Old Missoula

Missoula First United Methodist Church cornerstone – Western Montana Fair book found in about 1896

An intriguing letter in French T. Ferguson’s ‘The Oracle’ column, February 7, 1938, sparked the short inquiry below into Missoula’s Methodist History. The letter appeared as follows:

What Can We Do With This?

Dear Sir: Could you help me to place a very old Western Montana Fair Book, where it would be most appreciated. Would you care to inquire through your paper?

My father, Mr. Flager, found it in the corner stone of the First Methodist Church building when it was wrecked about 1896. If it was placed there when the building was first built perhaps there would be some record of how old the book is.

Mr. F. L. Worden and C. P. Higgins had therein, an advertisement of a Dry Good store.

John B. Catlin, proprietor – advertises the Stevensville hotel.

Deschamps & Kern – a blacksmith shop.

McNamera & Sloan – a saloon. The choicest of liquors and cigars furnished “at one bit.” No books kept at this house.

Hayes & Plummer – a livery stable.

Bay & Mahoney – a saloon.

Jake Leiser – cigars, tobacco, pipes, etc.

C. A. & Neptune Lynch – livery stable. “Stylish turnouts always on hand.”

Alfred Cave – was general superintendent of all classes.

C. P Higgins was superintendent of horses.

William Kennedy was superintendent of cattle.

F. L. Worden was superintendent of poultry.

W. E. Bass was superintendent of miscellaneous.

J. R. Latimer was superintendent of Ladies’ department.

Mrs. W. E. Bass was superintendent of Home Manufactures.

If you get an idea for the disposal of this book kindly let me know about it.

Plains. – Mrs. F. M. Sewellen.

 

Whether Ferguson’s column found a home for this book is not clear, however a short look at the history of Missoula’s First United Methodist Church appears below.

 

The Sunday Missoulian on March 2, 1941 began a two-day history of Methodism in Missoula. This was in observance of seventy years of Methodist services in Missoula.

Rev Thomas C. Iliff was credited as the first resident Methodist pastor in Missoula, arriving in June of 1871. His first services were held at the courthouse in Missoula. He was also credited with starting Missoula’s first church “edifice,” with John Rankin as the builder, for the sum total of $2,300.[1] Reverend Iliff donated $500 of his own money toward the new church. This building was dedicated on September 15, 1872. Iliff’s early experiences included organizing a “company of soldiers” who were made ready to defend the members from marauding Blackfoot Indians. Iliff was a veteran of the Civil War, having enlisted in 1861. When word of this reached General Garfield, who was also in the area in 1872, he joked that he would notify his superiors of the incident. Iliff allegedly responded, “Kindly tell him, also, General, that in order to save souls of men I must first save their lives.” He left Missoula in 1874 and would later achieve wider fame as the Methodist Bishop of Utah.

Rev. Francis Riggin was in charge of a circuit that included Missoula that year. Rev. Hugh Duncan arrived in Missoula for a short time following Rev. Iliff, and from 1875 to 1879 a Rev. W. A. Hall served Missoula, as well as the Bitter Root. The famed Rev. William Van Orsdel, who started a church in Fort Benton in 1872, was active in organizing Methodist churches and conducting revivals throughout the territory during the same period. Three of these early ‘Circuit Riders’, Iliff, Riggin and Orsdel were sometimes known as a team that preached and ministered throughout a large swath of early Montana. Van Orsdel has been written about extensively and Iliff’s career is also well documented.

Reverend Riggin, however, was not so well known. He was the subject of a short article in the Missoulian in 1921 for the semi-centennial of Missoula’s Methodist church:

 

Veteran Minister Talks of Old Days

Rev. Francis Asbury Riggin, one of the first pastors of the Missoula Methodist Episcopal church, cannot attend the semi-centennial celebration of the coming week, but he has sent a letter that tells much of early Methodism in this part of the west and gives an adequate idea of the hardships of the pioneers of religion. The letter follows:

Mr. J. H. Inch,

Missoula, Mont.

Dear Brother Inch: Your favor of the 30^th ult. just received. I thank you very much for the kind invitation to be present on the occasion of the semi-centennial April 27 – May 1^st at Missoula, and to take part in the exercises. I regret I cannot attend.

In 1873, my second appointment in the Rocky Mountain conference, I was made preacher-in-charge of a circuit in southern Montana, to which was attached Deer Lodge and Missoula, and reaching also from the Three Forks of the Missouri to Pocatello, Idaho (Ft. Hall Indian reservation). Brother Van Orsdel was a local supply, Brother Winger of Pennsylvania, a transfer, failed to come. In 1877 I was made presiding elder of Butte district and preacher-in-charge of Butte. We had only one church on the district, the one at Missoula, with only one member, Sister W. H. H. Dickinson. I subsequently organized the Mountain View church with three members and secured the erection of the edifice, and later organized the other churches and secured the sites in Butte.

I would make my trips to Missoula and the Bitter Root, horseback, riding hundreds of miles, and organized the churches at Stuart, Anaconda, Philipsburg, New Chicago, and Drummond in the Deer Lodge valley, and at Carlton, Stevensville, Corvallis and Skalkaho in the Bitter Root. Brother Van Orsdel accompanied me on several occasions and together we held protracted meetings at all points.

My special work at Missoula was the prevention of the sale of our property there to the Protestant Episcopal church, when we had only one member to satisfy a claim of the Board of Church Extension of $800, and made a trip to Corinne, Utah, and thence to Philadelphia to dissuade Dr. A. J. Kynett, corresponding secretary from taking such action. This at my personal expense. We saved the property by the mission paying one-half and the board donating the other. The little society then built a parsonage, and with Brothers Wilder Nutting and Ed M. Tower, pastors, we secured two additional lots, taking the property to the corner, and under your noble pastors and enterprising congregation you have built the finest church and parsonage in the state. But your work is just begun. You will need, when you can get around t it, one of the Deaconess hospitals that I started in Montana in 1897 at Great Falls, to care for the thousands of students of your enlarged and elegantly endowed State University and your magnificent city.

The space between these lines is not great, but what might be written would fill volumes, if amplified. On my first trip, I left my first born with his mother when only 10 days old, and was gone two months, riding in the rains every day 400 or 500 miles. On some trips over the mountains, it was 60 degrees below zero. We were lost at times in the blizzards, but unlike a broken down auto, our faithful horses always brought us to a barnyard or a friendly home. In 50 years of pioneer ministry, I have seen the wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose. I am the only one left of the original conference. My compensation has been the outgrowth of the church and its institutions, a faithful and elegant companion, now gone before, children and grandchildren, and an indescribable joy in the promise of the future.

With great admiration and love for you and your noble people, I remain,

Yours fraternally, (Signed)

Francis Asbury Riggin,

Barr, Valley county, Montana, April 11, 1921.

 

The current church at 300 E. Main was built in 1911. Reverend Iliff gave a short presentation at its dedication.