Capt. James Hamilton Mills
1837 – 1904

Inducted May 14, 1961

“That king among territorial editors,” according to one pioneer journalist, Capt. James Hamilton Mills was the third editor of the first newspaper published in Montana territory: the Montana Post.

Mills was born Dec. 21, 1837, in Lisbon, Ohio, the eighth generation of his family to live in America. He was educated in eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania, and on April 27, 1861, he enlisted, at the age of 24, as a private in answer to Lincoln’s plea for volunteers. He left the Army as a brevet-lieutenant colonel, with honors for “heroic conduct.”

In the spring of 1866 he came to Montana, where he first tried mining on the Yellowstone River with several other men. They gave up this venture when a packer they had entrusted with the provision money “went against the tiger, lost the money, and disappeared.” Mills left for Virginia City, arriving with only 10 cents in postal currency.

An article he had written to an eastern journal attracted the attention of D.W. Tilton, publisher of the tri-weekly Montana Post, who offered Mills the editorship of the paper. On Dec. 29, 1866, Mills became editor of the Post, which had started publication Aug. 27, 1864; he followed Thomas J. Dimsdale and Henry N. Blake in the editor’s chair. The office was, in Mills’ words, “simply a little space furnished with a chair and pine table along side the Campbell power press.”

He continued as editor of the Montana Post, both in Virginia City and Helena, where it was moved, until July, 1869, when the paper ceased publication. He then founded the New Northwest in Deer Lodge, and was editor and publisher 22 years.

He married Ella M. Hammond in 1875, and their children were Mary E., Nellie G. and James H. Jr.

He was the first, and also the second, president of the Montana Press Association. He served in the Territorial Legislature; as a member of the First Constitutional Convention; collector of internal revenue for Montana, Idaho, and Utah; receiver of the Northern Pacific railway; manager of the Helena Water Works Company, and first clerk and recorder of Powell County. He served in many organizations and was an active member and director of the Montana State Historical Society.

Mills, aptly called “the Nestor of pioneer journalism in Montana,” died Sept. 5, 1904, in Deer Lodge.

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