“Tall, blond, with blue eyes twinkling, he was always cheerful,” wrote Emma Magee when she furnished us a first-hand account of the crippled Missoula pioneer Charles Schafft. Emma attended a small school with her mixed blood siblings at what later became Missoula’s Hellgate Elementary in Grass Valley. At one time Read More
*[Reply to Charles Schafft’s “A Veritable History of Hellgate”[1]] 3/21/1874 – New North-West From Missoula. A Few Scattering Remarks. Editor New North-West: – We have been trying for some time to centralize our ideas of this growing city into a letter that shall be both pleasing and instructive, but we Read More
A Leaf From Early Montana History (2 Parts) Part 1 Establishing Missions – Traditions and Reminiscences of the Indians By Charles Schafft (The following paper was written in 1867, but has remained unpublished until the present time.) In the year 1740 (sic) [1840] Father De Smet, a missionary of the Read More
A Leaf From Early Montana History (2 Parts) Part 1 Establishing Missions – Traditions and Reminiscences of the Indians By Charles Schafft (The following paper was written in 1867, but has remained unpublished until the present time.) In the year 1740 (sic) [1840] Father De Smet, a missionary of the Read More
A Visit to “Whoop Up” in the Days Gone By – Charles Schafft A few years ago when a man suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from his accustomed haunts, and the inquiry was passed around, “What has become of him?” the answer and conclusion arrived at in some instances was, Read More
More Unraveling of Charles Schafft Charles Schafft Timeline 1838 – Born – Berlin, Germany 1849 – To N. Y. – worked for father 1853 – Joined U. S. Army – N. Y. 1854 – Crossed Panama Isthmus to Calif. 1855 – To Arizona & New Mex. 1856 – Fort Yuma Read More
More Unraveling of Charles Schafft The preface below appeared as the introduction to an article about Charles Schafft that appeared in ‘Montana The Magazine of Western History’ in its Winter, 1976 issue – “Sketch of a Life: Charles Schafft.” The author of the article was historian Vivian Paladin: In his Read More
My Experience as a Resurrectionist It was not the expected stipend from a medical student, or a reward to be offered by some sorrowing relative for a missing corpse, that caused me to become a desecrator of the grave. A phrenological society in New York had repeatedly applied to Read More
The First Arrest in Montana The first arrest within the limits of this Territory, made under shadow of legal authority, seems to have been made in December, 1861. The subject was slightly alluded to in the New Year’s number of the Benton Record under the head of “Reminiscences of Read More
An Incident of Travel by Charles Schafft Late in the month of October, 1864, two old chums and fortune hunters of the old California type, men who are always on the tramp and look-out for better prospects, came to the conclusion to emigrate to Montana and strike it “big.” Read More