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Ledger Book for Patrick A. Largey & Co. Hardware Butte, Montana c.1880 1880 [161196]

Currency:USD Category:Books / Antiquarian & Collectible Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 500.00 USD
Ledger Book for Patrick A. Largey & Co. Hardware Butte, Montana c.1880  1880  [161196]

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This ledger book is from the P.A. Largey & Co. hardware store in Butte, Montana c.1880. The materials sold are interesting for a frontier hardware store. The list of guns and ammunition is incredible. Got ammo. for a .44 Webley or a 45/100 Sharps? They did! 102 pages of entries. Open binding.

"Patrick A. Largey, Butte’s “fourth copper king,” got his start freighting goods into early-day Virginia City. After he settled in Butte, Largey’s many business interests included founding both the Inter-Mountain newspaper and the State Savings Bank. The Largey family, whose opulent mansion once stood next door on the corner, suffered a tragedy in 1898 when miner Thomas Riley murdered Largey at his bank. Riley had lost a leg in the cataclysmic 1895 explosion in Butte’s railroad yards that claimed 58 lives. Because Largey’s hardware company owned one of the buildings involved in the blast, Riley held Largey responsible for his injuries.
Patrick A. Largey was born on April 2, 1838, on a farm in Perry County, Ohio, the youngest of eleven children of Patrick and Jane (Cassilly) Largey. As a young man he taught in rural schools to pay for his education at St. Joseph's College at Somerset, Ohio. After graduating, he continued teaching for a time, and then moved to Cincinnati, where he became a bookkeeper. He then traveled by steamboat to Keokuk, Iowa, where he worked for two years as a clerk in a dry goods store. When that store failed, he returned to Ohio, where he saved enough money to open his own store in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1861. He sold the store a year later and went to work as a purchasing agent for the freighting business of his cousin Edward Creighton.

In 1865 he became captain of one of Creighton's wagon trains, which arrived in Virginia City, Montana, in the fall of that year. For the next few years he engaged in a variety of businesses around Montana Territory, including a freighting business, cattle dealing in Jefferson County, a grocery store in Helena, and the construction of a telegraph line from Virginia City to Fort Benton by way of Helena and one from Butte to Deer Lodge. For four years he was a salesman for Creighton and Ohle in Virginia City. He established a hardware store P.A. Largey and Company, which he eventually sold to Elling, Knight and Company. After the sale of this store in 1880 he moved to Butte.

In Butte Largey deeply involved himself in developing the economy of the city. He opened the Butte Hardware Company in March 1881. In 1890 he was one of the incorporators of the State Savings Bank of Butte and served as its president until his death. He was also one of the founders of the Brush Electric and Power Company and the Inter-Mountain Publishing Company.

In 1895 a fire broke out in the Kenyon-Connell Commercial Company warehouse. The fire and resulting explosion spread to Largey's Butte Hardware Company warehouse. The explosion resulted in the death and injury of many people. One of those injured, Thomas J. Riley, bore a grudge against Largey. On January 11, 1898, he walked into the State Savings Bank and shot Patrick A. Largey to death. Largey left his widow Lulu, two sons Morris Sellers Largey and Edward Creighton Largey, and two daughters Mary Montana Largey and Lulu Largey. Two other daughters Grace and Blanche died in early childhood." Information on Largey provided from our consignor.