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Sherburne Family Papers, 1823-1962

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Sherburne Family
Title
Sherburne Family Papers
Dates
1823-1962 (inclusive)
Quantity
90.0 linear feet, (125 boxes, 90 oversize volumes, two oversize boxes, and one reel of microfilm)
Collection Number
Mss 067
Summary
This collection includes correspondence, financial, legal, organizational, photographic, and audio records generated or collected by Joseph Herbert Sherburne and his extended family, with particular representation from the family's business enterprises along the Northern Rocky Mountain Front Range and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation during the early twentieth century.
Repository
University of Montana, Mansfield Library, Archives and Special Collections
Archives and Special Collections
Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library
University of Montana
32 Campus Dr. #9936
59812-9936
Missoula, MT
Telephone: 406-243-2053
library.archives@umontana.edu
Access Restrictions

Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and the University of Montana--Missoula.

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for preparing this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Historic Publications and Records Commission. Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities
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Historical Note

Joseph Herbert Sherburne was born December 12, 1851, in Phillips, Maine to Joseph and Betsy Sherburne. At 15 he left school and moved to Minnesota to work with his uncle on the state’s first railroad. Sometime between 1866 and 1876 Sherburne relocated to Arkansas City, Kansas, working as a druggist, miller, and storekeeper. While working as a shopkeeper in Arkansas City, he began trading with multiple tribal groups in Oklahoma to acquire buffalo hides. He then sold the hides in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1876 Sherburne established a trading post, under Federal license, to solidify his business relations with the Indian tribes near Ponca of the Oklahoma Territory. In 1879 Joseph Sherburne married Gertrude Lockley, born in Albany, New York. The Sherburnes began their family at Ponca but encountered several hardships in operating the trading post. After the failure of a cattle ranching venture, Joseph temporarily moved back to Arkansas City and opened both real estate and insurance businesses to pay off his debts. The following spring Sherburne sold his land interests in the Oklahoma Territory to a larger ranching operation, subcontracting to process and market their beef for Indian agencies throughout the region.

The Sherburnes had six children: Joseph Lockely VIII, Frank Ponca, Hazel, Arthur, Agnes and Theodosia.

Joseph Sherburne continued to conduct various trading operations with the Indian tribes of the Oklahoma Territory until 1895. During this period the Sherburnes became friends with Helen P. Clark, a Blackfeet tribal member from Montana who was sent as a government agent to induce the Poncas to accept general allotment to individual tracts of land. Joseph Sherburne made several trips to Montana and eventually decided to relocate his family and business interests to the Blackfeet Reservation. At the time James and Joseph Kipp, Blackfeet tribal members, owned and operated a general store in Browning, Montana. The Kipps' business closed late in 1895 and Joseph Sherburne established a trading post and general store at Browning in the spring of 1896. Gertrude Sherburne and their six children arrived at Browning in June, but only remained in Montana for the summer months. Though Joseph Sherburne hired his nephew, Walter Shepard, to serve as a temporary schoolteacher until a formal schoolhouse in Browning could be built, Mrs. Sherburne relocated the children to a family house in Minneapolis, Minnesota every school year until the early 1900s. She and the children spent their summers in Montana.

Gertrude Sherburne's sister, Louise, lived with the Sherburnes in Ponca, and was married to Henry Howard Arthur, an Indian Affairs clerk. He died in 1901 in Teton County, Montana. She continued to live in Browning and was involved with some of the Sherburne businesses.

Another of Mrs. Sherburne's sisters, Maude, was married to prominent Missoula, Montana, architect A. J. Gibson. Both were killed in 1928 in a car accident.

Fred E. Lockley was Gertrude Sherburne's brother. Their father was a prominent newspaperman in Salt Lake City, Butte, Montana, and Salem, Oregon. Fred followed in those footsteps with a column in the Oregon Journal of Portland, Oregon. He lived in Yaquina Bay, Oregon.

Under Joseph Sherburne’s leadership the Sherburne Mercantile Company grew to become the economic and social center of Browning. The business grew to include real estate, banking, telephone communications, and Northern Pacific Railway commissary supply. The Northern Pacific line had been completed in 1891. The Sherburne Mercantile “loan department” and its assets served as the foundation for the First National Bank of Browning, opened in 1917. Joseph Sherburne was also heavily involved with mineral and oil speculation along the Rocky Mountain eastern front range of Montana. He was an officer of the Swift Current Oil, Land, and Power Company. This company achieved the first successful oil drilling operation in Montana, located in the Swift Current Valley near the lake now known as Sherburne Lake. The Sherburne Mercantile also opened branch stores in Babb, Montana, and in the newly designated Glacier National Park. The majority of Park lands were formerly part of the Blackfeet Reservation and were purchased by the U.S. government in the 1895, justified partly in response to mining claim pressures and partly to supplement the economic resources of the Blackfeet tribe.

Both Joseph and Gertrude Sherburne were actively involved in Browning society and used the mercantile as a meeting place. Browning’s first school was established in the Sherburne’s home, which was attached to the Mercantile. Gertrude organized Montana’s first Red Cross chapter in 1917 and participated in numerous civic events and organizations. Joseph was an active Montana Republican Party supporter and was a member of the Masons. Both were very active in the local Presbyterian Church.

Gertrude Lockley Sherburne died in Browning in 1935. Joseph Herbert Sherburne died in Browning, September 1938. Their oldest son, Joseph (“Joe”) Lockley Sherburne, assumed primary operation of Mercantile operations after his father’s death. Joe was born November 22, 1883, at the Ponca Indian Agency in the Oklahoma Territory. He completed his secondary education in Minnesota and spent his summers helping his father at the Mercantile, working for federal land survey parties along the Montana front range, and making bicycle trips around the Pacific Northwest with his cousin, Walter Sheppard. Joe began a university degree at the University of Minnesota in 1904 but illness prevented him from completing the school year. He returned to Montana and helped with the family business. In 1906 Joe helped open the Sherburne Mercantile branch store in Babb, Montana—at the eastern entrance to the eventual Glacier National Park. He married Eula Churchill, daughter of the Cut Bank (Montana) Boarding School superintendent, in 1908. They raised two children, Faithe and Frederic. Joe expanded Mercantile operations to include insurance, real estate, and bonding agencies.

Over the course of his professional career Joseph Lockley Sherburne served as Manager, Vice-President, and President of the Sherburne Mercantile Company, as President of the First National Bank of Browning, as a member of the Browning School Board, and as an officer/director of the Browning Development Company, the Blackfeet Lumber Company, the Rocky Mountain Realty Company, Montana Citizens Council, Montana Tax Equality Association, and the Two Medicine Oil Association. He was adopted as a member of the Blackfeet Nation and was active with the American Red Cross, the U.S. War Labor Board, the Montana Republican Party, the Browning Methodist Episcopal Church, the Masons, the Shriners, and numerous local civic organizations. During World War II, Joe was chairman of the U.S. “Dogs for Defense” Committee, an organization that coordinated efforts to “draft” civilian dogs into military service and train them as sentries and bomb detectors.

In 1942, the original Sherburne Mercantile building burned to the ground. With building materials unavailable during wartime, the business continued in scattered buildings around Browning. In 1945 the drug, grocery, and dry goods departments of the Sherburne Mercantile were sold to Buttrey’s of Montana, with only the lumber, hardware, and building supply departments continuing under the Sherburne name. Joseph Lockley Sherburne died in Browning, Montana in 1955.

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Content Description

This collection includes correspondence, financial, legal, organizational, photographic, and audio records generated or collected by Joseph Herbert Sherburne and his extended family, with particular representation from the family's business enterprises along the Northern Rocky Mountain Front Range during the early 20th Century. The Sherburne family became deeply invested into the economy and society of Browning, Montana, the Blackfeet Reservation more generally, and the eastern gateway to Glacier National Park. From the earliest to the latest records, collection materials center upon economic and social exchanges with American Indian tribes and tribal members--from the Oklahoma Territory to Montana. These materials present an insightful addition to government records for researching modern Blackfeet tribal history, relations between Indian reservation residents and non-Indian business owners, as well as the early twentieth-century economic development of the Northern Rocky Mountain Front Range.

Collection materials also provide significant insights into Sherburne family experiences, particularly early-twentieth century feminine perspectives on family, business, and life in rural eastern Montana. Additionally, these records present unique insights into the role of non-Indian business owners in constructing the distinct economic and social structures of the Blackfeet Reservation. Joseph Herbert Sherburne established the First National Bank of Browning--for many years the only lending institution on the Blackfeet Reservation--and his son Joseph Lockley Sherburne was a central figure in creating the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council--an organization that temporarily supplanted the Tribal Council as the federally recognized decision-making authority on the Reservation. Additionally, the Sherburne family was intimately engaged with organizing civic, social, and religious groups in Browning, Montana. This collection's photographic materials present a detailed and significant record of central and western Montana's cultural and economic traditions, community developments, and landscape transformations spanning the first half of the twentieth century.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes. Copyright transferred to the University of Montana.

Preferred Citation

[Name of document or photograph number], Sherburne Family Papers, Archives and Special Collections, The University of Montana—Missoula.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The collection is divided into five subgroups, then into thirty-four series:

Subgroup 1: Family Papers, 1823-1956, 2.5 linear feet and 1 reel of microfilm

Series I: Joseph and Betsy Sherburne, 1823-1873, 2 folders

Series II: Joseph Herbert and Gertrude Lockley Sherburne, 1880-1956, 0.25 linear feet

Series III: A. J. and Maude Lockley Gibson, 1928-1929, 3 folders

Series IV: Henry Howard and Louise Lockley Arthur, 1861-1909, 0.25 linear feet and 1 reel of microfilm

Series V: Fred E. Lockley, 1865, 2 folders

Series VI: Joseph Lockley Sherburne, 1900-1956, 1.50 linear feet

Series VII: Arthur Sherburne, 1910-1915, .25 linear feet

Series VIII: James Grant, 1878-1894, 5 folders

Subgroup 2: Correspondence, 1876-1962, 33.25 linear feet

Series IX: Incoming Correspondence, 1876-1911, 4.5 linear feet

Series X: Outgoing Correspondence, 1882-1924, 10.5 linear feet

Series XI: General Correspondence, 1889-1962, 18.25 linear feet

Subgroup 3: Sherburne Mercantile, 1887-1954, 18.5 linear feet and 76 oversize volumes

Series XII: Babb Store, 1903-1921, 2.0 linear feet and 5 oversize volumes

Series XIII: Glacier National Park Store, 1917-1921, 2 folders

Series XIV: Financial and Legal, 1887-1954, 16.25 linear feet and 71 oversize volumes

Series XV: Organization, 1909-1951, 6 folders

Subgroup 4: Other Business Interests, 1885-1955, 14.25 linear feet and 14 oversize volumes

Series XVI: Pre-Montana Businesses, 1885-1899, 0.25 linear feet and 5 oversize volumes

Series XVII: First National Bank of Browning, 1917-1955, 0.75 linear feet

Series XVIII: St. Mary's International Telephone Company, 1910, 1 folder

Series XIX: Sherburne Investment Company, 1919, 1 folder

Series XX: Swift Current Oil, Land and Power Company, 1904-1930, 0.25 linear feet

Series XXI: Badger Creek Land and Livestock Company, 1926-1937, 0.75 linear feet

Series XXII: Blackfeet Lumber Company, 1920-1923, 0.25 linear feet

Series XXIII: Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, 1935-1954, 3 folders

Series XXIV: Blackfeet Tribe, 1924-1954, 0.25 linear feet

Series XXV: City of Browning, 1936-1937, 1 folder

Series XXVI: Browning Funeral Home, 1942-1944, 0.25 linear feet

Series XXVII: Browning Public Schools, 1916-1917, 0.25 linear feet

Series XXVIII: Dogs for Defense,1942-1954, 0.25 linear feet

Series XXIX: Federal Land Bank of Spokane, 1930-1935, 0.5 linear feet and 9 oversize volumes

Series XXX: Real Estate, 1908-1956, 9.0 linear feet

Series XXXI: Glacier County Salvage, 1942-1944, 0.25 linear feet

Series XXXII: Ranch and Livestock, 1901-1942, 1.0 linear feet

Subgroup 5: Photographs and Audio, 1898-1955, 2.5 linear feet

Series XXXIII: Photographs, 1898-1954, 1.5 linear feet

Series XXXIV: Audio, 1954-1955, 1.0 linear foot

Custodial History

The materials were in the possession of the Sherburne family until time of donation to the Archives.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Fred Sherburne and Faithe Sherburne Bercovich, 1976, 1978, and 1983.

Processing Note

The collection was originally processed in three parts as the Sherburne Mercantile Papers (LC 67, LC 74, and LC 120); audio materials and photographs were separated, and a portion of the photographs remained unprocessed. The correspondence in LC 67 was arranged largely as it had come, with all correspondence filed chronologically, then alphabetically. During 2004 processing, the three collections were re-united as one collection, with photographs and audio added back in. The collection was re-named the more accurate Sherburne Family Papers, and a new series arrangement was devised that fully reflected the presence of several generations of personal papers as well as business records. Formerly unprocessed photographs were described and integrated into the collection. Louise Lockley's diary, previously processed as Mss 401, was integrated back into the collection, since it clearly originated there.

Separated Materials

During original processing, the following materials were separated from the collection and placed in the Mansfield Library's book and maps collections:

Fred Lockley, Across the Plains by Prairie Schooner

Fred Lockely, To Oregon by Ox-Team in '47

Glacier National Park in Natural Color

Historical Society of Montana, Charles Marion Russell

Charles F. Luckhard, Faith in the Forest

George C. Shaw, The Chinook Jargon and How to Use It

Frederic J. Long, Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon

William Tomkins, Universal Indian Sign Language

Glacier County, Montana

Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, The Flathead

Blueprint of Pipeline for water supply to town of Browning, Montana.

Additionally, an original edition Edison Voicewriter (dictation recorder) was separated from the collection but retained by the K. Ross Toole Archives.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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Subject Terms

Family Names

Geographical Names

Form or Genre Terms

Occupations

Other Creators

Finding aid prepared by Jodi Allison-Bunnell and Jack Rowan
2004

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