- SOURCE: eBook: Montana, It's Story and Biography, A History of Aboriginal and Territorial Montana and Three Decades of Statehood, pages 394-395. Volume II; Published by The American Historical Society, Chicago and New York, 1921; digitized by Google; transcription by Diane Finlinson Miller:
B. G. SHOREY. The number, extent and importance of the industries, enterprises and institutions owned and controlled by B.G. Shorey both in the past and present are and have been such as to make him one of the leading business citizens and financiers of the City of Billings. His career has been intensely typical of self-made manhood, and its early history is filled with the romance of the plains, under whose harsh by efficient molding the crude, raw youth was developed into a self-reliant, resourceful and capable man. Rancher, banker, man of large business affairs and substantial citizen, Mr. Shorey has at all times exemplified the highest type of true western manhood and the spirit of enterprise.
B.G. Shorey was born at Belfast, Maine, September 7, 1862, a son of Wellington and Louisa (Durham) Shorey. The family, of English-Irish descent, was founded in Maine in colonial days, and in that state, in 1831, Wellington Shorey was born. He was a farmer by vocation and a republican in his political adherence, and never left the state of his birth, dying at Belfast, in 1903. Mr. Shorey married Louisa Durham, who was born in Maine in 1837, and died in Belfast in 1907, and they became the parents of seven children. John D. a contractor and builder of White Sulphur Springs, Montana; J.W., a farmer and stockman of Richland County, Montana; Jennie, the widow of John McGray, a farmer of Knox, Maine, where she resides; Emma, who died unmarried at Belfast in 1909; Charles, a stockman and farmer of Waldo, Maine; Raymond O., a farmer and stockman of Roberts, Montana; and B.G.
The public schools of Belfast furnished B.G. Shorey with his educational training, and until he was eighteeen years of age he worked on his father's farm. At that time he decided to strike out for himself, to see something of the world and to make his own opportunities, and accordingly left the parental roof. On March 17, 1882, he arrived over the narrow-gauge railroad at White Sulphur Springs, Montana, the last part of the journey, from Ogden, being made by stage, via Butte and Diamond Gulch. From March to June, 1882, he was employed by Cook & Hussey, following which he went into the Judith Basin and took up a ranch at Ross' Fork. This he sold one year later and went to work for Severance & Son, sheepman at Judith Gap, a position which he retained one year. Next Mr. Shorey entered the service of Mrs. Corson, who was at the time known as the "Sheep Queen of Montana," and whose ranch was at Hopley's Hole, near the present site of Hollowtown. He remained with Mrs. Corson until the spring of 1886, when he went down into Lake Basin and located a ranch of his own, upon which he spent the next twenty-one years. It was on this property that Mr. Shorey's real abilities were demonstrated, for from a small beginning he developed one of the finest properties in the state, a ranch of 32,000 acres on which it was his custom to run 20,000 sheep and 800 head of cattle. When he sold this property in 1907 he came to Billings, when he has since occupied his handsome $25,000 home at North Thirty-second Street and First Avenue. a residence erected by him in 1903 and still as good a home as there is to be found at Billings. Mr. Shorey is the owner of four large ranches; one at Roberts, Montana, a tract of 1,073 acres; a summer range in the mountains for his cattle, comprising 320 acres; a ranch of 1,963 acres at Custer, on the Big Horn; and one at Sidney, of 1,128 acres. In addition to raising cattle Mr. Shorey is extremely engaged in growing grain. He is the owner of two other dwellings at Billings; the concrete warehouse at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, and the coal docks on Twenty-eighth Street and also has a large interest in the Babcock Theatre Building, one of the leading business blocks of Billings. In 1910 Mr. Shorey was made president of the Billings State Bank, a position which he held until 1913, when he resigned, and his other connections are numerous and important, including a wide range of industries and enterprises. Ever interested in the welfare of his adopted city, he is a co-operant factor in many measures for the public good, in which his name is an indication of such a movement's worth. In his political belief Mr. Shorey upholds the principles of the republican party and exercises his right of franchise accordingly. He is a member of the Billings Midland Club and Billings Lodge No. 394, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
One August 11, 1889, Mr. Shorey was married at Billings to Miss Helen Simmons, daughter of A.J. and Addie (Ray) Simmons, the latter of whom still survives as a resident of Waldo, Maine. Mr. Simmons who was for many years a farmer and blacksmith at Waldo, and a highly esteemed citizen of that place, is now deceased. He and his wife were the parents of ten daughters and one son, all of whom were reared to maturity. Mrs. and Mrs. Shorey have one daughter; Adelaide, who is the wife of James Edgar. Mr. Edgar, who has recently been mustered out of the United States service, is superintending operations on Mr. Shorey's big ranch at Sidney.
from find a grave # 91797032
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