- Birth: August 3, 1878
- Marriage: Ella Fern Abel – May 26, 1909
- Death: March 17, 1934
Early Life
George Christenot was born on August 3, 1878, at Puller Springs in the Upper Ruby Valley, Madison County, Montana. He was the sixth child who lived to adulthood of Charles and Martha (Craig) Christenot who had traversed the Bozeman Trail and arrived in Montana in October 1866.
Charles worked at the Christenot Mill, at Union City, then settled his family near Puller Springs, Montana, on the Ruby River. He served as a constable and worked in construction. The heat stroke that Charles suffered during the Civil War left him with epileptic seizures that grew worse with age. He died on May 23, 1886, in a sanitarium. George was almost 8 years old. His mother, Martha, was 40 years old and without financial support, other than some Civil War pensions.
Children of Charles and Martha, siblings of George
- Hattie (Christenot) Kyle (1867-1936)
- Anna (Christenot) Swisher (1869-1950)
- Mary (Christenot) Patrick (1872-1919)
- Charles Christenot (1874-1875)
- Amelia “Mae” (Christenot) Pendarvis Jordan (1876-1959)
- George Christenot (1878-1934)
- Frank Christenot (1880-1956)
- Fred Christenot (1883-1961)
- Clemma (Christenot) Newton Briscoe (1885-1970)
Cowboy George
George became a very talented cowboy and bronc rider. Those skills take years to develop. As a child, his family farmed and ranched in the Upper Ruby Valley area known as Home Park, and he would have learned to ride, as would most children in the area. His family was left destitue after his father’s death and George may have left school to help with household chores. Younger brothers Frank and Fred later list on the 1940 Census as only have achieved a 5th grade and 3rd grade education, so it seems that their mother, Martha, had them stop their schooling to help with the household.
George may have learned livestock skills and developed his talents at nearby ranches. One such was the large S.R. Buford Horse and Cattle Company with 500 head of horses. The manager was Curtis Daniel (C.D.) Newbary whose wife Alice (Wilton) Newbary, was George’s half-sister. The five Newbary children were the same ages as George Christenot and his younger siblings. Alice Newbary died in 1889, after the birth of her youngest child.
The Upper Ruby Valley had become dense with horses, so Buford sent C.D. Newbary to scout east for more land. He found it near Ekalaka, Montana, and moved his family east. There was more land on the open range for the stock herds. George Christenot was 13 years old at the time, and may have stayed in touch or taken note of large cattle and horse outfits doing business in central and eastern Montana.
The RL Ranch on the Musselshell River
George may have sought to put his stockhand skills to use elsewhere and may have left the Upper Ruby Valley as a teen. His younger brothers remained in Home Park. In the 1900 Census, Frank (19) and Fred (16) worked as stock herders in an outfit owned by Robert Boatman with 13 employees. Their mother, widow Martha Christenot, and her youngest daughter, Clemma (14) still lived on their nearby farm. George’s name has not yet been located on an 1900 Census anywhere. He may have been moving stock as part of a large workforce and was not counted.
George Christenot worked breaking horses for the Ryan Brothers at the RL Ranch near the Big Bend of the Musselshell River in eastern Montana in or after 1900. A story called “Riding A Bronc” about George during this time was recorded in 1941 by his niece, Leah (Kyle) Mosby Newton, in an oral interview for a Western Range Cattle Industry Study.
“George Christenot was an execeptionally good rider. Christenot was riding for Ryan Brothers at the RL Ranch. He mounted a bronc one morning and the bronc started bucking and bucked down over a bank about 20 feet high. The cowboys who witnessed the incident fully expected to find Christenot dead or seriously injured. When they reached him Christenot was up cutting the cinch of the saddle to get his saddle and outfit off the horse. The horse had broken his neck and had landed in the mud and mire of the creek. It was a mystery to all that Christenot was not hurt.” (Newton, 1941)
Buffalo Bill, the Gallbladder, and the Nurse
There is a story in the family that George went to the Buffalo Bill Cody show and rode a bronc to win the prize. He was offered a job with the show. George’s granddaughter, Cande Recke, visited the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming, to attempt to prove this story. At the time of her visit, his name was not listed as a performer on the show. Museum staff informed her that not everyone who worked in the show was documented and some of the records had not yet been reviewed.
It’s still a plausible story, because in 1909, when George was on a train heading back to Montana from possibly New York where there was a Buffalo Bill show being performed, he had a gallbladder attack and ended up in the hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. This is where George met his future wife, Ella Fern Abel, who was a nurse at the hospital.
Marriage to Ella Fern Abel
George, 30, married Ella Fern Abel, (1891-1929) on May 26, 1909, in Wasioja, Dodge County, Minnesota, her place of birth. Ella was born on July 12, 1891, to George and Abbie (Ingersoll) Abel and was 18 when she was wed. The young couple moved directly to Whitehall, Madison County, Montana, near his sister, Hattie (Christenot) and John Kyle. They decided to go into business together and move east within Montana. The Kyle family is noted in the Montana Sunlight of July 2, 1909, as leaving Whitehall for the Musselshell country to go into the cattle business with George.
In the 1910 Census, the George Christenots live south of Weede in Fergus County. George is 31 and listed as an operator on a farm that they are homesteading. Ella is 19 and their first child, Mildred, who was born in Melstone, is two months old. Laborer Wade Mosby, 19, lodges with them. He would marry Leah (Kyle) Mosby Newton, whose family lived on the next homestead, on November 22, 1910. That family was John & Hattie Kyle with adult daughter, Nellie, 21, and her husband, Jessie Smith, as well as daughters, Beryl Kyle, 13, and Norma Kyle, 3. A community known as Mosby was nearby, and Beryl would later marry James Mosby, a brother of Wade Mosby.
Children of George and Ella Christenot
- Mildred Annette (Christenot) Simmes Lubitz (1910-2003)
- Martha Blanche (Christenot) Barrigar (1911-1992)
- George Charles “Charley” Christenot (1912-1975)
- Harley Ray Christenot (1914-1993)
- Helen Wanda (Christenot) Orr (1915-1979)
- Albert Ray Christenot (1917-1937)
- John Darrell Christenot (1920-2012)
- Fred Arthur Christenot (1921-1997)
- Kenneth Edwin Christenot (1924-2002)
- Rodney Louis Christenot (1928-1998)
Homesteading in Weede
From 1910, the Christenots, Kyles, and the Parkinsons lived on land that they were homesteading. Neighbor Edward J. Parkinson and George had worked together at the RL Ranch and, along with Edward’s father, Silas Parkinson, were to be involved in various lines of business over the years. Sherm Shrauger was homesteading across the river who later married Gertrude Kyle. The close-in area to the north was known as Mosby for the local family, of which two brothers would marry Kyle sisters.
For these homesteaders, if they could show that they had occupied and worked the land, they would be granted ownership from the Federal government. In 1914, the 160 acres where Flatwillow Creek met the Musselshell were granted to George Christenot.
The Melstone Messenger reported on the births of more children; Martha, Charley, Harley and Helen. One July 17, 1914, it was reported that “George Christenot, the prominent rancher down the river was in town the first of the week and also made a trip to Roundup.”
Martha Christenot, George’s mother, would visit regularly. She did not have a home of her home, but would spend months between the homes of her grown children in various towns in Madison County, in Roundup, and Nampa, Idaho. To stay with George, she would take the train to Melstone, then travel twenty miles north by wagon to George’s home near Weede. George helped her to acquire land to be homesteaded and built her a house.
In 1916, Ella sought treatment in Minnesota. The Melstone Messenger of September 28, 1916 reported that Mrs. George Christenot and little daughter left for a few weeks visit in Minnesota where she intended to seek medical treatment at Rochester and visit her parents at Danube before returning. That year, the Christenots sold some property to J.C. and Josephine Burrington.
Albert Ray Christenot was born in Weede on December 20, 1917. Reports in the 1918 newspapers say that George harvested his thistle and alfalfa crop in October and was in the hospital for a slight attack of the influenza in November, perhaps from what was called the Spanish Flu. On January 13, 1920, John Darrell Christenot was born.
Oil Exploration at Cat Creek
Homesteaders had sought to make a living farming, and raising cattle and sheep. Petroleum and mineral discoveries in Montana were becoming common. With younger brother Fred Christenot, a self-taught geologist, George, Ella, and other investors filed four oil mining claims in the Weede area in 1919. In September, three of the four claims produced oil.
In the 1920 Census, George, 41, and Ella, 28, have six children. They own their ranch in Weede, but there is a mortgage. George is listed as a farmer. Ella’s sister, Clara Abel, 19, lives with them and earns a wage to help the household.
Articles of Incorporation were filed in December 1920 for the Mosby Unit Royalty Company. In June 1922, George was listed as president.
Fred Arthur Christenot was born in Weede on October 17, 1921. Sometime in 1922, George, Ella and family moved to Cat Creek, an oil boom town. In the fall of 1922, George sent a letter to the Pan American Petroleum Company seeking a job. A reply was sent in November stating they had no opening at that time.
George’s mother, Martha (Craig) Christenot died on June 29, 1923, in Whitehall, Jefferson County, Montana. She was 77 years old. She had still owned the homesteaded land with cabin built by George, near Weede. Kenneth Edwin Christenot was born at Cat Creek on February 26, 1924.
Sunburst
About 1926, they moved to Sunburst, Montana, where there was another oil field boom. Rodney Louis Christenot was born on March 22, 1928.
Death of Ella (Abel) Christenot
Death of George Christenot
Sources
Melstone History Class, Melstone High School. (1972). Melstone: The Town and Its Times. Aztec Publishing Co.
Newton, Mrs. Harley, “Riding a Bronc.” Interviewed by Evelyn Rhoden, Roundup, Mont. April 10, 1941, Western Range Cattle Industry Study. Montana Writers Project Files. Livestock Study. Microfilm reel 26. Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula.
Recke, Cande (Christenot), (2019). A Search for George Christenot History. In N. Shrauger, Christenot Family History: A Compilation of Stories by Family Members (pp. 131–134).
Shrauger, N. (2019). Christenot Family History Chronology.
Shrauger, N. (2019). Christenot Family History: A Compilation of Stories by Family Members.
Research
More information, photographs, and documents about George Christenot are available and will be added over time. Our research is based on the sources listed and the primary documents found on the Christenot Family Tree at Ancestry.com.
Please contact us with additions, questions or corrections. Last updated April 2024.