1840 Desmet Ellin Kelly
“ In the Path of Father Desmet:
The Catholic Church in the Rocky Mountains.”
Ellin M. Kelly

[Ellin M. Kelly, “In The Path of Father Desmet: The Catholic Church In The Rocky Mountains” an article published in “Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture: Religion and the American West” (Vol. 19, No. 3, Fall 1984), 192-203. Used with permission. Page numbers of original article are in brackets. Footnotes are indicated by the “>” sign in the text and refer to notes at the end.]

[192] Many Americans and most Catholics know, either directly or indirectly, about the Franciscan Missions established for the Indians of California along El Camino Real in the Eighteenth Century, but few are familiar with the Rocky Mountain Missions established about a century later by the Jesuits, most notably Rev. Pierre Jean DeSmet. Yet these missions represent the first Catholic establishments in the Rocky Mountain area. They were and are a lasting tribute to a few courageous Indians who, within a ten-year period, set out on four different pilgrimages to St. Louis, Missouri, to obtain from Bishop Joseph Rosati, C.M., the services of a “Black Robe” for their people. Some Iroquois, who had come west with the Hudson Bay Company, settled among the Flatheads and told them of the “Black Robes.”

In 1831 the first four representatives of the Flatheads and Iroquois never returned from their journey; two died in St. Louis, and two disappeared on their return trip. When the Iroquois Ignace LaMousse and his two sons came in 1835, Bishop Rosati had no missionaries to send. Sioux Indians killed all five members of the 1837 delegation, led by Ignace LaMousse, as they travelled toward St. Louis. Finally in 1839 when Peter Gaucher and Young Ignace petitioned Bishop Rosati, he promised to send them a “Black Robe” in the spring. Gaucher returned to the Flathead camp with the news, but Young Ignace waited in St. Louis to serve as a guide and translator for Rev. Pierre DeSmet, S.J., the promised “Black Robe.” On March 27, 1840, Father DeSmet and Petit Ignace set out for the [193] Green River Rendezvous, an annual gathering of traders, trappers, and Indians from various tribes of the Rocky Mountain region; they arrived June 30. On Sunday, July 5, 1840, Father DeSmet celebrated the first Mass within the borders of the present state of Wyoming. At the Rendezvous, he and his guide joined ten Flathead warriors and travelled through the mountains to Pierre’s Hole at the foot of the Tetons in Idaho where 1,600 Flatheads, Nez Perces, and Pend d’Oreilles awaited the “Black Robe.” DeSmet travelled north with the Indians, moving from camp to camp in Montana for two months until they arrived at Three Forks.

While travelling with the Flatheads, Father DeSmet said the first Mass in Montana.

“During all my stay in the mountains, I said the Holy Mass regularly Sundays and feast-days, as well as on days when the Indians did not break camp in the morning . . . since various nations were among them, they chanted the praises of God in the Flathead, Nez Perce, and Iroquois languages. The Canadians, my Fleming and I sang chants in French, English, and Latin. The Flatheads had already had for some years a custom of never breaking camp on Sunday, but of passing that day in devotional exercises.”>1

DeSmet’s first visit ended on August 27, but he promised to return the following year. Travelling back to St. Louis, he followed the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, stopping briefly with the Crow, Mandan, and Sioux Indians before completing the journey on December 31, eight months after setting out. While this first trip was really only an investigation, DeSmet’s subsequent trips between St. Louis and the Rocky Mountains all established or furthered the Catholic Church among the Indians.

Between the end of his first trip and spring of 1841, DeSmet, who was named superior for the Rocky Mountain Mission, solicited personnel and funds to begin the mission. On April 28, 1841, he set off once again, accompanied by Father Gregory Mengarini, S.J., and two Jesuit brothers; Charles Huet and Joseph Specht, blacksmiths or tinners. At Westport, Missouri, Father Nicholas Point, S.J., and Brother William Claessens, a carpenter, joined the group, which had engaged Thomas Fitzpatrick, an experienced frontiersman, as a guide. On this second journey DeSmet again traversed Wyoming, crossed into the present state of Utah, and then travelled along the Bear River into Idaho. On July 29, 1841, near Henry’s Lake, Father DeSmet celebrated the first Mass in Idaho. Four months after setting out, the Jesuit party reached the Flathead encampment and [194] then travelled on to the Bitteroot Valley. From there Father DeSmet reported:

“On the 24th of September, the feast of our Lady of Mercy we arrived at the river . . . on the banks of which we have chosen the site for our principal missionary station. On the first Sunday of October, feast of the Rosary, we took possession of the promised land, by planting a cross on the spot which we had chosen for our first residence.”>2

The missionaries immediately erected living quarters and a chapel.

MONTANA

Although Father DeSmet had offered the first Mass in Wyoming in 1840, he and his fellow Jesuits concentrated their efforts primarily in Montana. After replacing the first temporary chapel at St. Mary’s Mission, the Jesuits began an even larger one in 1846. Because the new church was unfinished when they abandoned the mission in 1850, the Jesuit superior ordered it destroyed to prevent desecration. But in 1866 Fathers Joseph Giorda and Anthony Ravalli and Brother Claessens reopened and rebuilt St. Mary’s Mission on the west edge of the present Stevensville, Montana. Father Ravalli, who had served at the mission from 1844 to 1850, designed the new chapel, decorated the interior, constructed statues of the Blessed Virgin and St. Ignatius Loyola, and built various items of furniture for the mission.>3

The Jesuits served the Indians at St. Mary’s Mission until 1891 when the United States Government forced the Indians out of the Bitteroot Valley and onto the Jocko Reservation. From 1891 to 1908 Jesuits from Missoula continued to visit the mission each month, providing spiritual assistance to white settlers in the valley. St. Mary’s became a mission of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Hamilton in 1908 and a parish in the Diocese of Helena in 1920. Father Ravalli’s church continued to serve the parish until 1954 when a new brick St. Mary’s Church was completed.>4

But St. Mary’s Mission was only the first of the missions the Jesuits established in the Montana area. Father DeSmet continued to recruit Jesuits to work with the Indians; in 1843 Fathers Peter DeVos and Adrian Hoecken and Brother Michael McGean came. Hoecken and DeVos established St. Ignatius Mission in 1845 among the Kalispel Indians on the Pend d’Oreille River. When the first site proved unsatisfactory, the mission moved to its present location, about forty miles north of Missoula. In 1844 three more missionaries came from [195] St. Louis: Fathers Joseph Joset and Peter Zerbinatti and Brother Vincent Magre. Other Indian missions established in the western area of Montana included St. John Berchman’s in 1889 for the Flatheads, St. Michael’s and St. Ann’s in 1903 for the Blackfeet.

Not until after the discovery of gold in the late 1850s did the Montana region attract white settlers, beginning near Drummond in 1859, followed by Bannack and Virginia City in 1862, and finally by Helena in 1864, the same year that Montana became a separate territory. In 1863 Father Urban Grassi, S.J., founded the first Catholic Church for both Indians and white settlers at “Hellgate,” now part of Missoula, and Father Joseph Giorda, S.J., established All Saints Church at Virginia City. Rev. John Kuppens, S.J., built Sacred Heart Church at Helena in 1866.

The Sisters of Charity of Providence were the first Catholic religious women to come to Montana. On October 17, 1864, four Sisters arrived at St. Ignatius to open a girls’ school and a hospital at the mission. At the urging of Father DeSmet, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth came to Helena in 1869, where they opened the Montana Territory’s first Catholic school, St. Vincent’s Academy, followed a year later by the first Catholic hospital, St. John’s, and the first Catholic orphanage, St. Joseph’s.>5

THE DIOCESE OF HELENA

Although the federal government unified the Montana Territory in 1864, the ecclesiastical authority of the Catholic Church over the area remained divided; first, the area was under the jurisdiction of the Archdioceses of St. Louis and Oregon, then under the Vicars Apostolic of Idaho and Montana (1866), and finally under the Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska and the Archbishop of Oregon City (1875). On March 5, 1883, the Territory of Montana became a Vicariate Apostolic under Bishop John Brondel of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and a year later (March 7, 1884) Bishop Brondel became the first bishop of the Diocese of Helena, comprising the 146,000 square miles of the Montana Territory.

After the death of Bishop Brondel in 1903, the diocese was divided. Rev. John P. Carroll of Dubuque, Iowa, was named as the second bishop of Helena on September 12, 1904. But earlier in the year the erection of the Diocese of Great Falls had reduced the Diocese of Helena by two-thirds; it included 51,922 square miles while the new diocese covered 94,158 square miles.

During Bishop Carroll’s twenty-one years as head of the Diocese of Helena, he established the first Catholic college in Montana at [196] Helena, Mount St. Charles (1909), later renamed Carroll College; built the Cathedral of St. Helena (1912); and actively sought Catholics from abroad to settle in the diocese. His successors have included the following bishops: George Finnigan, C.S.C. (1927-1932), Ralph Hayes (1933-1935), Joseph Gilmore (1936-1962), Raymond Hunthausen (1962-1975), and Eldon Curtiss, the current administrator, appointed in 1975.

According to the most recent statistics, the Diocese of Helena has 65,025 Catholics in a total population of 403,607, served by ninetythree diocesan priests, fifteen religious priests, and eighty religious sisters. Diocesan institutions include sixty-two parishes, thirty-one missions, thirteen stations, and forty chapels. The diocese has three Catholic hospitals (Butte, Missoula, and Polson), one college ,(Helena), two high schools (Butte and Missoula), and two elementary schools (Kalispell and Missoula).>6

THE DIOCESE OF GREAT FALLS / BILLINGS

Father Nicholas Point, who came west with Father DeSmet in 1841, was the first Jesuit to serve the Indians in Montana east of the Rockies. He and Father DeSmet left St. Mary’s Mission for Fort Lewis on August 16, 1846. Father Point spent more than seven months at the fort, instructing the Indians, mainly Blackfeet, and reported that he baptized more than 600 during his stay. He followed a simple program of instruction:

“Every day after Mass I teach the children their prayers; every evening the men recall them to one another mutually; at six o’clock in the evening these recite their prayers in common in my room, after which I give them an instruction; then comes the turn of the women.”>7

Although Father Point spent only six years in the Rocky Mountain Missions, his contributions were invaluable; he founded missions, painted portraits of the Indians, and recorded his experiences in extensive memoirs.

Ursuline nuns from Ohio arrived in Miles City on January 17, 1884, to open a Catholic school. On April 2, these “Lady Black Robes” arrived at St. Benedict Joseph Labre Mission, established in 1883 by Father Joseph Eyler, a priest from Cleveland, Ohio, for the Cheyenne Indians. In 1885 Jesuits priests took over the mission, but three years later both the nuns and priests left after the Cheyennes staged a ghost dance. Later both returned: the Jesuits to serve the mission until 1897 and the Ursulines until 1933. The mission contin[197] ues today under the care of the Capuchin Fathers and the Sisters of St. Francis.

Other Indian missions established by the Jesuits in eastern Montana include St. Peter’s in 1862 for the Blackfeet, St. Xavier’s in 1887 for the Crows, St. Paul’s in 1890 for the Gros Ventres and Assiniboines, Holy Family in 1890 for the Blackfeet, and St. Charles in 1891 for the Crows. Several of these early missions received generous financial assistance from Katherine Drexel of Philadelphia for construction projects.

When Rev. Mathias Lenihan of Dubuque, Iowa, became the first bishop of Great Falls in 1903, the new diocese had only fourteen priests, eleven parishes, four Indian missions and two schools. Bishop Lenihan’s successors have included the following bishops: Edwin O’Hara (1930-1939), who established the College of Great Falls (1932), conducted by the Sisters of Charity of Providence; William Condon (1939-1967); and Eldon Schuster (1967-1977). The present administrator, Bishop Thomas Murphy, observes a Christmas pilgrimage that provides an abbreviated parallel to the travels of Montana’s early missionaries; on Christmas Eve he offers Mass at 6 p.m. in Billings, at 9 p.m. in Hysham, at midnight in Forsyth, and then offers noon Mass in Great Falls on Christmas Day. In a twenty-four hour period he travels about 550 miles, a sharp contrast to the distance Father DeSmet could cover in a day.

According to the most recent statistics, the Diocese of Great Falls/ Billings has 66,092 Catholics in a total population of 351,858, served by sixty-two diocesan priests, twenty-seven religious priests, and 173 religious sisters. Diocesan institutions include seventy-four parishes, sixty-one missions, five stations, and fifteen chapels. The diocese has three hospitals (Great Falls, Billings, and Miles City), one college (Great Falls), three high schools (Billings, Lewistown, and Miles City), and eighteen elementary schools.>6

WYOMING—THE DIOCESE OF CHEYENNE

Although Father DeSmet celebrated his first Mass in the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming on July 5, 1840, more than twenty-five years elapsed before the first Catholic priest settled in the area. During that time Father DeSmet and Jesuit missionaries passed through the area on their way to or from Indian missions in Montana and Idaho, and all stopped at Fort Laramie, the first permanent settlement in Wyoming. Even though Wyoming became a main thoroughfare for west-bound settlers, no significant settlements took place until the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1867.

[198] Catholic jurisdiction over Wyoming varied. Originally it was under the Diocese of St. Louis (1827-1851), next under the Vicar Apostolic of the Indian Territory (1851-1857), then under the Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska (1857-1885), and finally under the Bishop of Omaha (1885-1887).

With the railroad new settlers and settlements appeared along its route, and these settlements became the sites for the first Catholic parishes: Cheyenne (1867), Laramie (1872), Rawlins (1879), Evanston (1885), and Rock Springs (1888). The first Catholic priest, Rev. William Kelly, settled in Cheyenne in 1867 to provide spiritual care for Catholics living between Sidney, Nebraska, and the Wasatch Canyon in Utah. During his two-year stay, Father Kelly built a Catholic Church at Cheyenne on land donated by the railroad and visited every point on the Union Pacific route.

In 1876 four Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth arrived in Laramie, the site of the Union Pacific shops, to open St. Joseph’s Hospital, the first Catholic hospital in Wyoming. Two years later the Sisters opened the first Catholic school, St. Mary’s Academy, also in Laramie. However, when the Union Pacific shops moved from Laramie, the hospital lost a vital source of support. Finally in 1895, a strong anti-Catholic campaign sponsored by the American Protective Association forced the Sisters to close the hospital. The Sisters continued St. Mary’s Academy until 1900 when they withdrew. Sisters of St. Joseph reopened it in 1902 but only for a year. In 1916 the diocese sold the property to the Episcopalian Church, and it became the Cathedral Home for dependent children.

In 1884, forty-four years after Father DeSmet’s first Mass in Wyoming and more than thirty years after he baptized more than 600 Arapaho after the Fort Laramie Treaty Council in 1851, the Jesuits opened St. Stephens Indian Mission in the Wind River Reservation. Rev. John Jutz, S.J., from Buffalo, New York, founded the mission at a site on the Little Wind River on May 20. He was able to construct the first mission buildings with a substantial contribution from Katherine Drexel of Philadelphia. When the New York Jesuits withdrew in 1886, missionaries from Father DeSmet’s Missouri Province replaced them. In 1908 the Arapaho and Shoshoni tribes deeded the site of the mission to St. Stephen’s.

Even though the Jesuits completed a convent for sisters in 1888, they had trouble obtaining teachers for the mission school. Six Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth came in the fall of 1889, began classes in January 1890, but withdrew before the fall. For a year lay teachers continued the school. In August 1891, five Sisters of St. Joseph from Concordia, Kansas, arrived but remained only a year. [199] Finally in 1892, six Franciscan Sisters from Glenn Riddle, Pennsylvania, took over the school and remained there until 1940. On July 10, 1983, St. Stephen’s Mission opened its centennial year with a Mass celebrated on the site of Father DeSmet’s first Mass.

Six Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus from Pennsylvania arrived in Cheyenne on August 13, 1884, to open the second Catholic school in Wyoming, the Academy of the Holy Child Jesus, which provided for both boarders and day students. Three years later, on August 9, 1887, the Wyoming Territory, covering 102,352 square miles, became the Diocese of Cheyenne.

Rev. Maurice Burke of Chicago, the first bishop of the new diocese, found 7,500 Catholics, five diocesan priests, and one religious priest under his jurisdiction. His diocese had eight churches, one hospital, one academy, two parochial schools, and one Indian mission. Successors of the first bishop have included Thomas Lenihan (1896-1901), James Keane (1902-1911), Patrick McGovern (1912-1951), Hubert Newell (1951-1978), and the present administrator, Joseph Hart.

In 1925 the Knights of Columbus purchased the site of Father DeSmet’s first Mass for the diocese, which holds an anniversary Mass there, usually on the first Sunday in July.

Through the efforts of Bishop McGovern, the first Catholic childcare institution, St. Joseph’s Home, staffed by Franciscan Sisters, opened at Torrington in 1930.

After conducting the Academy of the Holy Child for forty-nine years, the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus withdrew in 1933 because of declining interest in boarding schools. The building then became a parochial institution, renamed St. Marv’s Academv, conducted bv Dominican Sisters from Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. The school was reorganized in 1981 and renamed Seton High School; it is the only Catholic high school in the diocese.>8

According to the most recent statistics, the Diocese of Cheyenne has 60,000 Catholics in a total population of 420,000, served by forty-five diocesan priests, nine religious priests, and seventy-six religious sisters. Diocesan institutions include thirty-nine parishes, thirty missions, two stations, and one chapel. The diocese has one hospital (Cheyenne), one child-care institution (Torrington), one high school (Cheyenne), and seven elementary schools.>6

UTAH—THE DIOCESE OF SALT LAKE

Although Father DeSmet was not the first Catholic priest to enter Utah, although he left no record of saying Mass in the area, and al[200] though neither he nor his fellow Jesuits established an Indian mission in Utah, he did have an impact on the history of the state. Even before he was born, two Franciscan priests, Silvestre Escalante and Atanasio Dominguez, traversed Utah in 1776, searching for a direct route between Santa Fe and Monterey. Their efforts were unsuccessful, but they recorded their travels when they returned to Santa Fe in 1777.

On his way to establish St. Mary’s Mission in 1841, Father DeSmet entered Utah to become the first Catholic priest in the region since Fathers Escalante and Dominguez. But his most important link with the region took place in 1846 when he met Brigham Young and his Mormon followers at their winter camp on the Missouri frontier. In a letter to his nephew in March 1851, Father DeSmet recalled this meeting:

“They had resolved to winter on the threshold of the great desert, and then to move onward into it, to put distance between themselves and their persecutors, without even knowing at the time the goal of their long wanderings, nor the spot where they should once more build for themselves permanent dwellings. They asked me a thousand questions about the regions I had explored and the spot which I have just described pleased them greatly. . . . Was that what determined them? I would not dare assert it. They are there.”>9

In 1858 Father DeSmet was again in Utah; this time as chaplain for General William Harney’s troops in their expedition against the Mormons. The troops left St. Louis in May and returned in September after the difficulties between the United States and the Mormons were settled.

Catholic jurisdiction over the Utah area shifted as the West changed. Before 1848 it was under the authority of Mexican bishops. Utah was part of the area ceded to the United States in 1848 and was then under the Diocese of St. Louis. The first priest to minister in the area was Rev. John Raverdy from Denver, who travelled through Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah looking for Catholics. In 1864 he spent several weeks caring for the spiritual needs of Catholics in the Utah area.

In 1866 the Utah Territory was transferred to the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Archbishop Joseph Alemany sent Rev. Edward Kelly to Salt Lake where he built the first Catholic church in the area. Two years later Utah and Colorado were combined into a Vicariate Apostolic under Bishop Joseph Machebeuf, who appointed Rev. James Foley as the first resident pastor of Salt Lake and the sur[201] rounding territory. In February 1871 Utah was returned to the jurisdiction of San Francisco. When Rev. Patrick Walsh arrived in Salt Lake, his first concern was to build a church to replace the adobe building erected by Father Kelly.

Through the efforts of Rev. Lawrence Scanlan, who was appointed pastor of Salt Lake in 1873, the Sisters of the Holy Cross came to Salt Lake in 1875 to open the first Catholic school, St. Mary-of-the” Assumption (later renamed St. Mary-of-the-Wasatch). The Sisters expanded their works in the area, opening the first Catholic hospital, Holy Cross, in Salt Lake in 1875, and Sacred Heart Academy in Ogden in 1878. In 1885 Father Scanlan founded All Hallows College for men. In the thirteen years prior to his being named Vicar Apostolic of Utah and Nevada, Father Scanlan established four parishes, six schools, two hospitals, and one college.

The Vicariate Apostolic of Utah and Nevada, established in 1886 and covering 195,819 square miles, became the Diocese of Salt Lake under Bishop Scanlan in 1891. He headed the diocese until 1915 and during that time opened Kearns-St. Ann’s Orphanage (1891), built a new cathedral, established Judge Memorial Hospital (1910), and opened six new parishes. In 1931 with the creation of the Diocese of Reno for the state of Nevada, the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Salt Lake extended only to the state of Utah.>10 Bishop Scanlan’s successors have included Joseph Glass, C.M. (1915-1926), John Mitty (1926-1932), James Kearney (1932-1937), Duane Hunt (1937-1960), Joseph Federal (1960-1980), and the present administrator, William Weigand.

According to the most recent statistics, the Diocese of Salt Lake has 61,757 Catholics in a total population of 1,520,000 served by forty-four diocesan priests, fifty-nine religious priests, and 121 religious sisters. Diocesan institutions include forty-one parishes, twelve missions, fifteen stations, and thirty-four chapels. The diocese has two hospitals (Salt Lake and Ogden), one high school (Salt Lake), eight elementary schools, one home for the elderly (Salt Lake), one Trappist monastery (Huntsville), and one convent of cloistered Carmelites (Salt Lake).>6

IDAHO—THE DIOCESE OF BOISE

Father DeSmet said the first Mass in Idaho during his 1841 trip to the Rocky Mountain area. After establishing St. Mary’s Mission in Montana, DeSmet travelled to Oregon City to report on the new establishment. While returning to St. Mary’s in 1842, he stopped in northern Idaho to visit the Coeur d’Alene Indians, who asked for a [202] “Black Robe” mission. From St. Mary’s DeSmet sent Father Nicholas Point and Brother Charles Huet to establish Sacred Heart Mission on the St. Joseph River for the Coeur d’Alenes. In 1846 the Jesuits relocated the mission on higher ground because of damage from spring floods.

Father Anthony Ravalli arrived at Sacred Heart to help build a new church in 1850. As he had done at St. Ignatius and would do later at St. Mary’s, Father Ravalli designed the church, planned its decoration, and fashioned statues and furniture for the interior. Unfortunately the reservation established in 1876 for the Coeur d’Alenes did not include the mission. In 1877 Rev. Joseph Cataldo, the Superior of the Jesuit Rocky Mountain Missions, designated Sacred Heart as his headquarters. Finally in 1924 the Jesuits deeded the property to the Diocese of Boise. Each year on August 15, special services are held at Sacred Heart Mission.

The first Catholic parish was St. Joseph’s, established in Idaho City in 1863. The Sisters of the Holy Names from Portland, Oregon, opened the first Catholic school, St. Mary’s Academy, at Idaho City in 1868. Sisters of Charity of Providence from St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula, Montana, came to Wallace in 1892 to open Idaho’s first Catholic hospital, Providence.>11

Idaho became a Vicariate Apostolic under Rev. Louis Lootens of San Rafael, California, in 1868. After his resignation in 1876, the Bishop of Oregon served as administrator until Rev. Alphonse Glorieux became the Vicar Apostolic in 1885. In 1893 Glorieux became the first bishop of the Diocese of Boise, which included the entire 84,290 square miles of the state of Idaho. St. Joseph’s Church at Idaho City, built in 1863, served as the first cathedral. Bishop Glorieux’s successors have included Daniel Gorman (1918-1927), Edward Kelly (1928-1956), James Byrne (1956-1962), and the present administrator, Sylvester Treinen.

According to the most recent statistics, the Diocese of Boise has 76,443 Catholics in a total population of 959,000, served by seventyfour diocesan priests, twenty-five religious priests, and 150 religious sisters. Diocesan institutions include sixty-one parishes, thirty-six missions, twelve stations, and thirty chapels. Diocesan institutions include five hospitals (Boise, Cottonwood, Jerome, Lewiston, and Nampa), one child-care institution (Boise), one junior college for women (Cottonwood), one high school (Boise), and twelve elementary schools.>6

Although the Indian missions of the Rocky Mountain area are not as well known as the Franciscan missions in California, the early missions and missionaries have left their mark on the Rocky Moun[203] tain states. In 1982, 141 years after the founding of St. Mary’s Mission, the parish in Stevensville installed stained glass windows, which represent the history of Montana’s first Catholic institution. St. Mary’s Mission Historical Foundation has preserved Father Ravalli’s church, living quarters, and pharmacy on the same grounds. Sacred Heart Mission near the town of Cataldo, Idaho, is now a National Historic Landmark open to visitors throughout the year. 1984 marks the centennial of the Ursulines’ arrival in Miles City, Montana, and the establishment of St. Stephen’s Mission in Wyoming. Maps of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho indicate that the early Jesuit missionaries are not forgotten. In Montana St. Mary’s Mission is located in Ravalli County while the town near St. Ignatius Mission is Ravalli. Idaho has a town named Desmet, and the monument marking the site of Father DeSmet’s first Mass in Wyoming appears on the state map. Although the Capuchins have replaced the Jesuits in several Indian missions, the Jesuits continue at St. Ignatius and St. John Berchmans in Montana and St. Stephen’s in Wyoming.

Notes

>1 Hiram Chittenden and Alfred Richardson (eds.). Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, S.J. (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1905), I:230-231.

>2 Chittenden, I:316.

>3 Harold Allen, Father Ravalli’s Missions (Chicago: The Good Lion Press, 1972).

>4 Lucylle Evans, The History of St. Mary’s Mission in Stained Glass (Stevensville: DeSmet Foundation, 1983).

>5 Edward P. Curley, “Origin and Progress of the Catholic Church in Montana,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society, 38 (1927), 49-122. See also Wilfred P. Schoenberg, S.J., Jesuits in Montana 1840-1960 (Portland: The Oregon-Jesuit, 1960) and Paths to the Northwest (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1982).

>6 All diocesan statistics taken from The Official Catholic Directory 1983 (Skokie, Illinois: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1983).

>7 Gilbert J. Garraghan, S.J., “Nicholas Point, Jesuit Missionary in Montana of the Forties,” in Chapters in Frontier History (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1934), p. 149.

>8 Most Rev. Patrick McGovern, History of the Diocese of Cheyenne (Cheyenne, 1941).

>9 Chittenden. IV:1404-1405.

>10 Duane G. Hunt and others, “History of the Roman Catholic Church in Utah,” in Utah: A Centennial History (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co. Inc., 1949), II:703-791.

>11 Information from Idaho State Historical Society Library.

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