The first prospectors did not expect to found a state. They had no thought of casting their lots in a place so far removed from all that would make life endurable. Their idea was that only a little effort was required to rob nature of her treasures. Ii they could find the rich deposits of Virgin gold they would soon have plenty, and could return and take up their burdens where they had laid them down.
A man would be a fool to contemplate an existence in a place so far removed from all that could make life pleasant. But there was an attraction that held them like a lode stone, and they began to like the Siren, that had wound her arms about them, until each embrace was considered the kindly pressure of truest affection. The ozone that filled their lungs carried with it an intoxicant. The rippling streams sang them to sleep, as sweetly and pleasantly as though they had been rocked at a mother's knee, and were lulled to repose by the sweetest music that man has ever known. And their visions were filled with the kaleidoscopic views of endless mountain peaks, that held out an invitation couched in no uncertain language, for them to explore their fastnesses, and find the Treasure that nature had locked so closely, in crevice bound in granite.
The rich soil that would yield so abundantly, without much coaxing; the native grasses that were to furnish pasture -- winter and summer -- for untold thousands of stock; rivers that would produce the ransom of kings, and cause the wheels of many factories to turn, were themselves so alluring that they became more attractive to thousands than the homes of their childhood days. So, many stayed. They found that the early idea of a home in the states could not wean them from their new love. And the men and women that walked the streets of Bannack and Virginia, have built a commonwealth of which we are mighty proud. The gambler and highwaymen had their day, and were kings by the right of their perfidious daring. These very men caused imperishable names to go down in the story of our state till its grandest peaks shall have disintegrated and formed farms for millions not yet born. They walked the streets of Bannack, and the echo of their falling footsteps can yet be heard by those who will listen attentively to the story of their deeds. Governors trod those streets; men who were to tread the halls in our national capital, and others who were to have monuments dedicated to their memories by their later admirers, were at home in the little log cabins, that sat beside the Grasshopper, or on the grass-covered hills of Virginia. And women, too, were there. They had dared for love, the traverse of the dreary plains, and had, for love, fearlessly encountered the mountain storm. Those women! Do you know what those women were? They were heroines! They were good women -- they were the mothers of men who have since helped to make this no small part of a country we all should love.
Let us see who some of the men and women were. Sidney Edgerton, our first Governor; Samuel Hauser, also a Governor; Wilbur F. Sanders, the first U. S. Senator; W. A. Clark, the great- est of mining men, and also a Senator; Samuel McLean, who was to first represent us as a delegate in Congress; Green Clay Smith, another Governor, and General Francis Meagher, to whom a loving people erectecl the first statue in the grounds of our capital, and, in fact, the first in Montana.
Judge Byam, Lott Brothers, Judge Pemberton, J. X. Beidler, A. K. McClure, Wash. Stapleton, W. W. De Lacey, Billy Clagget, Con Kohrs, A. M. Esler, O. D. Farlin, W. h. Farlin, William Roe, Martin Barrett, Joe Shineberger, Smith Ball, Capt. Jim Williams, Charlie Brown, Charlie Beehrer, N. P. Langford, Prof. Dimsdale, the Stuart Brothers, Jim Bozeman, the discoverers of Alder and Last Chance; Dr. Leavitt, Dr. Glick, Dr. Steele, Dr. Sick, Judge Hosmer, Cavanaugh, A. F. Graeter, John F. Bishop, Jas. Fersler, John C. Innes (who still has a place in Bannack), James Fergus, Jesse Armitage; we can't go on, because it would be a list too long to record. With many of those men we find their wives and children. Such names as Mrs. W. F. Sanders, Miss Lucia L. Darling (who taught the first school in Bannack), Mrs. Annette Stanley, Mrs. A. J. Smith, Mrs. G. D. French, Mrs. Wadams, Mrs. Armitage, Mrs. Fergus; only a few of those brave women who bore so much toward making our abodes so pleasant. Not many of them now walk the streets of these almost deserted cities.
Bannack, the cradle of our state, is a quaint little place, that lives only in the history she has made. The daring gamblers -- the highwaymen -- no longer roam the streets, and turn the nights into day. No more is there a busy crowd, ready to stampede to new gold fields, because those newer fields kept them from coming back. What other town in all the world could claim such citizens?
Virginia! How great was Virginia! She sat a queen beside a golden stream, whose gathered, glittering sands, have helped to string the tuneful wires that bridge oceans, and changed long days to moments. Her gathered wealth built many a palace, and caused the lines of polished steel to wend their way across a continent. Great spires point heavenward, and floating palaces sweep swiftly on the deep -- because of you, Virginia!
And when the book-worm sits in shady bowers, his pleasure came through you. But you, too, live in your past. The thousands that roamed your streets are gone. The crumbling shacks that once were happy homes, will not reveal the names of those who once dwelt there. No more the music stirs the busy feet in Hurdy Hall. No more the gun-shot wounds the daring chief. No more shall voices, of the makers of your destiny, reverberate among your templed hills. For many sleep the sleep you, too, must take -- the sleep of death. But down the stream of Alder from Summit, to its mouth, piles and piles of earth-denuded stones will bear witness to your greatness, and will be your monument for ages yet to come.