Benevolence, Brotherly Love and Harmony in Silver Bow
Solomon Levy and the Landless Indians of the Timber Butte Camp
There is no want for rogues in Butte’s picaresque past. From ruthless mining barons and scheming politicians to the countless mavericks who have become part of the city’s folklore, an element of notoriety seems almost a prerequisite for entry to Butte’s Hall of Fame. It is rare to encounter an old-timer renowned for his decency, fairness and good humor, but between 1890 and 1910, such a man was a regular feature in Butte’s newspapers. That man was Solomon Levy – saloon keeper, city jailer, passionate patriot, teller of tall tales, king of the anvil shooters, “rattling good all-round considerate gentleman” (The Anaconda Standard) and, perhaps most remarkably for his day, the city’s most prominent and dedicated ally of the state’s dispossessed indigenous peoples.
“Sol” Levy was born in San Francisco on March 17th, 1854, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants Samuel and Eva Levy. After attending school and commercial college Sol traveled to Northern Oregon, where he spent time among the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation. Upon returning to California he joined the family’s confectionery business, eventually opening his own store in Quincy, Plumas County. And it is in Quincy that we catch our first glimpse of the characteristics that would make Sol Levy such good copy for Butte’s editors in the following decades: his innate sense of civic duty and personal integrity, alongside an equally ingrained sense of mischief and a highly endearing inability to take himself too seriously. Running as the Democratic candidate for Plumas County Coroner and Public Administrator in 1884, Sol and his Republican opponent Henry N. Hapgood agreed that the loser would ceremonially transport the victor to his new office in a wheelbarrow. Upon losing, Sol dutifully appeared at the agreed time and place, only to find Hapgood had left town after hearing rumors that he was planning to dump him in a ravine. Horrified that anyone might think he would renege on a wager, Sol deposited $20 with a local hotel clerk as collateral if he were to act improperly, but Hapgood remained in hiding.
Sol arrived in Butte in 1886, joining his half-brother Barney Levy as a business partner in the Sideboard Saloon at 29 West Park Street. The partnership was dissolved in 1888, with Sol keeping control of the Park Street establishment, and Barney opening the Recreation Road House near the city race track. Sol became an active figure in the city’s Democratic Party and Odd Fellows’ Lodge, and a leading organizer on the Fourth of July Committee. He was also a charter member of the B’nai B’rith Baron de Hirsch Lodge in 1892, which would become the largest Jewish organization in Butte.
While these activities kept him in the public eye, it was for his colorful deeds beyond the business and civic worlds that Sol Levy would become such a well-loved figure in those early days of the city. During his time in Oregon, Sol had become a keen practitioner of the art of anvil shooting, in which one anvil is placed on top of another, gunpowder is packed in a chamber between the two, and the upper anvil is launched into the air with a deafening blast. Sol's “Dawn Anvil Chorus” quickly became a highlight of Butte's July 4th celebrations, and the stuff of legend for decades afterward. On November 8th, 1889, he was approached by the county commissioners to herald Montana's newfound statehood. Sol obliged with a 41 anvil salute from the corner of Montana and Park Streets. Miraculously, there were no reports of any injuries.
Sol’s compassionate nature also came to the fore in his first few years in Montana. John Calhoun Shepherd was a Mexican War veteran, known to all as “Captain Shepherd.” He had arrived in Butte in 1879 and was quickly adopted as the city’s unofficial mascot, leading the annual July 4th parades in full military regalia, famed for both his wisdom and foolhardiness. The Butte Miner described him as “the public pet, its common property. Everyone claims him.”
Captain Shepherd found a kindred spirit in Sol Levy, and despite being a relative newcomer to the city, Sol became his benefactor and closest friend. He organized the annual “Captain’s Christmas Stocking,” where people would donate gifts, food and cash to the permanently impoverished “old warrior,” and wired funds to Shepherd on the numerous occasions he found himself stranded and far from home. During one such ill-advised trip to San Francisco in 1894, Shepherd sent a telegram to Butte begging for assistance, lamenting that “San Francisco has not got as good whiskey as Butte and there is no Sol Levy here. I am in misery.” Shepherd’s death in 1896 resulted in full-page reports in local newspapers. He bequeathed his most prized possessions – his military sword and belt – to Sol, and his entire library of US history to Sol’s young daughter Annetta. (Sol had married Helen O’Dell of Ontario in early 1889, in a somewhat clandestine civil ceremony in Deer Lodge; Annetta was born five months later. A son, David Valentine Levy, was born in 1892, but he would die of pneumonia before reaching his first birthday.)
In 1896, Sol and his business partner shuttered the Sideboard Saloon, and he began a series of campaigns for public office that would span almost two decades. He was appointed city jailer twice, from 1897 to 1899 under Mayor Peter S. Harrington, and from 1901 to 1903 under William H. Davey. In this position, Sol cemented his reputation for honesty and altruism. His insistence that the inmates receive a full Christmas dinner was reported with astonishment every year. When taken to task by the Temperance Society for allowing liquor in the jailhouse on Christmas Day, Sol hit back: “I may know more about what they have to have than the outsiders who come in here and preach about saving souls.”
Over six years, the Butte newspapers ran countless stories about the “genial city jailer.” One of the most affecting dates from October 1902, when a young runaway from the State Orphanage at Twin Bridges was found “curled up near a radiator in a saloon at South Butte” and escorted to the city jail. Instead of returning him to the orphanage, Sol fed the boy, who he described as “honest, bright and intelligent,” bought him a new set of clothes and found him a job as a messenger. It is perhaps worth noting that Sol’s son would have been 10 years old at this time, had he lived.
During Sol’s first tenure as jailer, The Anaconda Standard published a letter he had purportedly received from his friend Oney Gagan of Dawson, Alaska. The story defies credulity from the outset, describing how Sol and Oney had been the sole survivors of a shipwreck off the coast of Greenland years earlier while en route to Iceland, where they had planned to start a hog ranch. From there the tale becomes increasingly absurd, documenting Oney’s discovery of gold in the Yukon, and his intent to spend his newfound fortune in Honolulu. It was the first of many such missives that would be published in the Standard over the next 5 years, chronicling Oney’s misadventures around the globe. Of course the letters, and Oney himself, were entirely figments of Sol’s imagination, though he would make a show of strenuous denial whenever Oney’s authenticity was questioned. In doing so he also exhibited another quirk for which he was renowned in Butte – a flare for nonsensical verbosity that would not be out of place in Alice in Wonderland. When asked about Oney in 1899, he marveled at “…the woeful miniscomprehensibility of the microbatic vehemence bearing upon the fragmentary indissolubility of the migration of the visionary hallucination of the man who thinks Sol is Oney.”
Sol found himself on the wrong side of the jailhouse bars on November 16th, 1904, though the circumstances were more comical than criminal. In a wager reminiscent of that placed 20 years earlier in Quincy, lifelong Democrat Sol placed a bet with his Republican friend Emil Hanson that Alton B. Parker would defeat the incumbent Theodore Roosevelt in the general election. The condition of the wager was that the loser would forfeit $100, or alternatively, play a hand-organ on the streets of Butte’s business district, one hour a day, for a week. Sol chose the latter option, and as Roosevelt celebrated his victory, Sol borrowed an organ from an Italian musician in Meaderville, and gamely set about entertaining the lunchtime crowds with renditions of the day’s popular songs. After being photographed in his makeshift organ grinder’s outfit alongside a host of amused onlookers, Sol was promptly arrested for “playing a machine for gain without a license,” and held on $25 bail. Amid growing protests from his many friends, he was eventually released on his own recognizance, Judge Thomas Boyle declaring “Your face is good enough for the bond.” The following day, he resumed his performances, eventually raising enough money to pay his bail, and donate $100 to charity.
While these stories illustrate the affection in which Sol was held in Butte, it is his advocacy for the itinerant Chippewa-Crees and Métis who camped at Timber Butte that distinguishes him as a singular figure in the early history of the city. At a time when sentiment towards Montana’s indigenous peoples largely alternated between condescension and contempt, Sol established himself as a friend, de facto legal advisor, publicist and committed collaborator in their campaign for a permanent settlement in the state.
Sol’s relationship with the “Landless Indians” began in June 1894, when after hearing of his experiences in Oregon in the 1870s, and his familiarity with at least one native language, the Fourth of July Committee appointed him to visit the Timber Butte camp and invite its residents to participate in that year’s parade. Earlier that month, Chief Little Bear and his band had been barred from holding a Sun Dance in Great Falls by a decree declaring it “abhorrent to Christian civilization.” This decree echoed the Code of Indian Offenses of 1883, which had criminalized most indigenous cultural and religious rituals. However, the code only applied to reservations, and Sol and the committee secured the Butte Auditorium on the evening of July 4th, offering the Timber Butte Indians the opportunity to practice their ceremonies, while promising the public the spectacle of “all the wild dances which have made the original American famous.”
The invitation was accepted, and the Chippewa-Crees and Métis made their first appearance in the city’s celebrations the following week. Butte’s newspapers viewed the spectacle with bemusement, and in some cases derision, much of it aimed at “Big Chief Sol” himself. But Butte’s citizens proved more accepting. Turnout for that evening’s Sun Dance far exceeded expectations, as well as the Auditorium’s capacity, and the event was canceled due to safety concerns. A larger event was held at the race track three weeks later. Present on that occasion was Chief Little Bear, who had not been in Butte on July 4th. This was almost certainly the first time he and Sol Levy met, and it marked the beginning of a friendship that would last until Little Bear’s death in 1921.
For the next decade, Sol’s name became synonymous in Butte with the Landless Indians. In addition to appearances in the July 4th parades, Sun Dances were held at “The Hump” near Buxton in 1902 and 1904, attracting additional participants from the Flathead, Bannock and Lemhi Tribes, and receiving significant pictorial coverage in Butte’s newspapers. Sol’s efforts with logistics and publicity were central to the success of these events. A 1902 pow wow at the Columbia Gardens race track reportedly drew over 2,000 spectators. His public support for the Tribes peaked in September 1905 with three-day event at the Columbia Gardens baseball park, led by Chief Rocky Boy.
After 1905, Sol dramatically downscaled his civic engagements, though he remained a popular figure in the city. He worked for a time for his half-brother Barney at the Reception Road House, before finding employment as a night watchman at Symons Dry Goods Store, a position he would hold for over 30 years. The Symons store was founded by William S. Symons, another charter member of the Baron de Hirsch Lodge, and it was increasingly through the Lodge that Sol’s benevolent work was performed. Returning to the family trade, his confectionery proved to be the highlight of many charitable events. He continued to work on several Democratic Party committees, which led to another memorable incident in November 1906, when he was “arraigned for strenuosity” by his own party. Sol had been tasked with providing fireworks for a campaign event in the city by Montana Governor Joseph Kemp Toole, and with his characteristic enthusiasm for all things pyrotechnic, he inadvertently immolated one of the wagons in the campaign parade. He pleaded guilty and was fined $10.
Sol also maintained his support for the Chippewa-Crees, though in a more low-key manner, petitioning the Department of the Interior for a permanent home for Rocky Boy’s band, and personally hosting Rocky Boy and Little Bear on their visits to the city. As late as 1922, the 68 year-old Sol could be found lobbying the Butte Relief Association for aid for Rocky Boy’s Reservation after Little Bear’s death.
In March 1915, Sol ran for the Democratic nomination for Police Magistrate but was defeated by P.J. Whitty. It would be his last campaign for public office. In 1917 his daughter Annetta, who had struggled with ill-health her whole life, died aged 27, leaving Sol and his wife childless. Thereafter, Sol withdrew almost entirely from public life, with only fleeting and formal mentions in the local press. His wife Helen passed away in 1934, and in 1936 he was honored by the Baron de Hirsch Lodge as the only charter member to have remained in good standing throughout its 44 years. As the 50th anniversary of Montana’s statehood approached, he was profiled in The Montana Standard, the writer expressing surprise that “the man who sounded the tocsin on that eventful day is still with us.”
Sol died at St. James Hospital on July 26th, 1945, aged 91, and was interred alongside his wife and children in the B’Nai Israel Cemetery. A service was held at White’s Funeral Home, led by Rabbi Howard L. Fineberg and attended by members of the Butte Pioneers Club, who also supplied a modest memorial stake in the absence of a headstone. That stake still stands in the B’Nai Israel Cemetery, lusterless and all but lost among the grand headstones surrounding it, with no indication of the remarkable life of the man who rests beneath it.
There are doubtless some today who would level accusations of paternalism when considering some aspects of Sol’s support of the Landless Indians. But to focus on Sol would be to diminish the agency of the tribal members he worked alongside, particularly the efforts of Chief Little Bear. In her paper “The Politics of Performance,” historian Elizabeth Sperry documents Little Bear’s participation in Charles Beveridge’s ill-fated “Montana’s Wildest West Show,” which toured eastern states in 1895. Despite his misgivings, Little Bear saw these events as opportunities to generate much-needed funds for his people and raise awareness of the ongoing campaign for a reservation in the state. How effective this approach proved to be is open to debate, but it is reasonable to assert that Little Bear and Sol, who refused payment for his endeavors, were very much partners in these ventures in Silver Bow County.
As to Sol’s motives, it is important to consider the practical assistance he provided away from these public exhibitions. Two very different stories are testament to his commitment. The first is from 1896, when the Cree Deportation Act sought to remove Canadian-born Crees from the USA. The act was enforced heavy-handedly and indiscriminately, and in July that year, as troops arrived in the city, many from Timber Butte sought refuge with the one man they trusted. Sol provided what The Daily Inter Mountain described as “a sort of family protectorate”, reportedly speaking to them in their own language, while documents were gathered and submitted to the U.S. Commissioner. Scouring the newspapers of the day, it soon becomes uncomfortably clear just how out of step with public sentiment Sol’s actions were in 1896.
The second story, from 1904, is an account of the wedding of Alex Allen and Jennie Denny, Canadian-born Crees living at Timber Butte, who had converted to Catholicism and hoped to marry at St. Patrick’s Church. Sol had arranged for Jennie’s terminally ill mother’s care and funeral the previous winter, and he again stepped up on the family’s behalf, establishing their legal right to marry in the US before the Silver Bow Court, personally paying for their marriage license, and persuading Father DeSiere of St. Patrick’s Church to grant the young couple a Catholic service and blessing. Alex and Jennie married at St. Patrick’s on February 16th, 1904, with Sol acting as both translator and best man.
This image – the bride and groom “begowned in the latest Indian fashion,” the Catholic priest, the Jewish master of ceremonies, and the congregation of Chippewa-Crees and Métis from both sides of the Medicine Line – seems a perfect embodiment of the B’nai B’rith’s motto: “Benevolence, Brotherly Love and Harmony.” And if ever a man lived by that motto, it was Solomon Levy.
A version of this essay appeared in The Montana Standard on Sunday June 5, 2022.
Great stuff, Colin!