Rev. Nicholas Stoltz Biography


	This biography appears on page 202 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				REV. NICHOLAS STOLTZ. 

	Rev. Nicholas Stoltz, pastor of St. Maurice church, near 
Florence, entered upon the active work of the priesthood in 1886. He 
was born in Luxembourg, December 11, 1859, a son of Peter and Margaret 
Stoltz. He was educated at Louvain University and in St. Francis, 
Seminary at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After pursuing the required literary, 
theological and philosophical courses he was ordained to the priesthood 
by Archbishop Heiss in 1886 for the Omaha diocese, including Nebraska, 
North and South Dakota and Wyoming. In these then wild countries Father 
Stoltz labored as a pioneer and endured many hardships and privations 
incident to work upon the frontier, making his visits on horseback, 
riding long distances across the country before the days of railroad 
building, visiting isolated Catholic families and ministering to the 
needs of the people of the faith wherever he could. For the past twenty 
years his labors have been confined to South Dakota, and in 1898 he 
went to the Black Hills, where he remained until 1907, when he came to 
Florence. 

	Father Stoltz holds membership in Black Hills Council, No. 703, 
K. C., at Deadwood, having been a charter member of that Council. He is 
devoted to the spiritual upbuilding and development of the state and is 
an ardent churchman, doing all in his power to promote the interests of 
Catholicism in South Dakota. His work has had far reaching effects and 
the churches under his care have grown numerically and spiritually.