is referred to my History of the Northwest Coast, in this series.18

called Brulé Bottom, above the mouth of María River. The following year Alexander Culbertson took charge of this fort, remaining in command until 1841, when he went to Fort Laramie, and F. A. Cheardon assumed the charge.

Cheardon proved unworthy of the trust, becoming involved in a war with the Piegans, and losing their trade, in the following manner: A party of Piegans demanded admittance to the fort, which was refused, on which they killed a pig in malice, and rode away. Being pursued by a small party from the fort, among whom was a negro, they shot and killed him, after which the pursuing party returned to the fort. Cheardon then invited a large number of the Indians to visit the post, throwing open the gates as if intending the utmost hospitality. When the Indians were crowding in, he fired upon them with a howitzer, loaded to the muzzle with trade balls, killing about twenty men, women, and children. After this exploit he loaded the mackinaw boats with the goods of the establishment, burned the buildings of the fort, and descended to the post at the mouth of the Judith River, which he named Fort Cheardon. Robert Campbell and William Sublette, of the Missouri Co., erected a fort five miles below Fort Union, in 1833; and in 1834 another sixty miles above, but sold out the same year to the American co., who destroyed these posts. In 1832 McKenzie of the latter company sent Tullock to build a post on the south side of the Yellowstone River, three miles below the Bighorn, to trade with the Mountain Crows. These Indians were insolent and exacting, lying and treacherous, but their trade was valuable to the fur companies. Tullock erected a large fort, which he named Van Buren. The Crows often wished the trading post removed to some other point, and to suit their whims, Fort Cass was built by Tullock, in 1836, on the Yellowstone below Van Buren; Fort Alexander by Lawender, still farther down, in 1848; and Fort Sarpy by Culbertson, at the mouth of the Rosebud, in 1850. This was the last trading post built on the Yellowstone, and was abandoned in 1853.

In 1843 Culbertson returned from Fort Laramie to the Missouri, and built Fort Lewis, twenty-five miles above the mouth of María River, effecting a reconciliation with the Piegans, with whom he carried on a very profitable trade. Three years afterward this post was abandoned, and the timbers of which it was constructed rafted down the river eight miles, where Culbertson founded Fort Benton, in 1846. In the following year an adobe building was erected. In 1848 Fort Campbell was built a short distance above Fort Benton by the rival traders Galpin, Labarge, & Co., of St Louis, who did not long occupy it, and successively a number of fortified stations on the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers have been built and occupied by traders who alternately courted and fought the warlike Montana tribes. They enriched themselves, but left no historical memoranda, and no enduring evidences of their occupation.

18 P. J. De Smet, missionary of the Society of Jesus, in the spring of 1840 left St Louis on a tour of exploration, to ascertain the practicability of establishing a mission among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. Travelling with the American Fur Co. to their rendezvous on Green River, he there met a party of Flatheads, who conducted him to the Bitter Root Valley, where he remained teaching and baptizing from the 17th of July to the 29th of Aug., when he set out on his return, escorted as before by a company of Flathead warriors. His route was by the way of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers to a fort of the American Fur Co., in the country of the Crows. From this point De Smet proceeded down the Yellowstone to Fort Union, with only a single companion, John de Velder, a native of Belgium, having several narrow escapes from meeting with parties of hostile Indians. From Fort Union they had the company of three men going to the Mandan village, whence De Smet proceeded, via forts Pierre and Vermilion, to Independence and St Louis.,

The first actual settlers of Montana, not missionaries, were some servants of the Hudson's Bay Com

In the following spring he set out again for the mountains, accompanied by two other priests, Nicolas Point, a Vendeean, and Gregory Mengarini, an Italian, and three lay brethren. Falling in at Westport with a party from New Orleans going to the mountains for a summer's sport, and another party bound for Oregon and California, they travelled together to Fort Hall, where the Flatheads again met the missionaries to escort them to their country. In all this journeying De Smet evinced the utmost courage, believing that because he was upon an errand of mercy to benighted man the Lord of mercy would interpose between him and harm. I am impressed with his piety, but I do not fail to observe the egoism of his christianity when he writes about other religious teachers, inspired, no doubt, by an equal philanthropy.

As far as Fort Hall the fathers had travelled with wagons, which there they seem to have transformed into carts, and to have travelled with these, by the help of the Indians, to Bitterroot Valley, going north from Fort Hall to the mouth of the Henry branch of Snake River, at the crossing of which they lost three mules and some bags of provisions, and came near losing one of the lay brethren, who was driving, but whom the Indians rescued, and assisted to get his cart over. As De Smet nowhere mentions the abandonment of the carts, and as he had before proved himself a good road-maker, I take it for granted that they arrived at the Bitterroot with their contents, among which was an organ. The route pursued was through the pass of the Utah and Northern Railroad, which was named The Fathers' Defile, thence north, on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, and through a pass at the head of Deer Lodge River, and by the Hellgate cañon, to the Bitterroot Valley, where, on one of the last days of September 1841, the cross was set up among the Flatheads, and a mission founded, which was called St Mary's, and dedicated to the blessed virgin. A long account is given by the father, in his writings, of a journey to Fort Colville, and subsequent doings, which are unimportant. In 1843 the jesuit college sent out two priests-Peter De Vos and Adrian Hoeken-to assist Point and Mengarini, while De Smet was despatched on a mission to Europe to secure both men and women for the mission. He was eminently successful, returning with both, and giving much assistance to the missions of western Oregon. De Vos and Hoeken arrived at St Mary in Sept. with three lay brothers. In 1844 Hocken founded the mission of St Ignatius a short distance north of the Clarke branch of the Columbia, east and south of Fort Colville, in what was later Washington. Here De Smet found him on his return from Europe, and here again he visited him in 1845, having been down to the Willamette Valley and loaded a train of eleven horses with 'ploughs, spades, pickaxes, scythes, and carpenters' implements,' brought by ship to the Columbia River. Not until these arrived could Hoeken commence any improvements, nor was much progress made until 1846. During these two years the father lived as Point had done, roaming about with the Indians and subsisting on camas-root and dried berries. After the first year Father Anthony Ravelli was associated with Hoeken. The first wheat raised was boiled in the husks for fear of waste. But in 1853-4 the mission of St Ignatius had a farm of 160 acres under improvement, a good mission-house of squared logs, with storeroom and shops attached, a large chapel tastefully decorated, barns and out-buildings, a windmill, and a grindstone hewn out of native rock with a chisel made by the mission blacksmith. Brick, tinware, tobaccopipes turned out of wood with a lathe and lined with tin, soap, candles, vinegar, butter, cheese, and other domestic articles were manufactured by the missionaries and their assistants, who were often the Indians. On the farm grew wheat, barley, onions, cabbages, parsnips, pease, beets, potatoes, and carrots. In the fields were cattle, hogs, and poultry. See Stevens' N. P. R. R. Rept, in De Smet's Missions, 282-4; Shea's Missions, 146; Shea's Indian Sketches, passim.

pany, and all foreign-born except the half-breeds. These men seldom had any trouble with the Indians,

At the same time the Cœur d'Alêne mission was equally prosperous. It was situated on the Cœur d'Alêne River, ten miles above Cœur d'Alêne Lake. Here about 200 acres were enclosed and under cultivation; mission buildings, a church, a flour-mill run by horse-power, 20 cows, 8 yokes of oxen, 100 pigs, horses, and mules, constituted a prosperous settlement. About both of these establishments the Indians were gathered in villages, enjoying with the missionaries the abundance which was the reward of their labors. The mission of St Mary in 1846 consisted of 12 houses, neatly built of logs, a church, a small mill, and other buildings for farm use; 7,000 bushels of wheat, between 4,000 and 5,000 bushels of potatoes, and vegetables of various kinds were produced on the farm, which was irrigated by two small streams running through it. The stock of the establishment consisted of 40 head of cattle, some horses, and other animals. Then comes the old story. The condition of the Indians was said to be greatly ameliorated. They no longer suffered from famine, their children were taught, the women were shielded from the barbarous treatment of their husbands, who now assumed some of the labor formerly forced upon their wives and daughters, and the latter were no longer sold by their parents. But alas for human schemes of happiness or philanthrophy! When the Flatheads took up the cross and the ploughshare they fell victims to the diseases of the white race. When they no longer made war on their enemies, the Blackfoot nation, these implacable foes gave them no peace. They stole the horses of the Flatheads until they had none left with which to hunt buffalo, and in pure malice shot their beef-cattle to prevent their feeding themselves at home, not refraining from shooting the owners whenever an opportunity offered. By this system of persecution they finally broke up the establishment of St Mary in 1850, the priests finding it impossible to keep the Indians settled in their village under these circumstances. They resumed their migratory habits, and the fathers having no protection in their isolation, the mission buildings were sold to John Owen, who, with his brother Francis, converted them into a trading-post and fort, and put the establishment in a state of defence against the Blackfoot marauders.

In 1853-4 the only missions in operation were these of the Sacred Heart at Coeur d'Alene, of St Ignatius at Kalispel Lake, and of St Paul at Colville, though certain visiting stations were kept up, where baptisms were performed periodically. In 1854, after the Stevens exploring expedition had made the country somewhat more habitable by treaty talks with the Blackfoot and other tribes, Hoeken, who seems nearly as indefatigable as De Smet, selected a site for a new mission, 'not far from Flathead Lake, and about fifty miles from the old mission of St Mary.' Here he erected during the summer several frame buildings, a chapel, shops, and dwellings, and gathered about him a camp of Kootenais, Flatbows, Pend d'Oreilles, Flatheads, and Kalispels. Rails for fencing were cut to the number of 18,000, a large field put under cultivation, and the mission of St Ignatius in the Flathead country became the successor of St Mary. In the new 'reduction,' the fathers were assisted by the officers of the exploring expedition, and especially by Lieut Mullan, who wintered in the Bitterroot Valley in 1854-5. In return, the fathers assisted Gov. Stevens at the treaty-grounds, and endeavored to control the Cœur d'Alênes and Spokanes in the troubles that immediately followed the treaties of 1855, of which I have given an account elsewhere. Subsequently the mission in the Bitterroot Valley was revived, and the Flatheads were taught there until their removal to the reservation at Flathead Lake, which reserve included St Ignatius mission, where a school was first opened in 1863 by Father Urbanus Grassi. In 1858 the missionaries at the Flathead missions had 300 more barrels of flour than they could consume, which they sold to the forts of the American Fur Co. on the Missouri, and the Indians

with whom they traded and dwelt, and among whom they took wives. 19 They were protected against the Blackfoot tribe by the Flatheads, whom they assisted, in their turn, to resist the common foe. But there was not the same security for other white residents. In 1853 John and Francis Owen, who bought the building of St Mary's mission, and established themselves, as they believed, securely in the Bitterroot Valley, were unable to maintain themselves longer against the warlike and predatory nation from the east side of the Rocky Mountains, and set out with their herds to go to Oregon, leaving their other property at the mercy of the savages. They had not proceeded far when they were met by a detachment of soldiers under Lieutenant Arnold, of the Pacific division of the government exploring expedition in charge of I. I. Stevens, coming to establish a depot of supplies in the Bitterroot Valley for the use of the exploring parties which were to winter in the mountains. This fortunate circumstance enabled them to return and resume their settlement and occupations.20

Since the explorations of Lewis and Clarke, no government expedition had followed the course of the

cultivated fifty farms, averaging five acres each. In their neighborhood were also two saw-mills. In 1871 the mission church of St Ignatius was pronounced the finest in Montana,' well furnished, and capable of holding 500 persons, while the mission farm produced good crops and was kept in good order. In addition to the former school, the Sisters of Notre Dame had two houses at this mission. At St Peter's mission on the Missouri, in 1868, farming had been carried on with much success.

It cannot be said, although no high degree of civilization among the sav ages followed their efforts, that De Smet and his associates were not fearless explorers and worthy pioneers, who at least prepared the way for civilization, and the first to test the capability of the soil and climate of Montana for sustaining a civilized population. The last mention I have made of the superior of the Flathead mission left him at St Ignatius in the summer of 1845. He travelled thereafter for several years more among the northern tribes, and visited Idaho and Montana, finally returning to his college at St Louis, where he ended his industrious life in May 1873, after the ground he had trod first as a settler was occupied by men of a different faith with far different motives. 19 Louis Brown, still living in Missoula co. in 1872, was one of these. He identified himself with the Flatheads, and made his home among them. Deer Lodge New Northwest, March 9, 1872. See also H. Misc. Doc., 59, 33d cong. 1st sess.

20 Ballou's Adventures, MS., 13; Pac. R. R. Rept, i. 257.

Missouri in Montana, if we except some geological researches by Evans, until the railroad survey under Stevens was ordered; and to this expedition, more

than to any other cause, may the gold discoveries in Idaho and Montana, and the ultimate rapid settlement of the country, be credited." Stevens left at

21 Stevens' party, charged with the scientific object of the expedition, consisted of Capt. J. W. T. Gardiner, 1st drag.; Lieut A. J. Donelson, corps of engineers, with ten sappers and miners; Lieut Beckman du Barry, 3d art.; Lieut Cuvier Grover, 4th art.; Lieut John Mullan, 2d art.; Isaac F. Osgood, disbursing agent; J. M. Stanley, artist; George Suckley, surgeon and naturalist; F. W. Lander and A. W. Tinkham, assist eng.; John Lambert topographer; George W. Stevens, William M. Graham, and A. Remenyi, in charge of astronomical and magnetic observations; Joseph F. Moffett, meteorologist; John Evans, geologist; Thomas Adams, Max Strobel, Elwood Evans, F. H. Burr, and A. Jekelfaluzy, aids; and T. S. Everett, quartermaster and commissary's clerk. Pac. R. R. Rept, xii. 33.