St. Mary's Mission Historic District

Jesuit priests and lay brothers founded St. Mary’s Mission—the first mission in the Northwest—in 1841. The Jesuits closed the mission in 1850, returning in 1866. For the next quarter century, they helped the Salish adapt from hunting to farming as the buffalo disappeared. The priests supported and advocated for the Salish people and provided medical services and spiritual guidance to both Indians and whites. When the U.S. government forced the impoverished Salish to leave their beloved Bitterroot Valley for the Flathead Reservation in 1891, St. Mary’s closed. An influx of homesteaders prompted the creation of St. Mary’s Parish in 1910, and the old mission church reopened. In 1911, the Salish returned to St. Mary’s for the first time since 1891 to celebrate their Bitterroot heritage. They still maintain this tradition.

A group of Salish visit St. Mary's circa 1955
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 950-754

The historic district includes the 1866 church and pharmacy, designed by the multi-talented Father Anthony Ravalli. Ravalli, also the architect of Idaho’s famed Cataldo Mission, employed log building techniques, ingeniously adapting European ecclesiastical architecture to the remote frontier. St. Mary’s historic church reflects his talents—the carpentry, paintings, and sculpture were all his handiwork.

The interior of historic St. Mary’s Mission Church shows Father Ravalli’s artistic skills

Adjacent is St. Mary’s Cemetery and Father Ravalli’s final resting place. Chief Victor’s log home and the Indian burial ground recall the Salish presence. Two gnarled apple trees provide living evidence of Jesuit agriculture. Father Ravalli planted one of the trees in 1869, and it is the oldest living apple tree in the Bitterroot Valley, where settlers later planted orchards during the Apple Boom. The tree is all that remains of Father Ravalli’s extensive garden. Salish elder Mary Ann Combs recalled her grandmother picking apples from the tree. Its aged trunk still puts forth shoots, and its buds, grafted onto rootstock, have produced numerous offspring in the Stevensville area.

This crabapple tree planted by Father Ravalli is one of two apple trees listed in the
National Register of Historic Places at St. Mary’s Mission in Stevensville. 

The new St. Mary’s Church, built in 1954 with donations from Montana and beyond, represents an unprecedented preservation effort to save the endangered mission church from deterioration through constant use. Today, St. Mary’s churches—old and new—define the historic complex as a place of significance to both Indian and white communities.

Cats

Exciting news this morning, history buffs! I had a meeting with my publisher last week, and they've accepted my new book! It's tentatively titled "More Montana Moments" and will be a collection of quirky tidbits like I've been posting here. Here's a sneak peek:

When did the first cats come to Montana? Rats came to the trading posts and camps very early, hitching rides in the staples and goods brought for consumption and for trade. Protection of precious supplies from invading pests was critical. Jesuit priests made the same discovery. Father Nicholas Point, one of the founders of St. Mary’s Mission in the Bitterroot Valley in 1841, drew a sketch of the Jesuits in a primitive grass shelter. The lively scene shows 6 priests and lay brothers surrounded by their boxes of goods. A dog and two black cats frolic among the men.



From Sacred Encounters by Jacqueline Peterson

 This early scene suggests that the Jesuits brought the first cats to Montana when they founded St. Mary’s Mission. In 1850, the Jesuits closed the mission but returned to rebuild it in 1866. Father Anthony Ravalli had been with the founding Jesuits in the1840s. He also returned to the Bitterroot to design a new church. Ravalli was a physician, pharmacist, talented architect and artist. He also had a great fondness for cats. As he worked on the interior furnishings of St. Mary’s Mission Church—the one that still stands at Stevensville today—he often improvised materials. From his writing we know that Father Ravalli made the brushes for his paintings in the church from the tail hair of Tomaso, his favorite cat. These were not Montana’s only early feline residents. Pierre Chouteau’s inventory of possessions and supplies at Fort Benton in 1851 lists horses, mules, bulls, oxen, and pigs. Last on the list is one cat, valued at $5. Translate that into modern currency, and the indispensible cat was worth $129!

Stagecoach Mary

Stagecoach Mary Fields, a colorful character familiar to early-day residents of Cascade, packed a Smith and Wesson, smoked cigars, weighed two hundred pounds, and stood six feet tall. Cowboy artist Charlie Russell sketched her, and actor Gary Cooper wrote about her fondly for Ebony magazine in 1959 (reprinted here). Fields, born a slave in Tennessee, made her way to Ohio where she befriended the Ursuline sisters in Toledo. Mother Superior Amadeus Dunn and Fields became good friends. In 1884, Mother Amadeus came to Montana to work among the Blackfeet. When she fell victim to pneumonia, Fields came west to nurse her friend back to health. Fields became a fixture at St. Peter’s Mission, where she did all the heavy freighting, bringing supplies through blizzards and dangerous situations. Fields was fearless and had quite a temper. After an altercation, Bishop John Brondel of Helena ordered the Ursulines to banish her. But Mother Amadeus appealed to federal authorities, securing her as the driver of the mail route between Cascade and the mission.


Photo courtesy Ursuline Convent Archives, Toledo, Ohio.

Fields became the second woman stage driver in the United States. For eight years she drove the stage. When the horses couldn’t get through, she carried the mail on her back. Fields died in 1914, a pioneer who helped tame the West, beloved by all, except perhaps the Catholic bishop.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go