Gibbon Enters the Bitterroot Valley
The Bitterroot Valley
During the first half of the 19th century, trappers, traders and missionaries came to the Bitterroot Valley. St. Mary’s Mission, built by Jesuits at Stevensville in 1841, was the first Roman Catholic mission in the Northwest. When the Jesuits left in 1850, the St. Mary’s Mission was sold to Major John Owen, who established a trading post and built an adobe “fort” near the site. Sixteen years later in 1866, the Jesuits returned and reestablished St. Mary’s Mission in its current location south of Fort Owen.
By 1865, the valley had 100 permanent white settlers although the area had not been officially opened to white settlement. Five years later, more than 300 whites inhabited the valley. Most settlers were growing produce to supply food to regional mining camps.
The settlers demanded more land for agriculture. They felt the remaining Bitterroot Salish should be removed from the valley and placed on the Jocko (Flathead) Reservation to the north.
Gibbon Enters the Bitterroot Valley
Colonel Gibbon and his command entered western Montana’s Bitterroot Valley on August 4. They camped near the present-day Pine Hollow Road southeast of Stevensville. As Colonel Gibbon moved up the valley, volunteer settlers, who were now manning the sod forts, joined Gibbon in pursuit of the Nez Perce. The settlers elected J. L. Humble of Corvallis and John Catlin of Skalkaho as company “captains.” Both were at first hesitant to join the chase. The Nez Perce Indians had kept their word and traveled through the valley without incident.
When we got to Sleeping Child Creek, I told Scott Sherrill that I thought we were doing wrong. The Indians had gone through the valley and had done just as they agreed to. I did not think that we had any right to follow them up and pick a fight … But what did these same settlers do when General Gibbon came along? They volunteered to go with him after the Indians, who only a few days before had allowed them to pass through their camp to Fort Owen without bloodshed.
– Alex Notes, settler
