St. Mary's Mission

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Categories:

Historical Markers/Interpretive Sign,  Historic Sites,  Churches

Keywords:

• St. Mary's Mission, 
• Montana Churches

General info

Established in 1841 by Father Pierre DeSmet, the St. Mary’s Mission was the first permanent white settlement in Montana. The site has a restored log chapel and priest’s quarters, a pharmacy, and a cemetery. Many notably significant people are buried here with headstones that reflect both white settlers as well as Indians.

A tour of Historic St. Mary’s Mission is a visit to the cradle of civilization in Montana-a truly historical experience.

The history of St. Mary’s Mission begins with the arrival in the Northwest of twenty-four Iroquois Indians employed as trappers by the Hudson’s Bay Company. During the 1823-24 season, twelve of these Iroquois remained among the Flatheads in the Red Willow (now Bitterroot) valley. They were adopted into the tribe and married the Flathead women.

Coming from a nation which had been introduced to Christianity some two hundred years earlier, when they gathered around the campfire in the evenings the Iroquois talked about white men who wore long black gowns, carried crucifixes, did not marry, and whose practice it was to instruct people, bringing them to know God and all things to enable them to live after death. The Flatheads, together

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