For almost 50 years the Sun River Valley Historical Society has undertaken the preservation and restoration of Fort Shaw (1867-1891), one of the most important federal sites in the west. When I first met and talked with the group in 1984 during the state historic preservation planning process, efforts were just underway, focused on the officers duplex, the wash house, and bakery.
Officers duplex
Now I would like to focus on achievements of the last 10 years since the last visit in 2013. I have posted earlier about how the society has restored the cemetery. This post is about the regimental officers quarters, where restoration began with repairing the historic adobe walls in 2014 and continued with a comprehensive interior restoration over the next several years.
Commanding Officers quarters
While the first restored building serves as a general history exhibit about the fort and immediate region, the society restored the Commanding Officers quarters as a period historic building.
Dining roomParlor
Within the period objects found in each room, the society also empathizes a “First Lady” theme, adding a strong historic textiles collection to the museum.
Restored interior doors and floorsRestored staircase and flooring
The society took care with the kitchen and also addressed the presence of Chinese cooks at the property. The federal census of 1880 records 5 Chinese men at Fort Shaw. A letter from 1887 documents that Ah Wai was employed as a cook for the private company that operated the post’s mess hall and store. The Fort Shaw Indian School superintendent, who may have resided in this building, hired Joe Ling as a cook in 1898.
A bedstead for an unidentified Chinese cook at Fort Shaw is located within the pantry of the building Bedrooms arranged in the second floor—note the massive chimney flue of adobe brick.Desk within officer’s bedroomCentral hall restoration, first floor
My initial impression is that the many period objects are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing is that the furnishings make the place “come alive” and creates ample opportunities for storytelling about the inhabitants. It reinforces the Victorian era that the fort was part of—and the storyline of military families in the west. The curse is that the rooms may have too many objects—and few that are directly tied to the property. Do overfurnished interiors overwhelm the visitors visually—it is too much to take in?
Such is the challenge of the period room historic house museum. If the past here is any indication, the preservation of Fort Shaw is far from over—I look forward to future visits.
July 1, 1905, the Havre Plaindealer reported that K. K. Devlin had donated three acres south of the new city reservoir for a Catholic cemetery, eventually named Calvary Cemetery. The newspaper said that engineers platted the ground on June 28, and that the first internment, the child of Joseph Gussenhoven, had been buried in the afternoon. The paper proclaimed that “The site selected is an ideal spot for a cemetery. The land slopes gently from the city reservoir to the south and east and can all be irrigated nicely from the reservoir. . . The lots will all be larger than the lots in the old cemetery [Mount Hope] thus affording ample room for trees and shrubs.”
Calvary Cemetery, May 2023
One of the engineers had already recommended to the Mount Hope Cemetery Association to secure a “cemetery site for the city adjoining the present site selected by the Catholic people. The surroundings are naturelly [sic] most beautiful. It is close to the city and at the same time in a quiet and secluded spot and when the grounds are sown to grass, and trees and shrubs adorn the driveways and walks, it will be the most beautiful burial place in the state.” Plus the city engineer added, the grounds “can be irrigated and beautified as a nominal cost.”
The newspaper closed with what could be considered the epitaph for the old city cemetery: “The expense incurred and improving the old cemetery was necessary but to beautify the place requires water and the expense of obtaining it would be beyond the reach of the city for some years to come.”
The news upset many citizens since the city had just made the effort to upgrade Mount Hope. Two weeks after the first burial at Calvary, the Havre cemetery committee reinspected Mount Hope and “returned more fully convinced than ever that the present site could be sufficiently watered and beautified at slight expense by the driving of a new points similar to those that have been so successful in the dry well system of the waterworks and the pumping of water by use of a windmill.” The committee counted 150 graves at Mount Hope and reported that the relatives of the dead did not want the bodies moved. “Efforts to raise water will at least be made before there will be any further consideration of removal,” according to the Havre Herald of July 14, 1905.
The tone was different by the fall. The Havre Herald of November 3, 1905, recorded that “the board of trustees of Mount Hope cemetery” authorized that the cemetery be put “in good shape,” with repaired fences, walks, and drives. But the newspaper also reported that “Negotiations are under way for the purchase of land for a new cemetery adjoining the Catholic grounds.” That cemetery is the present Highland Cemetery.
From 1905-1906 numerous burials continued at Mount Hope despite the controversy over its future. The 3 year old Margie Kaepernick was buried on July 4, 1905.
Kaepernick marker, 1905
Marian Munger and Mary Lawler were interred, respectively, in September and October. Popular card dealer P. J. “Jack Flynn” was buried about a week before Christmas in 1905. His death even brought about an ode from a friend published in the Havre Herald on February 2, 1906.
The city continued to hold its Memorial Day commemoration at Mount Hope in 1906. A detail from Ft. Assinniboine led the parade, which began at the corner of Second Street and Third Avenue, winding its way through Havre before reaching the Mount Hope Cemetery. Following the U.S. Army soldiers were: the Citizens band of Havre, Civil War veterans, Spanish-American veterans, Relief corps, Clergymen, City officials, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Eagles, Great Northern band, Shop men, and Labor unions.
Yet as Highland Cemetery opened in 1906, joining its neighbor the Catholic Calvary Cemetery, the number of burials at Mount Hope Cemetery declined, judging from accounts published in the local newspapers. George Barrington, the son of a veteran Great Northern Railroad engineer, died in a scuffle over a pistol outside of the Gold Bug saloon. He was buried in August 1908.
Members of the Masonic lodges in Havre and Glasgow turned out in numbers for the burial of Graham Williamson in March 1909. In May 1909, the Havre Monument Works installed a “handsome iron fence” made in Cincinnati OH, to mark the family plot of C. B. Van Alstine.
Van Alstine plot.
But then in May 1909 burials took place at Mount Hope Cemetery that may be considered the event that began the cemetery’s third historic period as the public burial ground for the unfortunate and marginalized in the city. Joseph Kirschweng escaped from the state asylum at Warm Springs returned to Hill Countyand killed his wife and children before committing suicide. All four were buried at Mount Hope.
In October, Rev. William Jackson, an African American minister who once served at Fort Assiniboine before becoming the pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Havre was buried at Mount Hope. Two years later, Martha Allen, a member of the AME church, was buried at Mount Hope with “one of the largest funeral corteges ever seen in the city.” (Havre Plaindealder, May 6, 1911). Two years later in August 1913 an abandoned baby found dead at city hall was buried at Mount Hope while in September William P. Farrow, “the stranger who was run over by a switch engine,” was buried at the cemetery (Havre Promoter, September 12, 1913). Victor Urkins, a Great Northern shop employee who allegedly committed suicide, was buried at Mount Hope in October 1913. Then in November came the funeral of Lucy Barnes, the wife of W. H. Barnes, a longtime resident and former domestic employee of Robert L. McCulloch at Fort Assiniboine, who also was African American and member of the AME Church. Most of the Japanese burials here took place from 1909 to 1920.
Burial accounts in the local newspapers about Mount Hope Cemetery become few and far between by the time of World War I. Three of the last stories were about Chinese residents: Wong Hoy Lang in 1921; N. Len, who was a gardener in 1922; and Lo Bow in 1924. Lo Bow “had lived in Havre for the past 30 years and was interested in the restaurant business at the time of his death.” (Havre Promoter, September 23, 1924). 1924 was the last year Mount Hope Cemetery would be mentioned in local newspapers for decades to come.
Over eight years ago I wrote about Phillipsburg as a Victorian mining town that had the “bones” to become a heritage tourism magnet along the Pintlar Scenic Route.
A booming weekday in Early June 2021
I was astounded at the number of people there in early June 2021 Thursday—not the weekend. Certainly the reputation of the Sweet Shop has grown, and grown. it was a busy place.
The other attraction was just under construction when I visited in 2012. The Phillipsburg Brewery, located in the late 1880s Sayres Building, is a great local micro brewery but you can taste its wares at restaurants statewide.
It’s an impressive adaptive reuse project for even the interior still retains a late 19th century. Not over built or over restored. Just re-energized to serve the town again.
There was a historic change from 2012 at the most unlikely place—the city cemetery. In 2012 I commented on the Victorian theme of several of the burial plots. It remains a remarkable place for that artwork in cast iron.
What was new? A commendable effort to address the silences of the past, in the case of Phillipsburg the large Chinese community who once lived there, worked there, and many prospered there during the mining boom of 1890-1920s.
The Granite County Historical Society in 2014 placed an interpretive marker in the cemetery to tell the story of the Chinese burial ground—located in a corner far from the Victorian center of the cemetery. We are now challenged to learn more about the names on the plaque and understand better their contributions.
The marker stands alone, as did the Chinese community in the era of racial segregation. The burials in this section range from the late 1880s to 1932. When were the headstones removed? I don’t know yet. But here is the place, several names are listed in primary sources. The next steps to end this silence await.
Its castellated Gothic gate standing silently a few blocks off of Montana Avenue south of downtown Helena, Forestvale Cemetery was established, at the end of a trolley line, in 1890. Montana has just become a state and Helena would soon enough become the permanent state capitol. The cemetery is the final resting place for town and state founders, pioneers, and the hundreds of workers, merchants, ranchers, and mechanics who shaped Helena’s history for over 100 years.
As the interpretive marker at the entrance cemetery notes, the cemetery came into public ownership in 1991 and has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It “was designated as a ‘Rural Park,’ a place to walk through Montana history.”
I would agree fully with that assertion. When I moved to Montana in 1981 my first abode was the Chessman Flats, a Victorian row house converted to apartments next to the Original Governor’s Mansion. I soon sought out Chessman’s final resting place, a sizable family plot shown above. I also discovered the graves of many famous late 19th century Montanans who I was just learning about. Samuel Hauser, the banker and early territorial governor, is buried here in another family plot.
The Fergus family was another name I recalled, especially with the proud designation of “Pioneers 1862”. Several markers, like that for the Ecler family below, note the final resting place of that first generation of settlers in the Big Sky Country. Nor is Hauser the
only governor to be buried here. Tim Babcock, a late 20th century governor, is buried with a marker that outlines the state of Montana, a fitting tribute.
The Nicolas family plot is one of the view, compared to the many at Benton Avenue Cemetery, to be outlined by a low metal fence. But Forestvale also has a handful of the distinctive hollowed press metal grave markers, like the flamboyant combination of classical and Victorian motifs of the Leslie family marker.
The pressed metal markers for the Leslies are just the beginning of the Victorian funerary art represented at Forestvale. As shown below there is the Richardsonian Romanesque grave house memorial for the Brown family and the cut-off limbs monument for Mary Love Stoakes, who died in 1889.
Beautiful statuary is reflected in the grave marker for Lillian Stoakes Cullen, who died in 1897.
But as is obvious in the background of the photographs above, the great majority of the grave markers at Forestvale are much more restrained, rectangular slabs of rock, respectful but minus the Victorian flourish.
At the rear of the cemetery markers are missing, or are small and unadorned. In the far corner is a later memorial to at least 22 children who died at the Montana Children’s Home and Hospital from 1917 to 1932.
The cemetery’s interpretive marker noted that at Forestvale “There was never any prejudice as to creed or color.” That is not true, outside the north fence of the cemetery is a grave yard for Chinese residents of Helena. This section is not well kept, and judging from the number of depressions, the number of people buried here could be sizable.
A summer 2018 story in the Helena Independent Record told of a new local effort to identify the number of graves in this section and to begin a process to right a wrong. Certainly the present condition is unacceptable, and hopefully steps will finally take place to place the “Chinese section” into the publicly owned and maintained cemetery.
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