This was the home of Chief Victor (Slem-cry-cre or “Little Bear Claw”), leader of the Bitterroot Salish and friend to the Jesuits, in the latter years of his life. Chief Victor, by the late 1850s-early 1860s, had become old and infirm. John Owen, who bought the original mission when the Jesuits were forced to leave due to danger of attack by the Blackfeet, built this log cabin for Chief Victor a short distance south of Fort Owen. When the Jesuits returned, out of deference to Victor, they built the new mission near his cabin. This is the oldest of the remaining buildings at the mission. Chief Victor died while on the buffalo hunt of 1870. His wife Agnes continued to live in the house until her death in 1884. Victor’s son Charlo (aka Charlot, “Claw of the Little Grizzly”) became chief and inherited the house. Years later his contemporaries visiting the mission referred to it as “Charlo’s house.
Today the original (contributing) components of the mission consist of the restored chapel/residence (Logs from the first mission were utilized to build the present church.), Father Ravalli's log house/pharmacy, Chief Victor's cabin, the smokehouse, the cemetery, including Father Ravalli's grave, the Indian Burial Plot, and two trees, Father Ravalli's Crabapple Tree and Wolf River Apple Tree, as well as a stone survey marking the cemetery’s east boundary.
In order to preserve the original chapel a new church was built on the site in 1954. Beside it is the church's bell, hung in a stand alone bell tower. Both contribute to the historic district.
Victor’s House
Victor’s House (one contributing building)
Chief Victor’s House is a simple log cottage built by John Owen in 1862. Hewn log walls chinked with clay have half-dovetailed ends that form neat corners in a style identical to that found at Fort Owen. Wood shake shingles cover the gable roof. The one-and-one-half story building measures 20’ by 18’. The first story living space measures 360 square feet. The half–story is unusable space and only serves to provide ventilation. The framing of the cabin, and that of the windows and door frame, are consistent with the style of the buildings at Fort Owen. The building rests on a stone and cement foundation.
The house faces east. The front, east portion, has a centered entry with a door of wood planks. A 6/6-light double hung window with wood mullions and simple hewn log surrounds is left of the entry. Shorter logs between the doorway and the window indicate some kind of log replacement or repair. Wide vertical wood siding covers the upper half-story in the gable end, contrasting with the lower log wall, visually separating the two. There is a 6- light fixed window, with hewn log surrounds and wood mullions, on the upper half story, centered in the gable end.
The first floor of the back, west, elevation is of hewn log. Logs have been added to conceal a doorway that was once centered on the wall. Vertical plank siding covers the gable end and there is one small centered 6-light fixed window with wood mullions, similar to that on the east façade. It however, has no surrounds.
The south elevation has one 6/6 light double hung window with wood mullions and hewn log surrounds. The ends of two structural log beams protrude from the upper wall surface, right of the window. A smaller, third beam protrudes left of the window. The last several feet of the logs on the east end appear to have been evenly sawn off and replaced. The north elevation has a large square opening that has been infilled with logs to match the wall. As on the south façade, three structural beams interrupt the wall surface.
From the NRHP Nomination Form
The story of St. Mary's Mission begins in 1823, when twelve Iroquois, employed as trappers by the Hudson's Bay Company, remained with the Salish through the winter of 1823-24. Exposed to Christianity 200 years previous, they told the Salish stories of Christianity and of the "Black Robes", the missionaries who taught them. The Salish proved to be an interested audience and, between 1831 and 1839 they sent four delegations to St. Louis in an attempt to obtain a Black Robe of their own.
On September 24, 1841, Father Pierre Jean DeSmet, together with his fellow Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Gregory Mengarini and Nicolas Point, and three Lay Brothers arrived in the Bitterroot valley with their belongings and supplies in three carts and a wagon, the first vehicles to enter the area. They established the first white settlement in what was to become Montana, on the east bank of the Bitterroot river, immediately west of the present town of Stevensville.
The fathers built two chapels, residences and outbuildings, and began farming, planting wheat, oats, potatoes and garden crops. From Fort Vancouver they brought into Montana the first cattle, swine and poultry. A third chapel was under construction by 1846 but soon trouble with the Blackfeet forced the closure of the mission, the entirety being sold in November 1850 to John Owen, a former army sutler, for $250.00.
It was sixteen years later (1866) when Father Joseph Giorda, Superior for the Rocky Mountain area, called back Father Ravalli and Brother William Claessens and re-established St. Mary's Mission about a mile south of Fort Owen. Brother Claessens built a little chapel, the fourth he had built for St. Mary's, to which he attached a study, dining room, kitchen and a story and a half barn. Father Giorda made the "new" St. Mary's the Jesuit mission headquarters for the Rocky Mountain province. In 1879 an addition to the front of the building doubled the size of the chapel. (The entire Mission complex has been restored to that date - the peak of its beauty.)
The mission served the Salish people until their forced removal in 1891, during that time teaching them methods of farming and gardening to aid in their survival following the demise of the buffalo.
A Visitor's Center with gift shop, research library, art gallery and museum was built on the site in 1996.
Italicized sections above are from
St. Mary's Mission, Inc.