cousin Pamela

Since I’ve had the stats service on LuvSet I see what searches bring visitors and sometimes I follow the search back to see what other sites the search engine turned up.

Somebody interested in an Ingersoll other than me showed up here, so I followed them back to their search, and thus over to a website for Miles City, Montana, where there’s a genealogy forum. My dad was born in Miles City.

A Marvin Miller says (7/14/02), “I went to Custer High (class of 1948),with two Ingersoll brothers, Bruce and Gary. Bruce graduated in 1944? Gary in 1946? I talked to Bruce about five years ago, he lived in Anchorage, Alaska, and was listed in the 'phone book.” Bruce is my father’s name.

Collen Carter writes (4/18/03), “My great-great grandmother, Mary Collins, moved from Minnesota to Terry Montana in 1880 with her 14 year old daughter Rose (b. 1866). Rose took a job as a schoolteacher and eventually married George F. Ingersoll. The 1900 U.S. Census lists Rose and George, a ‘stock raiser,’ and two children, a son Lynn and a daughter Dixie. Rose later became the superintendent of schools for Miles City.” My father’s father’s name was Lynn? Yeah, that's right.

Mike Raunig responds (4/22/03), “George F. Ingersoll (originally from Iowa) … was better known as ‘Dick’. Dick was associated with the Lee-Scott Cattle Company of Ft. Worth Texas. Around 1885, Dick and a partner drove a herd of longhorns from Texas to Montana and settled in the Miles City area and formed The Bow Gun Ranch, and the ‘Bow and Arrow Ranch’.”

Pamela Ingersoll, datelining herself “Sonoma County, California” (which town? I grew up there) fills in details (11/27/04), “I believe the 'Ingersoll Ranch' you're looking for belonged to my great-grand-parents, George F. ‘Dick’ and Rose Collins Ingersoll. They owned the Bow Gun and Swinging H Ranch properties, north of Terry, Montana. George F. ‘Dick’ and Rose Collins Ingersoll had a son Lynn R. Ingersoll, (the 1st), my grand-father, who married Bernice Kempton Ingersoll, my grand-mother. Together they had five (5) sons, Dick, Lynn R. Ingersoll, (the 2nd, my father), Thomas , Bruce and Gerry . All born in Miles City. My father, Lynn R. Ingersoll, II and Bruce K. Ingersoll are now deceased. … Apparently, both my maternal and paternal great-parents and great-great-grand-parents, are well known in eastern Montana history. I am not aware of any Ingersolls from my family, still living in Montana. We are all scattered throughout the U.S.” So Pamela and I share a grandfather.

Colleen Carter closes the discussion with a bio of Great Grandfather Dick by his son (my grandfather?) Lynn, “Originally from Lynn, Mass, and Boone, Iowa, after graduating from Mount Vernon, Iowa college [Dick Ingersoll traveled] all over the Western U.S. He headed for the Black Hills Gold rush 1875, but wound up at Old Tascosa on the North Canadian river, not far North of [today’s] Amarillo, Tex …
1884 spring he got to be trail boss or foreman of two herds of 3000 steers each headed for the big grass country of Eastern Mont., between the Yellowstone and Big Missouri Rivers. These herds of young steers were from the Lee-Scott (L.S.) out fit on the North Canadian River range and were being sent up North to develope [sic] into 5 & 6 yr old steers weighing on an average of 1200 lbs … These two L.S. herds landed on the Big Dry at mouth of what is still called L.S. creek. 20 miles below what is now the town of Jordan in later day Garfield [County, Montana].”

Some of the bio varies from that provided by another source, according to Kenny Vail (6/24/02), who quotes from “the Hoopes’ index book”: "Ingersoll, George F. (Dick) born 12/20/1858, at Lee, Berkshire Co., Mass. '65 with parents to Boone, Iowa; father in cattle business; graduates Cornell College, Mt. Vernon Iowa. '77: gold fever; to the Black Hills with his father, then returns to Iowa. 1878: with father to Fort Worth, Tx., cattle business; ride the range until '85; is appointed foreman, ‘Lee-Scott’ Cattle Company. Trails their cattle overland to southeast M.T.; settles there."

I’m only mildly interested in pursuing the research necessary to draw a family tree. When somebody does it for me … well then … that’ll do.