This index to the Interior Department Territorial Papers: Montana, 1867-1889, collection provides the dates each reel covers. Government Information MAY NOT hold all of these reels. The record in the library catalog describes the extent of our holdings. For help, or to make an appointment to view a reel, email rad@colorado.edu
The act establishing the Territory of Montana was approved May 26, 1864 (13 Stat. 85). The Organic Act enabling the people of Montana Territory to frame a constitution and form a State Government was approved February 22, 1889 (25 Stat. 676); and Montana Was admitted into the Union as a State by proclamation of President Benjamin Harrison on November 8, 1889 (26 Stat. 1551)
From the earliest days of the Republic until 1873 the Department of State was responsible for the supervision of Territorial governments and Territorial affairs in general. An act approved March 1, 1873 (17 Stat. 484), transferred this responsibility to the Department of the Interior, where it has since remained.
The Secretary of the Interior never delegated supervision over Territorial affairs to any of the bureaus of his Department but kept it within the Office of the Secretary. Territorial business was ordinarily referred to the Patents and Miscellaneous Division, a part of this Office, which conducted most of the correspondence with the Territories. Correspondence pertaining to appointments of Territorial officials was handled by the Appointments Division of the Office of the Secretary.
On the two rolls of this microcopy, M-192, are reproduced records of the Patents and Miscellaneous Division relating to Montana Territory. These include:
(1) Transcripts of executive proceedings of the Governors of the Territory, June 1, 1877-June 24, 1887. These were transmitted semiannually by the Secretary of the Territory to the President of the United States and were customarily referred by the President to the Secretary of the Interior. The proceedings are a daily record of official acts of the Governor and include copies of proclamations, pardon letters, military orders, oaths of office, extradition orders, messages to the legislature, and records relating to commissions and appointments. No transcripts for the period 1873-May 1877 and July 1887- November 1889 are among these records.
(2) Copies of official correspondence of the Governors with Federal and Territorial officials and with private individuals, June 21, 1877-April 27, 1885. This correspondence is fragmentary.
(3) Letters received, February 5, 1867- November 25, 1889. These consist of communications relating to the penitentiary in Montana Territory, February 5, 1867-May 21, 1886, communications relating to the Deer Lodge Telegraph Company of Montana, November 9, 1877-April 9, 1878, and communications relating to miscellaneous subjects, May 21, 1867- November 25, 1889.
Before 1881 the incoming correspondence of the Patents and Miscellaneous Division was grouped under a number of subject headings. By 1881, however, the system of assigning numbers to correspondence received by date of receipt had been fully developed, and from that date to 1907 most of the communications received were filed in a single chronological series. At an undetermined date the records reproduced in this microcopy were withdrawn from these two series and arranged in a separate subject series. Copies of the outgoing correspondence of the Patents and Miscellaneous Division relating to Montana Territory are to be found scattered through a series of volumes of letters sent. The outgoing correspondence is not included in this microfilm publication.
The spreadsheet attached below contains a reel-by-reel description of the complete collection.