UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, cancel and precancelled stamp for Ravalli, MontanaFr. Antonio Ravalli, SJ was born in Ferrara, Italy, May 16, 1812. He entered the Society of Jesus about 1833. In response to Pierre De Smet's appeal for the American mission he came to Fort Vancouver, 5 August 1844, after an eight-month voyage. After a short stay at the mission of St. Paul on the Willamette River (Champoeg, Oregon), he joined Father Adrian Hoeck in the spring of 1845 at the mission of St. Ignatius among the Kalispel (Pend d'Oreille), on the upper Columbia River, Washington. Later he went to the Flathead Mission of St. Mary's on Bitterroot River, Montana, where he remained until the mission was temporarily abandoned on account of the hostile Blackfoot Indians in 1850. In 1854, he assumed charge of the Sacred Heart Mission among the Coeur d'Alenes of northern Idaho, but returned to the old mission of St. Mary's when it was reestablished in 1866 and there he remained until his death on 2 October 1884. Ravalli County, Montana, and the town of Ravalli in Lake County are named after him.
