Roy M. Cobban Correspondence, 1856-1914

Robert (Roy) M. Cobban was born on May 13, 1859, in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where he learned the lumber mill trade. Robert’s father, William S. Cobban, was born and raised in Aberdeen, Scotland. He moved with his family to Groveland, Massachusetts, where he met his wife, Mary Louise Hardy, whose parents were descendents of pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. In the Kansas border disputes of 1852, William S. Cobban negotiated for the state of Missouri. He fought for the North in the Civil War until he was injured and discharged in 1864. After his injury, William S. Cobban returned to his lumber mill in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

After working at his father’s mill and attending school in Wisconsin, Roy Cobban headed to the West in 1880 where he homesteaded in western Montana and helped his brother, William F. Cobban, build a mill in Butte City in 1883. Roy Cobban was a foreman at the Montana Lumber and Produce Company until 1884, while his brother remained superintendent of the mill until 1886, when both sold out of the mill to devote all of their time to mining and real estate ventures in the area. William F. Cobban was very successful in the mining business, buying a mine with his business partner for $9,000 in 1890, and selling it six years later for $6 million. Several districts in Butte carried the Cobban name, reflecting Williams F. Cobban’s prominence in the city.

By 1886, Roy Cobban left the real estate business, sold the newspaper he owned in Butte, and focused all of his attention on his mine 15 miles north of the city. In December 1885, he began a correspondence with Alice Hardy of Groveland, Massachusetts, and by September 1886 they were engaged through the mail.