CHAPTER XIV.

SUN RIVER, LEWISTOWN, GREAT FALLS.

The place which in chronological order now demand our attention are those just named in the heading of this chapter.

Here, however, two things are to be borne in mind by the reader; first, that we write of these places as they were, not as they are; secondly, that, as our narrative does not come further down then the close of 1891, we need no apologize for the meager and beggarly account given in these pages of both Lewistown and Great Falls. the former's growth and development in later years has been almost phenomenal. Even more so in this case with Great Falls, it being today an Episcopal See over which the Rt. Rev. Mathias Lenihan benevolently rules, and also the second largest city in the state. But future happenings are not matter of history, and since what is here simply alluded to came to pass subsequently to the time limit of this chronicle, obviously we could not but abstract from it and pass it by.

The same applies to every other community in the state, whether the question be of incipiency or progress, that is, of new settlements in the first stages of formation, or of communities already formed and progressive. For many new town have sprung up the last twenty-five years all over Montana, whilst Catholicity has been gaining and forging ahead everywhere. Should not all this have found a place in these pages by brining the present edition of Indian and White in the Northwest up to date? It would seem so, although, as already stated, it was not to be, circumstances beyond the writer's control being in the way. This, however, is altogether irrelevant. For abler pens will not fail to take up and do the whole subject full justice, a thing hardly to be expected from the present writer.

But let us proceed with the earlier history of each of the places indicated.

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Sun River District.

Sun River is a small farming and stock raising settlement and among the oldest in Montana. It contains several Catholic families, for whose benefit Father Prando in 1883 erected a small chapel, locating it close to the right bank of the river and naming it after St. Joseph.

Whilst Fort Shaw, established a few miles from the same spot in 1866, has been quite recently abandoned, new communities have come into existence in other parts of this whole district. Mitchell Craig, Wolf creek, along the Montana Central Railway, Augusta and Florence, on the South Fork of Sun River, as well as Choteau, on the upper Teton, are all new settlement. These different colonies, with several others scattered over a large tract of country, are occasionally visited from St. Peter's Mission.

WE have at hand no official figures giving the exact number of Catholics in this section. But from other sources and sufficiently reliable, they can safely be reckoned at one thousand in round numbers and rather above than below.

Lewistown.

This is a prosperous and very promising community by reason of the various resources such as rich mines, fertile lands and best ranges and pastures for stock, which are all tributary thereto. It is also the seat and principal center of Fergus, a new county created in 1885. It having been opened to the whites only recently, this part of Montana is as yet but thinly settled. But it cannot be doubted that it will contain a large population in the near future.

Among the first settlers of Lewistown and vicinity are a number of Crees and Red River half-breeds, who formerly had their homes in the Judith Basin, and in the neighborhood of the Little Rockies for many years, and thence moved into this new section. They are all Catholics besides being also active and industrious above the average for half-breeds. As to the white population, in both the town and surroundings, it is but partly of the faith, pretty much as elsewhere.

Our good people of this community, by common accord and entirely on their own initiative, have erected and furnished a neat little church, which is a credit to them and their practical

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faith. Henry Brooks, an exemplary Catholic and the very kind gentleman whom we met, as related in Part 1, at the bedside of Father Rappagliosi, caring for and nursing the dying missionary with the tenderness of a mother, was the leading spirit and prime mover in the enterprise. Mr. Juneau, one of the first settlers of the town, donated the site; and the chapel was blessed and named after St. Leo by bishop Brondel, September 2, 1888.

The Catholic community of Lewistown and environs numbers close to eight hundred and has been visited for several years from St. Peter's Mission, a distance of 140 miles.

Great Falls.

Although the last to come into existence and still in its infancy, dating no more than eight years back from our writing, this community is very apt to outgrow every other in the state. This, at least, is the writer's belief and what he ventured to express time and again from the early seventies, when the locality, apart from its mighty waterfalls, was hardly anything better than a wild and howling desert.

Yet this very locality had attracted the attention of Lewis and Clark in their travels, who speak glowingly of al this section, but particularly of the spot where Sun or Medicine River and the Missouri come together, the present site of Great Falls. Paris Gibson is credited with being the founder of the new community, and rightly so, although he himself yields much of the credit to the foresight, energy and enterprise of James Hill, of railroad fame. Great Falls has today (this was some twenty years ago) a population of five thousand souls.

The place was first attended by Jesuit Fathers from the Mission of St. Peter. Later on it became a dependency of Helena, it being visited for some time by some of the clergy attached to the Cathedral, nominally, by Father A. H. Lambaere, who erected on the site a brick church. The first Mass therein was offered up by the Ordinary himself, on rosary Sunday, 1890. The dedication of the church, however, did not take place that Sunday, but on a subsequent occasion, when the Bishop blessed the new edifice formally and named it after St. Ann.

Including Barker, Neihart and San Coulee, the Catholics of

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the district are reckoned at one thousand in round figures. It is now their good fortune to have a resident priest ministering to their spiritual wants, Father J. J. Dols, recently transferred to this new field from Dillon.

The Sisters of Providence are preparing to locate in Great Falls, where it is their intention to erect and conduct an up-to-date hospital, suitable and commodious buildings for the purpose being under actual construction. There can be no doubt that it will be a valuable asset, and an additional factor of the town's

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advancement, by bringing in its train care, relief, comfort and many another blessing in behalf of the suffering members of the community. For fortunate, indeed, are all new communities having some such benevolent and religious establishment in their midst. Its erection coinciding with the celebration of the fourth centenary of America's discovery, the institution is to be known as Columbus Hospital, after the name of the great discoverer.

And with this we leave Great Falls and the whole of northern Montana and return to the local history of the Helena Mission and its dependencies.