Readers have always delighted in the macabre, whether laced with maudlin sentimentality or not—and whether truth or legend—or some soul-satisfying combination of the two. In the West even now, commercial writers capitalize on the destructive powers of Ursus horribilis, the great mountain grizzly, and allow the aficionados of horror a delicious shiver along their spines. The bigger the bear, the more monstrous; the more horrendous the dismemberment, the more tantalizing.

One such gory repast was that of the Joseph B. “Frenchy” Duret mauling in June of 1922. Even into the next year, newspapers from as far away as Texas and Tennessee picked up the story and reprinted it—using the details of the original Butte Sentinel reports and embellishing them with impunity. Several contemporary authors have taken those same details and used them verbatim: a good husband telling his wife he will return with yet another pelt, taking gun, knife, and dogs; a good wife worrying about her husband and running up and down hills to search for him or his remains in the dead of night—and, of course, the monster, the gigantic bear who has or will serve as progenitor to a rare and terrifying subspecies.

Frenchy Duret

Outdoor portrait of Joseph B. “Frenchy” Duret. Duret was born in December of 1861 in France; his immigration from his homeland may have coincided with his desertion from the French army, according to Lee H. Whittlesey in Death in Yellowstone: Foolhardiness in the First National Park.

Not much is known about the Frenchman’s childhood or early manhood. Horace M. Albright, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park and field supervisor of the National Park Service during the years 1919 to 1929 (Albright, 1985, pp. 181-182) stated that Joseph Duret had left France as a deserter from the French army (Whittlesley, 2014). Duret’s lawyer, H. J. Miller of Livingston, stated that "Frenchy" was “from a prominent French family” (Whithorn, 1993, p. 35). Still another resource claimed "Frenchy" wasn’t French at all, but Quebecoise, a voyageur, possibly Metis and an associate of Louis Riel. What can be substantiated can be reduced to three names in a will dated from the fall of 1921: Victor and Jean Baptiste Duret, Josephine (Duret) Marquet. In 1926 these siblings of Joe sued in a claim for the estate of their brother. “Duret” being a common enough name in France, there is record of one Parisian family that encompassed those three Christian names: the children of Maine-et-Loire native Jean Baptiste and Paris-born Josephine Jeanne (Ripoche) Duret are Jean Baptiste, Victor Marie, and Josephine Jeanne Marie—and in 1887 Josephine married Louis Emile Marquet. In 1889, Josephine’s firstborn was named Emile Louis Jean—Joseph. Since a direct link between Joe and this particular family has not been located (without Frenchy’s birth or baptismal records, etc., with the names of the parents, nothing is conclusive), the connection cannot be established, but remains an interesting coincidence or consideration, waiting for someone who understands the nuances of legal records in France and can read the language fluently.

Jim Annin, Stillwater County historian, maintained Joe had come into the United States to prospect at the Nye mining field (They Gazed on the Beartooths, Volume Two, 1964, p. 73). If he did come in the year the 1910 census indicates, Joe would have come to Nye in its boom day. Originally founded as a copper mining district by the Hedges brothers and cousin Jack Nye, the mining community had its own post office and smelter by 1887. Only with the 1889 discovery that Nye was within the boundaries of the Crow Reservation was mining curtailed (Nye, Montana). Most of the 200 mining claims within the thirty-square miles of ore-rich land were shut down until the boundary between reservation and private land was moved in 1891. This might be the reason why Frenchy moved on to other communities such as Alderson, Horr, and ultimately Gardiner and why he chose to run a small ranch and supply meat to the Army stationed in Yellowstone National Park—and why he started to rack up points for shrewdness turned dishonesty. 

To give credit where credit is due, Joseph Duret was the rancher he claimed to be (he was termed “rancher” in the 1900 and 1910 censuses). During his 1921 stay with the Durets, George France described how Joe “handled his horses with skill and attention”; when the team was done for the day, he would brush and pet them and give them a good ration of oats, ensuring they would be back for another day (Garnet, 1997). He was good to his cattle; he would go into the slaughtering pen, and the cattle would “follow him as a big dog would follow a little boy” (Whithorn, A grizzly got French, 1994). 

There is another party in the telling of this story: William Marshall Rush. His books now out of print, it takes a lucky find to land one, even though his juvenile animal stories and western adventures were well-read and -ranked in the nineteen fifties. In 1914 Bill Rush was a probationary ranger at Buffalo Fork, about fourteen miles “across the mountaintops” from Slough Creek and the Duret cabins. Later in life Rush wrote an autobiographical guidebook to the habitat, appearance, and behavior of the various types of wildlife in the West and recounted building a Forest Service cabin during this assignment. With Rush in charge, a crew rushed to build the facility in the brief time between summer work and freeze-up—fed by a cook who had to deal with fresh food shortages similar to those George France would relate during his 1921 stay with the Durets (Garnet, 1997). The cook made the mistake of sacrificing a limited supply of canned milk to concoct a treat for the “boys”: ice cream—and of course, the workers—as well as a family of bears—could not get enough of the cool sweet. Rush discussed the availability of fresh milk with Henry Lampe, a “boss logman”—the only cattle within many miles were Frenchy’s, a herd of forty and more range cows, up and over all those mountains. An eastern greenhorn, Harry Davis, took up the challenge and brought a cow back. Unfortunately, the mischievous black marauders made short work of the milk surplus, and Harry was tapped to take the cow back up and over the rugged passage just maneuvered (Rush, Wild Animals of the Rockies, 1939). By 1921, Frenchy’s herd had dwindled to ten: a bull, four cows, and five steers. With chickens or pork a near impossibility due to predation or climate, Joe, Jennie, and any temporary residents dined mainly on canned goods and beef—"and a lot of the latter” (Garnet, 1997).

Letter from J. Duret to H. Smith protesting the confiscation of his horses by Cap. Anderson, dated March 23, 1894

Letter from J. Duret to Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior, protesting the confiscation of his horses by Capt. Anderson. Duret suggests that Anderson does not have the authority to hold his horses, and that he cannot pay the continued penalties if Anderson refuses to return his property. (old system, document 1836).

In addition to his raising his own small beef herd, Joe frequently “trapped animals and poached in the park for years but was never caught” (Whittlesey, 1995, p. 56). One of the earliest records of Frenchy in Park County is with the 1891 listing of business licenses granted: a man named Klamer and J. Duret had paid five dollars for a license to operate a butcher shop. In the spring of 1894, the acting superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, George S. Anderson, confiscated Frenchy’s wagon and horses during the arrest of two brothers, George and Henry Rochinger, caught with a poached elk (H. Smith, 1894). Frenchy protested the action, even more so because Anderson charged him for the care and feeding of his animals—and would continue to charge him until the case was brought before a judge. The brothers in question had borrowed the team to retrieve their families from Cooke City, not to haul out an elk from the road on a return trip: so spoke Joe Duret. He knew nothing about the unlawful butchering of the animal (J. Duret, 1894)—even though the brothers yielded up well-used butcher’s tools when apprehended. 

From that point on, Joe’s residency is easily followed by his trail of litigation, both by him and with him. In 1893 Joe ran up a bill with Roth and Cornhauer in Gardiner to the hefty sum of $498.55. The wholesalers of alcohol and tobacco products finally were able to file against Frenchy’s Cooke City claims--the Lewis Quartz Lode (Joe had purchased ¼ interest from Michael Boyne), the J. H. Moore (of which he had purchased 1/3 interest from John F. Curl in 1892), and the Red Rover; his lots in Gardiner; and his horses and equipment.

In 1895 William Wilson took Joe to court over chickens, claiming Joe had taken them, lock, stock, and barrel. The case was later dismissed. In a strange twist, Joe wrote to the Park superintendent in 1897 about the wanton poaching taking place in and around the Park boundaries and accused one John Graham of illegally selling elk meat. Several years later (1902), Graham turned the tables and accused Frenchy of stealing elk meat from him (Graham died in 1912 in a bear mauling like Duret’s). In the August 27, 1898, Anaconda Standard, Joe was referred to as a man with “a rather unsavory character”—not only accused of selling horse and mule meat for beef but of cutting a brand from a beef animal’s hide, then attempting to sell the beef to William Hruza, owner of a meat market in Livingston. A jury under a Judge Rose did find him guilty, and he was sentenced to 20 days in jail and hit with a $50 fine (In Livingston: special correspondence of The Standard, 1898, p. 8). In May of 1899, while Joe was at Horr, he was charged with trespassing on land near Crevasse. As late as March 24, 1908, State Game Warden W. F. Scott accused Frenchy of taking elk out of season. At that point the Frenchman’s response was to be expected: the elk quarters in his cabin had been put there by other people, names unknown.

Clearly, if he were to continue in his dealings with his fellow man, whether shady or reputable, Joe Duret needed to remove himself and his activities from civilization. In about 1908, Frenchy, along with his friend and companion from Cooke City days, Peter Forte, moved to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and to Slough Creek, approximately three miles from the Yellowstone National Park boundary—and 46 miles from Gardiner: just close enough to be on the mail route (important in light of what he utilized the postal service for—shipping hides illegally) and far enough (and tough enough) to keep inquisitive or casual observers away. To the east of this residence was Cut-off Mountain, to the north the small mining camp of Independence, where he marketed meat and formed alliances. Both he and his friend, Pete Forte, received patent on their land on Slough Creek on February 5, 1912, Frenchy on 158.56 acres, Pete on 157.7. Joe also staked a mining claim south of Pete’s in Section 8, Township 9, Range 13 East. Although the mining claim was later disputed by Horace Albright at the time of Frenchy’s death, it appears on the master title plat (Montana Department of Administration, GIS Bureau, 2003). The trail of criminal activity seems to abate after that. Still, Park Superintendent Horace Albright stated Frenchy “caused the park administration a great deal of trouble, frequently poaching on the park wildlife” (Albright, 1985, p. 181). Frenchy never did build fences; according to George France, Joe would sit up on a hill outside the Park’s boundaries and watch his cattle graze. If a Park official rode through, he would quickly ride down and act as if he had just come across animals that had strayed, quickly driving them back into national forest and toward his homestead. He also maintained a sizeable stack of elk hides taken, as he put it, when the animals threatened his haystacks during winter (Garnet, 1997).

In his novel Rocky Mountain Ranger, Bill Rush utilizes individuals from the Slough Creek area under a thin disguise of somewhat altered names. One such character is “Frenchie” Jean Moulin—who happens to live on Slough Creek just north of Yellowstone Park. Marshall says this about his “Frenchy”: “He was a small, wrinkled, tough little man . . . who for some reason chose to live as far from civilization as he could. . . . He was crafty in all his dealing and his bank account had grown slowly but steadily through the years until now it was a sizable one” (Rush, 1944, pp. 84-85). Eventually, when this Frenchy rescues the main character, a greenhorn ranger named Kirk Douglas, from sure death during a patrol in the dead of mountain winter, Rush inserts this: “I certainly misjudged this little fellow. He’s a kind soul—he couldn’t do more for his own brother.” In a 1962 interview with author Doris Whithorn, Ray Hutchings, the son of Warren “Peck” Hutchings, stated Milton Ames reinforced this opinion by stating the real “Frenchy” was as “good a partner as could be if you didn’t cross him; but if you did, look out!” (Whithorn, 1994, p. 40).

Joseph B. ('Frenchy') Duret cabin

Hunting camp photograph, c. 1920, of Nye hunters at Joseph B. “Frenchy” Duret’s cabin on Slough Creek (north of Yellowstone Park in Park County). From left to right: Jennie (McWilliam Dixey) Duret, “Frenchy,” Dewey Whited (son of Eliza Bess), Ambrose French, Jake Schwenneker, and Robert Hudson. 

In the Rush novel there is also a would-be homesteader named Hazel Jukes, whom Kirk Douglas figures wants the government to provide her with land so she can entice Frenchy to marry her. In real life, Frenchy Duret’s hard-gained bank account was about to be hard-hit. 

The real Hazel Jukes, Jenny Duret--not Nellie, as Jim Annin mistakenly reported in They Gazed on the Beartooths--was not a mild-mannered “kind soul” by anyone’s standards. Rush describes her as “tall and heavy. Her hair was uncombed, and she was carelessly dressed in a faded blue skirt and men’s mackinaw” (Rocky Mountain Ranger, pages 83-84). George France confirmed that description in a 1997 article by Nellie Garnet. “She wore her hair, which was brown fading to gray, in a topknot done up with hairpins. Her skirt was long and plain blue—women still wore long skirts in those days—and a long white apron, freshly ironed” (Garnet, 1997). In her “twice-told tale” of the Durets, Livingston author Doris Whithorn suggests Jenny “was a talker, loud and rather coarse”—” a grasping and covetous individual” (Whithorn, 1994, pp. 44-45) In March of 1918, the Northern Wyoming Herald chronicled her as walking the treacherous route between Gardiner and the all but abandoned mining town of Cooke City in twenty below temperature, sleeping “on a blanket in the snow under the clear sky” (Northern Wyoming Herald, p. 3). She made the trip in four days and was praised as “old frontier stock, a true descendant of the pioneer women who played their part in making this country.” This article not only establishes Jenny’s hardiness but also that Jenny and Joe might have been married as early as 1918: Jenny used his surname a mere three years after she arrived at Livingston on a hot summer day—not time enough to establish a common-law relationship.

No matter the appearance of back country savvy and endurance, she had come into the rugged Absaroka country from the well-populated East Coast, growing up in Pennsylvania, living for a time in New Jersey and perhaps Ohio. After a 1923 trip to the Coast, she wrote a brief but chatty travelogue for the Livingston newspaper. She appreciated apple trees that she had not seen for eight years and a particular town, Tarentum, PA, for forty (Whithorn, 1994, p. 45).

Jenny B. McWilliams, the daughter of one Napoleon B. McWilliams and sister of Charles McWilliams, was born Jane E. McWilliams in Clarion County, Pennsylvania in 1866. Napoleon had served in the Union infantry during the Civil War for three years and had been wounded at the Second Battle of Bull Run. He worked his way through the ranks and was honorably discharged as a second lieutenant in 1864 (History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865).

The 1870 census of Clarion County showed the McWilliams out of Redbank. When Charles’ mother, Elizabeth Ann (McKeown) McWilliams, died, N. B. had married Sarah Garrigus (last name from Jennie Duret’s death certificate) (U. S. Census, 1870). The family moved to Armstrong in Parker County by 1880: McWilliams no longer listed himself as painter but as laborer. In addition to Jane’s brothers, Frank and James (present in the 1870 census), the family now included Walter, May, and Harry (U. S. Census, 1880).

In 1888 Jane, now Jennie, married Charles Henry Dixey in Philadelphia. Not much is known about this relationship: the Dixeys’ 1900 census records are not clear. Charles died on July 3, 1905, and Jennie remarried, this time to a recent divorcee named Samuel W. Corman. In a marriage license issued by the Orphan’s Bureau of Philadelphia no less, she stated her birthdate as June 24, 1866, thus verifying the date used on her Montana death certificate in 1937 (Samuel was born on November 17, 1867). Also on this document, she verified Charles Dixey had died about two years earlier (Samuel stated he was also a widower, but former wife Arcadia was alive and well, according to subsequent census and marriage records) (Pennsylvania Civil Marriages, 1677-1950, 1907a). In another document, record was made of Jennie being the one to pay the court filing fee for the marriage certificate (Pennsylvania Civil Marriages, 1677 – 1950, 1907b).

Jennie and Samuel’s marriage did not last long: by 1908, Samuel had married again, this time to Mamie, an Irish immigrant (U. S. Census, 1910a). In the 1910 census, Jennie had resumed her earlier name of Dixey and was living on a mortgaged New Jersey farm with her aged father and a hired man (U. S. Census, 1910b). When Napoleon died in 1913, Jennie felt the pressure from the loss of her father’s pension and looked for an opportunity to get out of her less than desirable financial circumstances.

Doris Whithorn and others suggest Jenny and Joe first connected through a lonely hearts club. More likely, though, it might have been Frenchy’s entrepreneurial greed that brought him to the Livingston train station in 1915 to appraise and initially reject the woman who did not match up with a photograph sent (Garnet, 1997).

By the turn of the twentieth century, bison were few and far between. When the government offered free ammunition in their effort to clear the land for the influx of settlers, hide hunters had driven the shaggy beasts to the brink of extinction in the 1880’s. In 1913, Joe hatched an ingenious plan: to take advantage of a nation’s craze: a buffalo robe for the motor car, a buffalo head prepared and mounted for prominent display in one’s house. The meat, too, was popular, as evidenced in several advertisements from Kansas and New Mexico; even the bull from which the sketch on the buffalo nickel was made was sold, held until cold weather, and butchered (Buffalo who posed for nickel killed, 1915).

Several national parks found themselves in need of herd reduction and advertised surplus animals to the public. Joe found this as an opportunity and quickly drafted his own ad to be carried by eastern newspapers read by “eastern people of wealth who like to come West on big game expeditions.” Joe would serve as guide, guaranteeing the hunt’s success or give the hefty $500 fee back to the hunter. His success rate, if things went according to plan, would have been 100%: he would take the hunter into the Park close by Slough Creek, find his purchased animals, and while the easterner prepared, shoot the animal (In Yellowstone Park buffalo hunt is due, 1913). Frenchy’s gain? After the $500, the guide fees, the meat, and possibly the hide came next. The happy hunter returned to the Coast with the bison’s head. For Joseph Duret, however, that advertisement might have attracted a different type of hunter. 

Now Frenchy’s own greed trapped him as Jenny pled with him to help her file a claim next to his own: the benefits of that alliance overcame sound judgment. Perhaps he was counting on Jenny’s quick exit from that remote mountain homestead when he built her a cabin close by his own. But Jenny was determined to stay the course and could and would tolerate the loneliness of Slough Creek. According to George France, she would demand that Frenchy throw his gloves into her cabin at mealtime so she could determine if he were presentable enough to enter and dine. In short order, his friend and long-time neighbor, Italian Pete Forte, signed over his claim to Joe, packed his bags and headed to Lewistown. Living with a nephew on the prairies was infinitely better than tolerating Jenny’s verbal attacks. Bill Rush has his fictionalized character, Jean Molin, confide his marital struggles to ranger Kirk Douglas, who in turn is reluctant to arrange a claim filing on acreage obviously unsuitable for agriculture (Rush, 1944, p. 83). At one point, taking the role of Peter Forte, the fictionalized Frenchy takes Douglas aside, hands him a letter to take “to the outside” and cautions him not to let Hazel see it. Moulin wants out of his circumstances and is even willing to sell his hard-won acreage to regain the peace and quiet of his bachelorhood. Whether or not there were really any question over the suitability of Jennie’s claim of 101.8 acres north of Frenchy’s, by February 2, 1922, she had received patent on that land. On the same day, she gained ownership of Peter Forte’s land. Since the name on the deed is “Dixey,” then “Duret,” one may wonder what kind of a hard bargain had been driven between the tall Pennsylvanian and the Frenchman. On business that had to do with the ranch they seemed to able to come to an agreement; it was the social niceties they had trouble with (Garnet, 1997).

Jenny appears to have struggled with loneliness. Bill Rush tells of his fictionalized Jennie as being glad midwinter to see the ranger Douglas, who had irritated her mightily when he denied her homesteading claim as being impractical. She volunteered to care for an ailing miner who had been sledded down from the mining claims up at Independence (Rush, 1944, 158). The real Jennie Duret knew the Mrs. Robert Morris mentioned in “The Silver Tip Ranch” (Whithorn, 1994); Mrs. Morris would sometimes stay with the Durets after Milton Ames sold Silver Tip (Duret had a 13-bed bunkhouse where haying crew or tourists or fishermen could sleep overnight) (Garnet, 1997). At least in the summer of 1921, Jennie would drop down to pick up her mail and would visit with “Lady” Morris (Whithorn, 1994, 3). Unfortunately, while part of Jenny’s moodiness might have been loneliness, it also might have been caused by a struggle with alcoholism. France documented the Durets’ winemaking as a chief industry during the two months he stayed with them and that Jennie “had a fondness for beer.” He also mentioned Jennie became a familiar sight on Main Street in Livingston after Joe’s death. After seventy years, George France was able to balance the good and the bad of Jennie’s personality; the thing he refused to forgive was that she destroyed the letter he had written to Frenchy in the spring of 1922, a letter where he asked to come back and work the summer at Slough Creek. George often wondered what might have happened differently had there been someone else on the trail with Joe that June day (Garnet 1997).

Hauling potatoes over trail from Waldo Ranch: Dan Ross, Jack Littlefield, and Joseph B. Duret.

Outdoor photograph of haulers Dan Ross, Jack Littlefield, and Joseph B. Duret, as they handle a load of potatoes destined for Cooke City. 

During the fall and summer of 1922, Joe Duret posthumously gained national attention. The story of the attack that left him a half-mile from his homestead cabin went “viral”: his body had been savaged almost beyond recognition; his prized rifle, a 1904 gift from Roosevelt associate William Loeb, Jr., during the president’s grand tour of the west, splinted and ruined; the trap missing (it was later found miles away in a Park haymeadow, complete with a bruin’s toe still in it). Many anxiously waited for the capture of a monster that quickly reached mythical proportions. Horace Albright, knowing Frenchy’s tendency to ignore boundaries and seasons in his quest of game, wrote him off as a poacher who had earned his just rewards. 

Described as being in a drunken stupor one evening shortly after Frenchy’s death, Jenny sold her claim and that of Frenchy’s to associates of the House of Morgan, Thomas Cochran and William Hamilton (Whithorn, 1994), along with the stock, furniture, and “divers supplies.” Horace Albright maintained he was the force behind the sale and that he had delegated Jack Anderson to make an immediate purchase, as he had discovered Jennie negotiating with “several men with unsavory reputations” that did not have the best interests of the nearby Park in mind: i. e. they were known poachers (Albright, 1985). (Albright also disregarded Jennie’s letter that asked for access to Frenchy’s mining claim: so that a trapper could winter there, utilizing the traps Duret had left behind. Superintendent Albright, instead told Park employees to roust out the trapper and make sure the rough-hewn mining shack “disappeared.”) The homestead land was turned over on September 15, 1922. A third party, S. R. Guggenheim, later purchased a 1/3 interest (Whithorn, 1994). According to Albright, the property was turned over to the control of the Forest Service; Cochran retained title. Whithorn states the Guggenheim portion was purchased by Neil Bliss in October of 1925, and Bliss and Cochran bought out Hamilton in June of 1926. At Cochran’s death in October of that year, Bliss bought the Cochran half interest. The Duret land is currently owned by the Silvertip Ranch Corporation and managed by George Ohrstom for descendants of the Bliss family (Montana Department of Administration, GIS Bureau, 2003).

So was Jenny McWilliams Dixey worthy of the national sympathy she received? Probably not, certainly not to the extent author Kathleen Snow records: “Fortunately Frenchy’s wife was able to retain the rights to their cabin and the valuable property it was built on, after relatives tried to seize it. … Instead of being ousted from her home, Mrs. Jennie Duret could visit Frenchy’s gravesite only a half mile from where he died” (Snow, 2016, p. 187). First, as shown by Nellie Garnet’s articles, the sale of the land took place three and a half years before Frenchy’s will was filed and ownership determined. Jennie was halfway through a second marriage post-Frenchy and did not live anywhere close enough to mourn at Duret’s graveside. Also, there never was a single cabin: Frenchy had his own low-windowed cabin on his homestead and had built Jennie a cabin on her homestead. They ate and conducted business at her cabin (Garnet, 1997), but for the most part, Jennie wanted Frenchy and workers like George France out of her way. Doris Whithorn documents a few more details: first, the matter of Frenchy’s gold nuggets. In addition to his Cooke City holdings, Frenchy filed a mining claim early on near Gardiner, not a work that made him wealthy or ensured his daily bread for any length of time. However, he liked to brag, and what better bragging rights than to unpocket a few noteworthy nuggets? According to his hunting companions, he always had them ready to reveal to envious acquaintances, as well as a roll of cash. Only, when his friend Dewey Whited found his body—and yes, he claimed that he, not Park employees, had done just that (French, 2010)—the nuggets and money weren’t in Frenchy’s pocket. They were nowhere (Whithorn, p. 42). Also, Jenny might have run up and down the hills surrounding her cabin, but she also had gained a strong survival instinct in her seven years with Frenchy. She would not have gone haplessly through grizzly territory at night, rather listened to the rumblings (George France described nights when the canyon walls reverberated with the cries of rival bears—much farther away than a half mile away) until the culprit left, its foot still ensnared in Frenchy’s trap.

Both Jenny and her older half-brother Charles, attempted to embellish the myth. Jennie maintained Frenchy was responsible for building much of the road between Nye City and Cooke City during the mining era or from Slough Creek to Gardiner--even in the county bills laid over in a December 1892 Park County commissioner’s meeting, it was acknowledged that he was owed only $50. In the same proceedings there was a petition to build a road from Cooke City to the Boulder in Stillwater Basin, then to Lake Abundance and on to Slough Creek. The public viewing and bidding was to take place the following year, on July 10, 1893. The assumption can be that yes, Frenchy Duret, was responsible for performing $50 worth of labor—or at least claiming that amount—but for whatever labor the payment was, it was done before the bidding of the road in question (Bills laid over, page 8). It might be that Frenchy did win the bid; it might also be that he took the job upon himself so that he could have a trail for taking his ox cart back and forth from Gardiner or to Cooke City: a trail, not a road. True to form, Charles suggested a probably exaggerated “head count” on the bears Frenchy had trapped and the pelts sold, for funds to purchase haying equipment. The total for the year 1922 was seven or eight, so in twenty years there might have been 200—or not. In yet another letter to the Livingston Enterprise, Jennie tells of Joe’s being the crop reporter for the Slough Creek area for 20 years and receiving “a very special citation and greetings” from the chief of the bureau of crop estimates. Since Joe and Pete Forte didn’t move to Slough Creek until 1908 or so, the twenty years is improbable—and crop reporting for hayground on two homesteads not onerous (Whithorn 37).

By the time Frenchy’s brothers and sister were notified of their sibling’s death, they were to find little or nothing remained of his fortunes, whether they were ever “considerable.” On February 16, 1926, four associates of Joe were subpoenaed to testify to the authenticity of his will: Peck Hutchings, Sam Woodring, Horace Labrie, and Charles Berg (only Hutchings and Woodring testified at the hearing:  the other two were released as unnecessary). In the document, Frenchy had left everything except three dollars to Jenny: his homestead, his personal property, his money, including French bonds totaling 3000 francs. Those three dollars were left to his siblings, Jean Baptiste, Victor, and Josephine. Presumably, the significant factor in validation was the verification of the handwriting in which the document was recorded. However, the original will was no longer at the offices of Miller in Livingston when Nellie Garnet requested it, and the only copies are typed documents found on the floor of Jennie’s cabin and in a file given to Mrs. Garnet by Don Cameron of Gardiner. 

One could argue that lawyer Miller prepared the original will, and therefore the only handwriting on the official copy would have been Frenchy’s signature. However, the will was one Jennie herself brought in and filed on September 19, 1925, after Joe’s death. It was described as “being entirely written, dated, and signed by the hand of said Joseph Duret, deceased.” Although author Garnet suggests the outcome would have been different had the hearing been held any other place than Livingston, the judge found for the defendant, Jenny McWilliams Duret, and the siblings were ordered to pay court costs. Jenny, having mined the pockets of the prosperous Frenchman, would go on to clean rooms in a seedy downtown hotel in Livingston after two more failed marriages. She died a pauper’s death on her birthday in 1937, the fortunes reported by Jim Annin and others long gone.

Author: Mary Chapman

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albright, H. M. (1985). The birth of the National Park System. Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers.

Bills laid over (1892, 24 December). The Livingston Enterprise, p. 8.

Buffalo who posed for nickel killed. (1915, November 18). The Washington Times, p. 3.

Cooke City woman dares long tramp through wilds. 1918, March 20. Northern Wyoming Herald (Cody, WY), p. 3.

District Court of the Sixth Judicial District of the State of Montana, in and for the county of Park. Subpoena. February 10,1926. Warren Hutchings, Sam Woodring, Horace LaBree, Chas. Burg, intended recipients.

Duret, J. (1894, March 23). Letter from J. Duret to H. Smith protesting the confiscation of his horses by Cap. Anderson, dated March 23, 1894. Retrieved from Montana History Portal (mtmemory.org).

French, B. (2010, April 29). Remembering the mountain man: Laurel woman recalls her father’s rugged, adventurous life in the Beartooths. Billings Gazette. Retrieved January 12, 2017 from Remembering the mountain man (billingsgazette.com).

Garnet, N. (pseudo.) (1997, August 13). Frenchy: memories of George France as told to Nellie Garnet. Park County Weekly.

History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865 (n. d.). N. B. McWilliams in the U. S. Civil War Soldier Records and profiles, 1861-1865. Retrieved July 1, 2023, from Ancestry (ancestry.com).

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Montana Department of Administration, GIS Bureau. (2003, December 22). Retrieved from Montana Cadastral Framework: https://ftpgeoinfo.msl.mt.gov/Data/Spatial/MSDI/Cadastral/CadastralHistoric

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