CHAPTER XXII.

DEPENDENCIES OF THE HELENA MISSION. BOULDER AND THREE FORKS.

Among the earlier dependencies of the Helena church, are the Missouri Valley and the Boulder Valley settlements. We have spoken of the former already. The Boulder Valley settlement also contains an industrious and thriving community of ranchers and farmers, who are likewise mostly Catholics. It was one of the first agricultural centers to spring up east of the main Range, and list some forty miles south of Helena, whence it has been attended more or less regularly.

The little church, whose picture is shown herewith, was built by Father Venneman, in 1880-81, the site for it having been donated by Michael Quinn. It is named for St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, and lies about the center of the valley.

As we write, another church or chapel is being constructed at Boulder City, a new and promising town at the upper end of the valley and since some time the seat of Jefferson county. Claney, Jefferson City, with comet and Gregory, two mining camps up in the mountains, but comparatively near, are also among the old-time settlements of the district. Wickes, Basin, Woodville, with Elkhorn, are all newer settlements.

Boulder will ever enjoy the privilege of having been one of the places where Christianity was first preached and the holy sacrifice of the Mass first offered in Montana. As related in Part I. Father P. J. De Smet, coming over from the Big Hole basin with the Flat Head Indians in the summer of 1840, tarried a number of days with them at the lower end of the valley and presumably on what is known as Jefferson Island.

Three Forks, in the vicinity of what became known for a time as Gallatin City, and close to the historical spot where Father De Smet parted with his Flat Head neophytes on his first journey

Page 441

to our mountains, was the third dependency to have a chapel. It was erected b y Father Guidi, who had now returned for a while to Helena. The site, consisting of half a block, was donated by a corporation of non-Catholics who, besides, contributed $200 in cash toward the building of the church.

Dr. William Tracy, so well known today as a kindly gentleman and leading physician, resided at the time in Three Forks and though not a Catholic, served on the committee chosen for the building of the church, proving himself one of its most efficient members. The chapel was blessed and named after the Holy Family by Bishop Brondel, July 25, 1886.

Bozeman and White Sulphur Springs.

Next in order is Bozeman, 98 miles from Helena by state and one of the oldest and prettiest town-sites in the state. It lies at the head had of a fertile valley which has been named very appropriately "Montana's Granary." It has today a population of 2,500 souls and is the seat of Gallatin County, somehow, the proportion of Catholics has always been less here than in other parts of Montana. Nevertheless, some of the best Catholic families live in this district, embracing the two Gallatins and Middle Creek. Fort Ellis, established in 1867, but quite recently abandoned, stood about four miles east of the town.

Steps toward the erection of a church in Bozeman were taken as early as 1879, and two whole blocks for the purpose were offered by a non-Catholic gentleman to the place. The ground, meant to e a gift to further the cause of religion, lay between the present railroad depot and the business part of town. It would have been a very good site whereon to build the church, but the misrepresentations made to the Superior by someone badly informed, led to its non-acceptance.

In 1880, the writer received instructions to go over to Bozeman and look up another church location. He did so, spending several weeks there for that purpose. He failed, however, both because of the small number of Catholics in the town and because the previous offer had been declined.

But what he had failed to so was accomplished later on by others, namely, by Father Guidi and the Rev. C. Pauwelyn, who gave to Bozeman the present church. The former commenced it, while the latter completed it. The site consists of four lots

Page 442

and was donated by Walter Cooper. The Ordinary blessed the new church August 29, 1886, naming it after Our lady of the Most Holy Rosary.

In the latter part of August, 1889, the Rev. Amatus R. Coopman was assigned to Bozeman as Pastor of the place and its dependencies. He is an active and energetic worker from Sweveghem, West Flanders, Belgium, where he was born April 21, 1863. After his Latin studies he entered the American College at Louvain, where June 29, 1888, he received priestly orders and whence he came to Montana, reaching Helena on the 13^th of the following September.

Up to the time of his appointment to Bozeman, the Rev. A. V. Coopman remained attached to the Cathedral whence he visited, on his special missionary duty, several outlying settlements. When he was charged to Bozeman the two Gallatins, three Forks, and other places, first visited from Helena, became also part of his field.

White Sulphur Springs, which for years had been attended from Helena, passed likewise at this date to his care and soon felt the good effects of Father Coopman's zeal and efficiency. Dr. Wm. Parberry, a lone-time resident of the place, though not a Catholic, has donated some years before a site for a Catholic church, It took but a short time for Father Coopman to have a church under construction. The chapel has since been completed and named after St. Bartholomew.

White Sulphur Springs is a picturesque mountain town of some 500 inhabitants and owing to the healing properties of its mineral springs whence it take its name, promises to be in the near future one of the best health resorts in the Northwest. A great drawback to its advancement has been, so are, its remoteness from other centers of population and the difficulty of reaching it, the spot being accessible only by the roughest kind of mountain roads.

Toward the end of August, 1891, Father Coopman was transferred to Livingston, and now Bozeman fell to the care of Father Lambaere. Soon after, however, the latter passed over to the west side and Bozeman district became part of the new district of Livingston, whence it was to be attended for the time being and until some better arrangements could be made for the Boze-

Page 443

man community. Likewise, White Sulphur Springs was not again to be attended from Helena.

The one to whose care the place last mentioned has been committed is the Rev., Francis X. Batens of the Cathedral. This young missionary priest is a recent addition to the clergy of the Diocese and hails from Haasdonk, East Flanders, Belgium, where he was born December 11, 1868. After his humanities and the course of philosophy pursued in the Seminary of St. Nicholas, he entered the American college at Louvain in 1888, where he received the priesthood at the hands of the Rt. Rev. A. J. Glorieux, June 29, 1891. In the following September he left Belgium for Montana, arriving at Helena October 12th. Upon his arrival he was given the pastoral charge of White Sulphur Springs and also of the Boulder and Missouri Valley settlement and their dependencies where he is daily growing in the esteem and affection of al these scattered communities entrusted to his missionary zeal.

Marysville.

Among the earlier dependencies of Helena the nearest one where a chapel has been erected is Marysville, the center of a rich mining district, twenty miles northwest of Helena. The town which contains today about 1,000 souls, among them some three hundred Catholics, owes its existence to the famed Drum Lummon mine, discovered by Thomas Cruse about fifteen years ago, and which he sold in 1882 to an English Company for one and a half million dollars.

Thomas Cruse, the lucky finer of this bonanza, is a plain brainy son of Ireland, who, without sporting the sheep skin diploma of a university or college, is endowed, nevertheless, with more commonsense than falls to the share of ordinary mortals. The simple fact of his having leaped at one bound from the lowly place of hard manual labor to the very pinnacle of wealth, untouched by giddiness and without the least cooling off in the practice of his religion, is evidence enough of an uncommonly well balanced head and the soundness of his heart.

March 2, 1886, was a day long to be remembered in Helena. On that morning with unusual splendor and circumstances was celebrated an impressive ceremony in the Cathedral of the Sacred Hearts, witnessed by as many as could crowd into the sacred

Page 444

edifice. It was the marriage of Thomas Cruse and Margaret Carter, an estimable young woman of rare accomplishments and singular piety. But how short are life's joys here below! On the 27^th of the following December, Margaret Cruse had passed away. Not before, however, she left to her grieving husband a life part of herself, a sweet baby girl. May the child grow in age, wisdom and grace and may she never set greater store by the fortune than the faith, and piety of her parents.

Clustering around the Drum Lummon are several other mines well known for their richness which have supported smaller communities of miners for many years. They, too, have been visited from Helena.

The Marysville Church was built in 1886 by Father C. Pauwelyn, liberally assisted by the whole mining community irrespective of creed. Still, Annie Dillon, a pious and energetic young man of the place, is entitled to special credit, having proved herself the most efficient promoter of the work. The chapel stands on a site donated by Thomas Cruse, and was blessed by the Ordinary on September 29, 1886, under the title of Our Lady of Lourdes.

It has been enlarged and improved, is today one of the neatest, tidiest and best furnished chapels to be found in any outlying Mission of the Helena district. These improvements are all due to Father C. G. Follet who attended Marysville and to whom a more extended reference is made further on in out narrative.