Townsend, MT

Each morning, Joye Meyer steps outside and looks to the mountains and the small, white church above her lakefront ranch near Townsend, Mont.

“I just want to make sure it’s there,” the 72-year-old says of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church—better known today as the Canton Church.

Her grandfather, James Lynch, helped build the mission church 125 years ago, after he arrived from Ireland, and her family attended Mass there for the better part of a century.

“It’s a beacon,” says Meyer, who helped start the Canton Church Restoration Project in 1996. “The community, not just the Catholics, has supported us like you can’t believe.”

The historic landmark means a great deal to the agricultural community of Townsend, a town of 1,867 located between the Elkhorn and Big Belt mountain ranges. The first pioneers in Montana’s Canton Valley—representing many faiths—united in 1875-76 to build St. Joseph’s, the territory’s seventh church. Their descendents have twice helped save the quaint, colonial-style church—first from the waters that now cover their home valley, later from vandalism and deterioration.

The first threat was the enlarging of the nearby Canyon Ferry Dam, raising the reservoir to harness power and provide irrigation and recreation. The lake covers 4,000 acres and the original Canton village, a few miles north of Townsend.

The church was moved in 1952 to its present location and has become the focal point for the displaced community.

“There are people who feel they have lost an important part of their lives,” says Jim Holland, a Mormon and history teacher who is the project president. “They don’t want this part of their heritage forgotten.”

Many church members began attending services at the local Townsend parish, leaving the Canton church in silence except for an occasional baptism or wedding.

Meyer and her husband, Fred, cared for the decaying structure for four decades, then called on their neighbors for help in the 1990s. The project commenced with assistance from the Helena Catholic Diocese.

The community’s “deep roots” have driven the project’s success, says Nancy Marks Wiederholt, a Methodist whose great-grandfather, J.R. Marks, helped pay for building the church back in 1875.

When the steeple was removed for repairs, it could not be reinstalled because it was built with dimensional lumber—lumber true to size instead of shaved down for smoothness by one-half inch as modern lumber is (for instance, a modern 2-by-4 board is actually 1.5-by-3.5 inches). Such lumber is hard to find today, but Wiederholt’s husband was tearing down her great-grandfather’s barn, also made of dimensional lumber.

“So we used the lumber to rebuild the church,” she says. “It was as if my great-grandfather knew that when he built the barn it would be used to rebuild the church.”

Two fund-raisers raised $8,000, and local businesses contributed labor and materials.

The group’s goal is to restore the church structure and interior, as well as recover furnishings and artifacts. So far, the vestibule and steeple have been repaired, the wood siding replaced and painted, and the cedar-shingle roof replaced.

The German hand-carved oak altar and the original communion rail have been preserved. The original organ, crucifix, and vestments of the first priests have been located. Many artifacts will be displayed in an interpretive center the group hopes to open in 2003.

And Montana’s oldest standing Roman Catholic Church not built by a religious order has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a silent reminder of the spirit of the pioneers who settled the rich valley.

“The same type of pioneer spirit that worked together to build the church,” Holland says, “is still alive today in trying to preserve the building.”

Writer Marie Hoeffner ranches in Winston, Mont., with her husband and three children.

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