Early ranger a close friend of Teddy Roosevelt

A new book about Theodore Roosevelt and his leadership ability details a friendship and mutual admiration between the 26th president of the United States and backcountry hunting guide Fred Herrig, an early forest ranger in Northwest Montana who spent the last part of his life living in Fortine.

“Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of American Leadership,” by Jon Knokey, a Harvard graduate and former quarterback at Montana State University, takes a close look at Roosevelt’s brand of American leadership.

The book describes how Roosevelt’s leadership ability was shaped early in life by events, people and even his own abilities “to forever change a country.” As Knokey describes Roosevelt’s leadership as confident, compassion, energetic and visionary, he draws readers into the diverse landscape of the president’s life.

One of the stories is Roosevelt’s friendship with Herrig.

U.S. Forest Service archives describe Herrig as a “rough and ready” early forest ranger. After Roosevelt became president, he appointed Herrig a forest ranger with headquarters at Ant Flats. Herrig built the first ranger station there in 1904.

The two men’s friendship began during Roosevelt’s time in the Badlands of North Dakota.

In an interview with Herrig in the Wellsville, New York, Daily Reporter in February 1899, Herrig boasted that he had gone hunting with Roosevelt.

“Hunted with Roosevelt? Indeed I have, on his Dakota ranch at Elkhorn, and along the hills of San Juan,” Herrig told the Wellsville newspaper. “It was more fun out in the Badlands than it was in Cuba.”

The article also recounted a practical joke Herrig and his buddies played on Roosevelt.

“Twas in Medora ... that a lot of us planned a little surprise for Mr. Roosevelt,” Herrig recalled. “He looked like a kid — I believe he was only a little past 20, and what with his eyeglasses and his knee-breeches and his little brown mustache, he did look too nice for anything.”

While Roosevelt was in a store buying postage stamps, Herrig and a couple of cowboys unsaddled Roosevelt’s pony, led the pony away and saddled up a bronco that was a dead ringer for Roosevelt’s horse.

“We all knew about that bronco, for he’d already thrown Hellroaring Bill Jones once that morning,” Herrig said. “So we kind of sidled off to see the fun.”

As they suspected, the near-sighted Roosevelt didn’t suspect a thing as he mounted the horse, which proceeded to go wild.

“It was the all-firedest jolt I ever saw,” Herrig continued. “Roosevelt turned a somersault and then sat down so hard his glasses broke. Will Dow and I went to help him up; Merrifield was laughing so he couldn’t move.”

A.W. “Bill” Merrifield was one of Roosevelt’s North Dakota cattle partners who later relocated to the Pleasant Valley area of western Flathead County, and then to the west shore of Flathead Lake. Roosevelt visited Merrifield in the Flathead from time to time.

Merrifield’s relationship with Roosevelt and stories of some of their escapades also are detailed in Knokey’s book.

A native of the long-defunct imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine between France and Germany, Herrig was known for his size and handlebar mustache. He was one of Roosevelt’s cowpunchers on the Little Missouri in North Dakota. When he joined the Rough Riders, Herrig was the largest man in the regiment, according to a 1975 Daily Inter Lake article.

Knokey’s book notes it was Roosevelt’s personal touch that made him so beloved with Rough Riders such as Herrig. The Rough Riders were a volunteer cavalry group led by Col. Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War.

When Roosevelt organized the Rough Riders for his Cuban campaign, Herrig was packing ore in British Columbia, according to Forest Service archives. Roosevelt wired Herrig from San Antonio, Texas, to come join him, and he did.

“During the intense battle at Las Guasimas, a packer who was in charge of moving the rapid-fire machine guns up the trail lost his nerve and let the mules loose,” Knokey wrote. “Roosevelt, worried that the weapons still attached to the pack mules would fall into enemy arms, sent Fred Herrig, a backcountry hunting guide from Kalispell, Montana, into the jungle to track the animals down. Cutting tracks into a ravine, Herrig found the mules none the wiser and a bit shell-shocked.

“Back at camp, Herrig was rightfully proud of recovering the machine guns, but he was absolutely honored how Theodore reacted,” the book continues.

“Didn’t I tell you, didn’t I tell you ... [that] Fred would find those guns?” the president was quoted as saying.

“Theodore was as excited as a boy, slapping Herrig upside the shoulder, smiling from ear to ear,” Knokey wrote.

Herrig was a breveted second lieutenant, a commission higher than that for which he received pay, apparently for his bravery in retrieving the gun-laden mules.

In Roosevelt’s book, “The Rough Riders,” Herrig is mentioned numerous times, and the mule retrieval is recounted, with Roosevelt noting how several full-blooded Indians gave up the job that Herrig bravely took on.

The Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University near Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands has a bevy of original copies of letters sent from Roosevelt to Herrig on a number of topics.

When Herrig died in 1939, the Helena Daily Independent wrote about Roosevelt’s high regard for Herrig. Included in Herrig’s discharge papers filed in 1898 was a comment from Col. Roosevelt: “One of my bravest and best men in all my regiment ... There could be no better soldier.”

Herrig had the kind of stamina forest rangers needed during the early 1900s. He oversaw the area of Ant Flats, Tally Lake and part of the North Fork during his tenure.

A centennial publication for the Kootenai National Forest noted there were no real working guidelines for rangers of that era, though by 1906 rudimentary qualifications had been outlined.

“A ranger in 1906 had to be able to ride, shoot, pack a mule, cruise and cut timber, survey and map, enforce land laws, prepare a written report, construct buildings, clear trails, fight fires, maintain records, issue permits and deal with people.

“He had to be able to supply most of his own equipment, including horses and be willing to work for $75 per month,” the centennial report stated.

Lucky for Herrig, time spent with Roosevelt had prepared him for nearly an obstacle he’d encounter in the wilds of Northwest Montana.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.