, stopping in Omaha, Nebraska, and then Virginia City, Montana, before arriving in the Madison Valley of Montana in late 1864. On the trail they saw a party of Native Americans kill two U. S. soldiers, but the Maynards escaped.

Maynard pioneered his homestead in Montana by squatter’s rights, and built a ranch near Ennis Lake and Jeffers in the Madison Valley where he farmed and lived for the next fifty years. By 1900 he had 410 acres under cultivation and 75 head of horses. On April 5, 1870, he married Helen L. Briggs of Clinton County, Michigan. The couple had two daughters and one son. The son, Bert A. Maynard, was born on December 13, 1872. He lived on the ranch until his death in 1956. Helen Maynard died in 1931 and Ethel Maynard died in Bozeman on 15 May 1939.