Qualla: St. Peter's Mission

St. Peter's Mission: Introduction

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Mary Fields cursed, smoked cigars, drank whiskey, carried a loaded pistol, and once fought a duel with a man who insulted her in Helena. She was also, in 1895, helping run a Catholic mission for Native American children in the Montana wilderness. The story of St. Peter's Mission - a collection of log cabins, stone schools, and a wooden 'opera house' on Birch Creek west of Cascade - is filled with such contradictions. Here, Jesuit priests who had traveled with nomadic Blackfeet bands built boarding schools. Ursuline nuns from Ohio established themselves on the frontier. Louis Riel, the Metis leader who would later be hanged as a traitor in Canada, taught mathematics to children. And the woman they called 'Stagecoach Mary,' an African American former slave, became an unlikely fixture of mission life.

Read more: St. Peter's Mission on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

St. Peter's Mission: The Wandering Mission

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Montanabw, CC BY-SA 4.0. St. Peter's Mission had no fixed address for its first two decades. The Jesuits established it in 1859 at Priest Butte on the Teton River, near present-day Choteau. When a local herder was killed by Blackfeet within sight of the mission in April 1860, the priests moved downstream...

Read more: St. Peter's Mission on Qualla

Image: Montanabw | CC BY-SA 4.0

St. Peter's Mission: The Ursulines Arrive

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Bishop Jean-Baptiste Brondel invited the Ursuline order to join the Jesuits at St. Peter's in January 1884. Mother Mary Amadeus, born Sarah Therese Dunne in Ohio, led five nuns to Montana that October. The Jesuits gave them $200 in provisions, some cows, wagons, and a farm - and ...

Read more: St. Peter's Mission on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

St. Peter's Mission: Louis Riel's Brief Refuge

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. In 1883, Father Joseph Damiani offered a teaching position to a controversial figure: Louis Riel, the Metis leader who had led resistance movements against Canadian expansion. Riel, his wife Marguerite, and their son Jean-Louis had been living with nomadic Metis bands. With Margu...

Read more: St. Peter's Mission on Qualla

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

St. Peter's Mission: Rise and Fall

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim1965, CC BY-SA 3.0. The mission grew into an impressive complex. A four-story stone boys' school with a mansard roof rose in 1887. Philadelphia heiress Katharine Drexel - later canonized as a saint - donated $5,000 for a three-story stone convent completed in 1892. An 'opera house' for musical perfo...

Read more: St. Peter's Mission on Qualla

Image: Tim1965 | CC BY-SA 3.0