Watching the Bitterroot Valley in the early morning sunrise was like seeing a paintbrush splash a riot of color over the entire panorama—purple to pink, then red, orange and finally gold. The sun popped up over the Sapphires and bathed the entire scene in the fresh, clear colors of spring. I’d gotten up early to drive from my home in Florence to the St. Mary’s Mission in Stevensville. I wanted to take a few early-morning photos of the old chapel building with the sun striking the front. My timing was perfect. The scene was magnificent. The sun lit up the white front of the building and picked out the detail of the log and chink sides. It is amazing that this old log and plaster building is still standing. It is more amazing that the mission was established here in the first place.
The Salish Indians called the Bitterroot Valley their home. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition dropped down into the valley from Lost Trail Pass in September of 1805, the Salish welcomed them immediately. Charlie Russell memorialized that meeting with his famous painting, Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flatheads at Ross’ Hole, which hangs on the front wall of the House chambers in the Montana State Capitol. A decade or so later, the Salish welcomed other visitors to the valley—a group of Iroquois. This small band was traveling from a Catholic settlement on the St. Lawrence River looking for furs to sell to the Hudson Bay Company. They quickly established a rapport with the Salish and went no further. The Salish were spiritual people. They prayed, sang sacred songs and lived with their medicine power. Religion was natural to them. They were deeply interested in the Iroquois’ demonstrations of the Catholic faith, so it was only a matter of time before the Salish adopted Christianity for themselves.
The leader of the Iroquois, Big Ignace, told of powerful white men who dressed in long, dark robes, carried crucifixes and brought people to God. Anxious for the blessings only these men could deliver, the Salish decided they needed a Black Robe of their own. What occurred over the following years is truly remarkable. Delegations from these two groups, along with several friends from the Nez Perce tribe, made four trips from the Bitterroot Valley to St. Louis to acquire a Black Robe to provide religious instruction. Each trip was fraught with danger.
The first delegation arrived in St. Louis in 1831, exhausted and emaciated, and met with Governor William Clark, their old friend from the Lewis and Clark expedition. He sent them on to Bishop Rosati who told them, regretfully, that there were no resources available at the time to begin a new mission. None from this delegation returned to the Bitterroot—two died in St. Louis and were buried in the Catholic cemetery. The other two died on the trip home.
Four years later Big Ignace led a second delegation himself, taking his two young sons with him. This time Bishop Rosati told the Indians that he would send Black Robes the following spring. But when two years passed and still no Black Robes appeared, Big Ignace set off again with four others. Bad luck accompanied this delegation, for when they reached the South Platte River, they ran into a war party of Sioux, traditional enemies of the Salish. All five delegates were killed.
The summer of 1839 arrived. Once again a plan was made to send delegates to gain Black Robes. This time two Iroquois who had made their home with the Salish agreed to go. They joined a party from the Hudson Bay Company and canoed down the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers. Near Council Bluffs they stopped at St. Joseph’s Mission to pay their respects, and they met Jesuit Father Pierre Jean De Smet. Their faith and perseverance moved him deeply and he resolved to help them. He sent them on to St. Louis with letters for Bishop Rosati. This time the efforts of the Indians paid off, for Rosati pledged to send them a Black Robe the following spring.
And so, De Smet found himself traveling to the homeland of the Salish to determine the feasibility of building an Indian mission. When he arrived at Pierre’s Hole near the current Montana-Idaho border, he was astonished to find 1600 Indians gathered to meet him and escort him into the Salish territory. De Smet got right to work, baptizing, preaching and teaching. He was surprised and impressed by the extent of the Indians’ knowledge of Catholic prayers and catechism. De Smet was sought after by the Indians for his talents and knowledge. He did not make it to the Bitterroot Valley that year, but stopped at Three Forks, the headwaters of the Missouri River. There he bid them all good-bye, promising to return the following year with other Black Robes and the resources necessary to establish a Catholic mission.
On September 24, 1841, three Jesuit Black Robes, Fathers Pierre De Smet, Gregory Mengarini, and Nicholas Point, along with three lay brothers and three hired laborers, arrived in the Bitterroot Valley. Their combined talents were impressive as they had an artist, a linguist, one trained in medicine, a musician, a blacksmith, a carpenter, a tinner, a blacksmith and a jack-of-all-trades. The decision to locate the mission in what is now the Bitterroot Valley was based upon three factors: the rich soil, the great beauty of the valley, and a vision of the Virgin Mary by a young dying Salish girl. The mission chapel was built upon the very site of the girl’s vision, and the name of the mission, St. Mary’s, seemed the only logical choice.
Construction began almost immediately. Buildings and the first chapel were built of cottonwood logs with deerskins used for room dividers. The roofs were constructed of young trees covered with straw and dirt. Windows were scraped deerskins. The first winter was a tough one for the Fathers. It was cold. So cold, a fire had to be lit on the altar, otherwise the water and wine would freeze. The Fathers rolled themselves in several blankets and a buffalo robe each night. Each morning they crawled out of their cocoons and placed them next to the fire for thawing, for the rolled bundles froze hard each night.
In addition to the building projects, the Fathers quickly began instructing the Salish in the lifestyle of a devout Catholic Christian. Father Mengarini started up a band. The fathers had brought with them several musical instruments, and what the band lacked in ability it more than compensated with volume.
The Salish depended on bison for much of their food and resources. Fall hunts east of the Rockies would provide them with meat for drying and mixing into pemmican. The only catch was the Blackfeet controlled the bison hunting grounds, so hunts were punctuated with vicious battles. The first year after the establishment of the mission, Father Point accompanied the annual hunt, but because the Salish did not want the Blackfeet to have access to the strong medicine of the Black Robes, it wasn’t long before the Fathers were no longer welcome on the annual hunt.
A couple of years after the first chapel was built, a second, larger mission building was needed. The first was not only too small, its location on the banks of the Bitterroot River made it damp and buggy, and the tangle of bushes and willows along the river made it only too easy for the Blackfeet to creep in undetected. The second chapel was located in an open field just east of the river.
The fall of 1845 brought a tremendous blessing to St. Mary’s in the form of Father Anthony Ravalli. A true Renaissance man, Ravalli had unbelievable talents. In addition to religion, his education gave him skills in science, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, art, carpentry, mechanics and horticulture. He quickly built a flourmill and a sawmill. He also concocted an assortment of medicines, inoculated the Indians against smallpox and began hygiene classes for the women. While the mission had been a success prior to the arrival of Father Ravalli, things started hopping after his arrival. The new chapel no longer proved large enough, and a third, even larger building was built. The mission now consisted of the chapel, a number of buildings, the mills, a cattle herd and acres of cultivated land. It was all too good to last.
The Blackfeet were a constant source of irritation. They frequently made excursions into the St. Mary’s Valley to attack unwary Salish. Battles often ended badly for the Salish, as their bands were outnumbered by the powerful Blackfeet. The Fathers knew that until the Blackfeet threat was settled, the Salish would not devote their full attention to the Catholic faith. So in the summer of 1846, Fathers De Smet and Point traveled over the continental divide to Blackfeet land with the intention of establishing a truce. The outcome of the meeting was De Smet’s decision to build a mission among the Blackfeet. Unfortunately, the Salish could only see this as a betrayal. They had firmly counted on the protection of the Black Robe’s powerful prayers, and the idea of sharing this power with their traditional enemies was too much to bear.
De Smet left St. Mary’s for good shortly after this trip, being reassigned to other projects in the west. However, the other Fathers saw a marked deterioration in Salish devoutness and loyalty almost immediately. Stories of extreme misbehavior during the annual bison hunts began to float back to the priests. Additionally, white trappers and hunters, who chose to winter at the mission, provided the Salish with whiskey and encouraged rebellious attitudes. Many of the original Indians who helped establish the mission had died, and the younger generation found little reason to spend their hours in the company of the Fathers when they could gamble and carouse with the trappers. Fewer and fewer people showed up for mass and instruction class. The Fathers thought if they threatened to close the mission the Salish would repent and fall into line. So on Nov. 5, 1850, the mission property, the structures, the fields and the mills were sold to John Owen for $250. The mission was closed. After a year John Owen, under direction of the Church, burned the little chapel to prevent its desecration.
Sure enough, Within just months the Salish pleaded for the mission to be reopened. But, the request proved to be too little, too late. Church finances were being funneled to California for other mission efforts. St. Mary’s did not reopen for 16 years. During that time, much had changed in Montana. The gold strike in Bannack in 1862 brought miners flooding into Montana from the California gold fields as well as from the battlefields of the Civil War. Settlers followed, and farms and ranches sprang up all over the valley. The town of Stevensville was platted and under construction. When Father Giorda and Brother Claessens, one of the original members of the 1841 project, returned in the fall of 1866, they began building a new chapel. This time it was to serve an entirely different community than the previous one.
Father Anthony Ravalli moved to St. Mary’s in 1868. A small house was built for him, and he quickly established himself as an angel of mercy for both Indians and whites. Because of his skills as a physician, many early settlers were spared an early grave. He was never too busy to treat someone in need, whether for physical ailments or spiritual ills. His pharmacy was attached to the end of his house and he could often be found sitting at his desk beside the ride-up window mixing a medicine for some sick valley resident. He used his carpentry abilities to design and create many of the chapel furnishings. His hand-carved statue of Mary still stands in the mission chapel today. His paintings decorate the walls, painted with brushes made from the tail hairs of his favorite cat. Ravalli County bears his name today, and while we often name geographical sites for locally notable people, Ravalli County seems to be honorably named for a truly remarkable humanitarian.
While the Salish were the main attendees to the masses given in 1866, gradually white presence grew to warrant an additional mass for whites. Bit by bit the Salish found themselves pushed to the fringes of the community and were encouraged to move north to the Flathead Indian Reservation in the Jocko Valley. In 1891 the last 200 Salish, led by Chief Charlot, filed out of the valley and onto the reservation.
St. Mary’s Mission still stands today. Located on the outskirts of Stevensville, it is regularly open to the public during the summer. The grounds are immaculate, a perfect place to meander about on a warm afternoon; bring a picnic. The chapel is no longer used by the St. Mary’s Parrish for regular services, but instead stands as a symbol of faith, determination, and devotion, for both the Salish and the Black Robes.