Isaac Schultz was born in 1851 in Pennsylvania. He attended Dartmouth College and taught school in the east before poor health forced him to Florida around 1875. Isaac Schultz was a pioneer in Florida, where he obtained a homestead and later planted and cultivated an orange grove near Crooked Lake with his brothers Henry H. and John. In 1881, Isaac and his brother, Alfred, sold their interest in the groves and invested in a sheep ranch, the Custer Creek Ranch, near Miles City, Montana, in 1883. The sheep business prospered until the severe winter of 1886-87 when Isaac Schultz lost much of his flock and was forced to sell the remainder and find new work. He moved to San Francisco, California, and bought an employment agency in the fall of 1887. From then until 1931 his brother Alfred heard nothing from him.
Isaac Schultz lived in Wyoming for thirty years, where he was a small time oil man. In 1931, during the last months of his life, his wife, an artist and writer, began corresponding with family members in letters that partially accounted for the intervening years. Isaac Schultz died on February 26,1931 in Thermopolis, Wyoming.
The collection includes twenty-two letters between Isaac Schultz and his brother, Alfred, from Miles City, Montana, dated 1884 to 1887; together with four letters (1931) from Mrs. Isaac Schultz to Alfred Schultz; a letter (1987) from the Schwenkfelder Library to Professor H. Duane Hampton and two additional letters from Mrs. Isaac Schultz to Dr. O.S. Kreiber and from Jerome K. Schultz, a nephew, to Dr. O.S. Kreibel, dated 1931. Electronic records added to the collection include: seven letters written by Isaac Schultz from 1880 to 1931; a telegram from Oscar Kriebel, dated 1931; two letters from Jerome Schultz, dated 1931; and one letter written by Alfred Schultz, dated 1931.
Many of the letters appear in H. Duane Hampton’s article "Promise in the West: The Letters of Isaac Schultz," published in
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. Electronic files are currently in processing and require prior notice for access, please contact Archives and Special Collections for more information.
Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes. Copyright not transferred to the University of Montana.
[Name of document or photograph number], Isaac Schultz Family Letters, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.
Gift of Paul S. Martin (Alfred Schultz's grandson), 1981, and of Professor H. Duane Hampton, 1987. Digital materials were donated by Darlene Della Schneck in 2013.
Finding aid in the repository.
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