Changes in federal funding for Native American parochial schools led the Jesuits to abandon St. Peter's Mission in 1898, but the Ursulines continued their educational efforts there.

The Ursulines closed the boys' school and refocused their educational efforts at the nearby town of Great Falls, Montana.

[3] In April 1859, Father Adrian Hoecken and Brother Vincent Magri established a mission at Priest Butte on the Teton River, on a site just southeast of the current town of Choteau, Montana.

[3] The Jesuits moved their mission to the Sun River, about 8 miles (13 km) upriver from Fort Shaw,[4] near what is now Simms, Montana.

They spent the year ministering in Fort Benton, and in 1862 were joined by Father Joseph Menetrey and Brother Lucian Agostino.

[6] When a local herder, John Fitzgerald, was killed by the Blackfeet within sight of the mission on April 6, the Jesuits decided to move again.

The small size of the establishment was not unusual, since St. Peter's Mission served only as a base of operations for the priests, most of whom traveled with nomadic bands of Blackfeet throughout the summer.

The mission moved in 1881 to its final location on Birch Creek, at a point 10.5 miles (16.9 km) west-northwest of Cascade, Montana.

With assistance from some of the Métis and, occasionally, soldiers from nearby Fort Shaw, the priests built a one-story rectangular chapel out of logs, which were stripped of bark and roughly squared off by hand.

The log cabins were separated from the chapel and moved south of it, and a one-story clapboard dormitory for priests and male students was built in their place.

[14] Father Palladino described the intended curriculum as reading, spelling, and writing, with enough basic mathematics to allow for simple business transactions to be undertaken without being cheated.

[15] In 1883, Father Joseph Damiani offered Métis leader Louis Riel a teaching position at St. Peter's Mission.

In December 1883, Riel began teaching English, French, mathematics, and training in a variety of practical manual skills (wood carving, metal working, leather making, and so on) to 22 to 25 Métis boys.

[17][18] Meanwhile, the new (and founding) Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena, Jean-Baptiste Brondel, invited the Ursuline religious order of women to join the Jesuits at St. Peter's Mission in January 1884.

A sister in the Toledo chapter, Mother Mary Amadeus (Sarah Therese Dunne),[a] led five Ursulines to St. Peter's in October.

For the next eight years, she helped the sisters with farming, constructing buildings, running the laundry, and driving the freight wagon to nearby Cascade.

[25] Known as "Stagecoach Mary," she cursed, smoked cigars, drank liquor, carried a loaded firearm, and fought anyone who gave her the slightest insult.

Amadeus repeatedly asked Mother Stanislaus, head of the Toledo chapterhouse (and who exercised authority over the Ursulines at St. Peter's), for more sisters to help with the work in Montana.

A three-story wood frame priests' residence with centrally placed square cupola was attached to the boys' school on the south.

At the request of Bishop Brondel, Father Damiani made the highly controversial decision in 1889 to segregate the Native American children.

[31] Nonetheless, both whites and Native Americans credited the school with providing a clean, safe, warm place to live; three meals a day; and an excellent education.

[33] In 1898, convinced that mission work in Montana was ending, Mother Amadeus petitioned Bishop Brondel for permission to travel to Alaska to found new Ursuline convents, but he denied her request.

These efforts bore fruit in 1888 when Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, heiress Katharine Drexel donated $5,000 to allow the nuns to build a convent and school.

St. Peter's Mission was one of the first schools to lose its federal funding, even though it had more than 100 girls in classes[44] and (just a short time earlier) 102 boys.

This mission, founded in the spring of 1886 by Father Damiani but not formally dedicated until October 25, 1890, was located on the Blackfeet reservation about 100 miles (160 km) north of St.

It still acted as a base of operations and a residence until May 1898, when Father Damiani (Superior of St. Peter's since 1892) and the remaining three Jesuit priests announced they would abandon the mission.

The primitive system of weights attached to her ankles (used as traction to keep the hip bones in place) did not work properly, and she walked with a severe limp and used a cane for the rest of her life.

[55] More positively, however, Mother St. Julien Aubrey, the Superior General of the Ursuline Union, visited St. Peter's Mission in June 1906.

A small sign by the side of the road marks the entrance gate to the site, and provides a limited history of St. Peter's Mission.

Some of the graves in the cemetery are quite tall and others are enclosed by a small, ornate iron fence, but many lie flush in the ground or hidden among the high grass.