Historic St. Mary's Mission & Museum - Stevensville, MT - History Museums on Waymarking.com

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Historic St. Mary's Mission & Museum - Stevensville, MT

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Posted by:  T0SHEA

11T E 722698 N 5154734

Actually the second St. Mary's Mission, this one was begun in 1866 about a mile south of the first, which was begun in 1841, the first in Montana. This large wooden sign will be seen at the entrance to the visitor centre.

Today operated as a living history museum and historic site, Historic St. Mary's Mission is available to view and to stroll around year round, but museum tours are only available through the summer, From mid April to mid October. The mission today consists of the mission church, Father Ravalli's house and pharmacy, Chief Victor's house, a smokehouse, the old church cemetery and several outbuildings. These last are reconstructions, not originals. Tours include talks on the history and the people of the mission and allow one inside all the historic buildings, each furnished with period furnishings to recreate their original look. A great many artefacts are to be found in the historic buildings, as well as the visitor centre and gift shop, a recent (1982) addition to the complex. One may visit the mission for free; tours are $5.00 per person and very much worthwhile.

As you'll see below, St. Mary's Mission holds a very important place in the history of Montana as the "first pioneer settlement in Montana".

St. Mary's Mission
The 1841 chapel established the first church in the Pacific Northwest and the first pioneer settlement in Montana.

In November of 1845, Fr. Anthony Ravalli, S.J., arrived at St. Mary's after being recruited from Italy by Fr. DeSmet. Fr. Ravalli was a true renaissance man in addition to being a Jesuit priest. He was Montana's first physician, surgeon and pharmacist. Fr. Ravalli was an architect, carpenter, artist, sculptor, and built the first grist mill and saw mill. He was assigned to St. Mary's from 1845-1850 and again from 1866 until his death in 1884.

A photo gallery in Chief Victor's Cabin, circa 1861, brings a sense of the 19th century when the Indian and European cultures merged. The Chapel with attached living quarters, Fr. Ravalli's log cabin and pharmacy are all restored to the 1879 era, furnished with items handmade by Fr. Ravalli. The Salish Encampment represents the native homeland of the Bitter Root Salish.

Historic St. Mary's Mission is the story of remarkable people in a turbulent time, and the assimilation of two very different cultures against the backdrop of the American Frontier. Walk through history and see, touch, and hear this fascinating, controversial, and important chapter of this nation's past.
From Visit Montana

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.

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 cemetery, including Father Ravalli's grave, the Indian Burial Plot, the Smokehouse, now known as the root cellar, and two trees, Father Ravalli's Crabapple Tree and Wolf River Apple Tree, as well as a stone survey marker. Father Ravalli's Crab apple Tree, doubtless the oldest in Montana, was planted about 1869.

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.

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.