Homestead Cabin, Symbol of Seeley Lake Pioneers

SEELEY LAKE – Located off Dolly Varden Drive at the end of the meadow bordered by Trail Creek is an old log building commonly referred to as the Homestead Cabin. Now owned by the Double Arrow Ranch Landowners Association (DARLOA), the cabin is valued as a symbol of the pioneering days of Seeley Lake.

The official designation for the land on which the Homestead Cabin stands is NW¼ of Section 12 (16N, 15W). According to the records at the Bureau of Land Management General Land Office, A. B. Ferguson bought 160 acres of property at that location on April 24, 1820. Nothing more is known about Ferguson. If he built the cabin the year he bought the property, the Homestead Cabin could be as old as 196 years. The property changed ownership multiple times through the years but exactly when the cabin was built, who built it if not Ferguson, and who lived in the cabin are more difficult questions to answer.

The source most often quoted to verify the Homestead Cabin's connection with Seeley Lake's pioneering days is the book "Cabin Fever," a compilation of stories about the early settlement of the Clearwater valleys. The book contains a photo of Burt [variant spelling Bert] and Dagmar Sperry taken by Eddie Coyle at his Key Bar Resort sometime around 1952. The caption accompanying the photo reads, "Bert and Dagmar Sperry were pioneers of the Seeley Lake area. They lived in the Double Arrow Homestead Cabin southeast of Seeley Lake. The Homestead Cabin is one of the oldest buildings still standing today in the Seeley Lake area."

Census and other public records, supplemented by the memory of Burt's grand-nephew Ed Townsend and genealogical research done by Ed's wife Jodi, provide a good deal of information about Burt Sperry and his wife. Placing them in the Homestead Cabin at a specific date is a more difficult problem.

Burt was named after his father, Charles Burton Sperry, Sr. The elder Sperry, commonly known as C.B., was born in New York. His wife Helen Paton Sperry was born in Michigan.

By 1899 the two had met, married and settled in Monture, Powell County, Mont. The home they built at what is still called Sperry Grade was an overnight stop on the stage and mail route. The Sperrys had nine children. The youngest, born in 1900, was Charles Burton Sperry, Jr.

Much of the information about Burt comes from correspondence, now in the Townsends' possession, between Burt's parents and his sister Rachel after she moved away. The letters document that at the age of 17 (1917) Sperry was packing supplies and otherwise assisting engineers surveying the Cottonwoods Lakes area for the Northern Pacific Railroad. In late 1920 he was doing ranch work for a Mr. Tucker in Ovando. In 1921 he was hauling gravel on a road crew. Presumably he was living with his parents throughout that time span because the 1920 and 1930 Montana census records list him as a farmer living in Monture.

Also happening in 1921, 27-year-old Dagmar Katherine Andersen Vittrup boarded a ship from her native country Denmark where, according to the ship's manifest, she had been employed as a "factory girl." She arrived in New York and traveled to Chicago, Ill. where she stayed with a Danish friend, Mrs. Louis Miller. According to the Townsends, Vittrup spoke English, though with a heavy accent. In Chicago she met and possibly worked for Dr. Karl Koessler who later bought the Gordon Ranch in the Swan Valley. Koessler brought Vittrup to the ranch, where she worked as a camp cook.

From 1924 to 1927 Sperry worked as a packer for various groups including the Gordon Ranch where he met Vittrup. Sperry and Vitrup were married in Missoula on November 1927. According to the Townsends, the Sperrys then built a log home in the Blackfoot Valley near Ovando.

In 1937-38 Sperry bought land in Seeley Lake. In legal parlance the land consisted of all of Section 1 and Lots 1 & 2 of Section 2 (16N, 15W). In more familiar terminology, the land is located near what is now the Seeley Lake Airport. Yet census documents indicate the Sperrys were living in Seeley Lake as early as 1935. One of the questions on the 1940 census asked about residency for the previous five years.

The census instructions read: "For a person who, on April 1, 1935, was living in the same house as at present, enter in column 17 'same house,' and for one living in a different house but in the same city or town, enter 'same place'..." The Sperrys entered "same place," which means they were already living in Seeley Lake prior to buying the land where they eventually settled.

Possibly, the Homestead Cabin was the "different house" they were living in. When asked about that possibility, Townsend said, "They may have stayed in that [Homestead Cabin] while they built their house or something but I have my doubts they stayed there very long."

The property deed for the land purchased by Sperry presents another issue. The deed recipient is listed as "Bert Sperry, Greenough, Montana," which is puzzling because the census records put him in Seeley Lake at that time. Further investigation reveals the boundary lines between Greenough and Seeley Lake were blurry for a number of years.

An internet article on The History of Paws Up Ranch states: "In July of 1926, the Hartley General Store opened a post office right next door to the current site of the Sunset School. Austin Hartley became the first postmaster and recommended that the post office be named Greenough in honor of Paul [Paul Greenough ranched 3,800 acres in the area]. In the coming years the ranch itself and the surrounding area also became known as Greenough."

Jack Rich, who later grew up on the Double Arrow Ranch at a time when it included the Homestead Cabin, offers some insight into the extent of the area that was once considered Greenough. Rich said, "When Boissevain initiated the Double Arrow Dude Ranch in '29, it was not considered Seeley Lake, it was considered Greenough. Boissevain's old address was Greenough. And across the road from Double Arrow was Corlett. Corlett was its own town for a while and then eventually was incorporated into Greenough. Seeley Lake was considered north and there was no town there, like there is now. There were a few stores on the north end of the lake, but where the town is now was all part of the Double Arrow Ranch. Where the lumber mill is now, when Boissevain owned it that was all undeveloped property."

If the Sperrys did live in the Homestead Cabin sometime between 1935 and 1940, the "circa 1952" dating that "Cabin Fever" attributes to the Coyle photo of Burt and Dagmar may well have been the date the photo was taken, but cannot have been when the Sperry's lived in the Homestead Cabin. They were living on their own farm near the present-day airport sometime between 1938-1940 and remained there until 1958.

Townsend recalls visiting his uncle's farm during those years. He said, "As kids we spent quite a bit of time with old Uncle Burt and Dagmar. Dagmar loved kids and put up with us – my brother and I. It was a rustic old place. They didn't have a dang thing. Raised goats and a few chickens and they had a few scraggly cows. She was a great cook. She could make all kinds of good things, Danish cookies and that stuff. Burt was handy and inventive with machinery. He made tractors out of old cars that he was able to use to put up hay and use on their ranch."

Burt and Dagmar never had any children of their own. Burt died of a heart attack when he was 57 (1957). Dagmar lived another year at the farm and then sold the property and moved. She lived to age 81 and died at a Missoula nursing home in 1976.

Next week's Part II will discuss some later residents of the Homestead Cabin, what uses it was put to and its current situation.