FATHER GALTIER AND THE CHAPEL OF ST. PAUL. By Courtesy of Edward A. Bromley, from his "Photographic History of Early St. Paul" (1901). THE CHAPEL OF ST. PAUL, AND THE BEGINNINGS BY REV. AMBROSE MCNULTY. The first Christian temple in what is now Minnesota was built by two Jesuit missionaries, Michael Guignas and Nicholas De Gonnor, at the French trading post, Fort Beauharnois, on or near the plot now occupied by Villa Maria convent, Frontenac. This log chapel was ready for use at the end of October, 1727. In October, 1841, Rev. Lucien Galtier erected the first Christian house of worship in the settlement destined to become St. Paul. This log chapel of St. Paul, on Bench street, was the second Catholic church in Minnesota, though for more than a year religious services were regularly held in dwellings at Fort Snelling and Mendota. In the interval between the time of Guignas and the day of Galtier, the fortunes of war had made profound changes in the political aspect of the new world and of the old world. In 1727, when Jesuit missionaries came to evangelize the Indians of the unknown Northwest, imperial France, mistress of Canada and of the Mississippi, Catholic France, nursery of missionaries for all pagan lands, had reached the zenith of her power and of her glory in North America. When Galtier, son though he was of war-scourged France, landed at Fort Snelling in 1840, he came as a citizen by choice of the new republic of the West, whose rising star of empire flashed a message of hope to the lovers of liberty throughout the world. *Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, December 8, 1902. : On first thought it may seem strange that about eighty years should have intervened between the abandonment of the Frontenac Indian mission and the inauguration of the Catholic Church in embryonic St. Paul. However, it must be borne in mind that the overthrow of France in the new world left Catholic missions in the Northwest unprotected and untenable, and that the tide of immigration to the upper Mississippi was necessarily held in abeyance while the young republic of the United States was struggling a second time with England for the independence and territory won in the Revolutionary war. In tracing the growth of St. Paul and Minnesota account must be taken of many agencies. Failure of crops and other misfortunes induced many of the Selkirk colonists on the Canadian border to seek homes in more propitious surroundings. Some of these refugees, following the Red river and the St. Peter or Minnesota, were among the first to settle about Fort Snelling. Soldiers of the fort, also, whose term of service had expired, took claims in the neighborhood. Soon straggling settlements began to form along the banks of the Mississippi. A cluster of cabins opposite the fort was called St. Peter's,-it has since become famous as Mendota. VISIT BY BISHOP LORAS IN 1839. When Bishop Loras, of Dubuque, in 1839, visited this part of his vast diocese, he estimated the number of Catholics at and about Fort Snelling at 185. His enumeration was probably far in excess of the number of actual residents. Mathias Loras came to America in response to an appeal of Bishop Portier, of Mobile, then in France asking for missionaries for his southern diocese. Father Loras labored faithfully for seven years in Alabama, rising to the office of Vicar General. In 1837 he was appointed bishop of the newly formed diocese of Dubuque, in which was comprised the territory of Iowa and all of Minnesota and the Dakotas between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. On his elevation to the bishopric of Dubuque, Bishop Loras in his turn immediately went to France in quest of priests for his distant diocese. Returning to America in the winter of 1838, he brought with him, among others, Joseph Cretin, A. Pelamourgues, Lucien Galtier, and Augustine Ravoux. He arrived in Dubuque April 19th, 1839. Two months later he was setting out for Fort Snelling. This visit is described in the following letter, written at Dubuque in July, 1839. I have just returned from St. Peter's [Mendota], where I made my second mission, or episcopal visitation. Though it lasted only a month, it has been crowned with success. I left Dubuque on the 23d of June, en board a large and magnificent steam vessel, and was accompanied by Father Pelamourgues and a young man who served as interpreter with the Sioux. After a successful voyage of some days along the superb Mississippi, we reached St. Peter's. Our arrival was a cause of-great joy to the Catholics, who had never before seen a priest or bishop in those remote regions. They manifested a great desire to assist at divine worship and to approach the sacraments of the Church. The wife of our host was baptized and confirmed; she subsequently received the sacrament of matrimony. The Catholics of St. Peter's amount to 185. fifty-six of whom we baptized, administered confirmation to eight, communion to thirty-three adults, and gave the nuptial blessing to four couples. Arrangements have been made for the construction of a church next summer, and a clergyman is to be sent when he is able to speak French (which is the language of the majority), English, and the Sioux. To facilitate the study of the latter we are to have at Dubuque this winter two young Sioux, who are to teach one or two of our young ecclesiastics. GALTIER, THE FIRST PRIEST. When navigation opened the following spring, Bishop Loras fulfilled his promise of sending a priest to Fort Snelling. The Rev. Lucien Galtier, one of the young levites brought from France, was selected for the upper Mississippi post. Father Galtier was a man of remarkable personality and power; he had the face of a Cæsar and the heart of a Madonna; in him strength and tenderness, culture and simplicity, met and mingled in the formation of a noble character. If he had remained in France, his talents and his virtues would have marked him for high honors, but he preferred the rugged lot and privations of pioneer life to the power and fame for which petty men strive. He served the missions of Mendota and St. Paul for four years, thence going directly to Keokuk, Iowa, and afterward to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where he labored zealously for the Master from 1849 until he was called to his reward in 1866. Such was Galtier, the founder of the chapel of St. Paul, from which our city received its name, about which our great metropolis grew as some medieval cathedral might lift its massive shoulders and huge frame about its lowly sanctuary. If some day the angel of history shall touch the mystic chords of memory in a grateful generation and a shaft shall rise towards heaven in commemoration of the builder of the first Christian temple of St. Paul, let it bear the simple legend: "Galtier, the Father of St. Paul." Father Galtier in his own modest style shall tell the story of his coming to Minnesota and of his labors in what was then the Ultima Thule of our young commonwealth. Your imagination will paint the wild and forbidding background of the picture sketched by his words, addressed to Bishop Loras from Prairie du Chien on the 14th day of January, 1864. On the 20th day of April, 1840, in the afternoon, a St. Louis steamboat, the first of the season, arrived at Dubuque, bound for St. Peter's and Fort Snelling. Right Reverend Dr. Loras immediately came to me and told me that he desired to send me towards the upper waters of the Mississippi. There was no St. Paul at that time; there was on the site of the present city but a single log house, occupied by a man named Phelan, and the steamboats never stopped there. The boat landed at the foot of Fort Snelling, then garrisoned by a few regular soldiers, under command of Major Plimpton. The sight of the fort, commanding from the elevated promontory the two rivers, the Mississippi and the St. Peter, pleased me; but the discovery which I soon made that there were only a few houses on the St. Peter side, and but two on the side of the fort, surrounded by a complete wilderness, without any signs of fields under tillage, gave me to understand that henceforth my mission and life must be a career of privation, hard trials, and suffering, and would require of me patience, labor, and resignation. I had before me, under my charge, a large territorial district, but few souls to watch over. I introduced myself to Mr. Campbell, a Scotch gentleman, the Indian interpreter, to whom I was recommended by the Bishop. At his house I received a kind welcome from his good Christian wife, a charitable, Catholic woman. For about a month I remained there as one of the family. But, although well treated by all the members of the house, I did not, while thus living, feel sufficiently free to discharge my pastoral duties, so I obtained a separate room for my own use and made of it a kitchen, a parlor, and a chapel. Out of some boards I built a little altar, which was open in time of service, and during the balance of the day was folded up and concealed by drapery. In that precarious and somewhat difficult position I continued for over a year. On the Fort Snelling side I had under my charge, besides some soldiers, six families-Resche, Papin, Quinn, Campbell, Bruce, and Resico; and on the St. Peter side, besides some unmarried men in the employ of the company, five families-Faribault, Martin, Lord, and two Turpins.. A circumstance rather bad in itself commenced to better my situation by procuring for me a new station and a change in my field of |