Crawford County WI Archives Church Records.....St. Gabriel's Parish
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com October 27, 2007, 7:55 pm

        'NEW FRANCE' 
Prairie du Chien—The Indian Mission

   For a full hundred years following his discovery, the black-robed successors
of Marquette pass in review up and down the course of the two great rivers, the
Wisconsin and the Mississippi, pass and, in some instances, repass; but none
seems tempted to tarry for long at the spot made memorable by their
fellow-missionary. They came and saw, but looked for other fields to conquer.

  First came the great Hennepin in 1680, who in the company of Duluth made the
earliest recorded voyage up the Wisconsin. Close upon his heels followed the two
Jesuits, Marest and Pierson, in 1683. The former seems to have tarried long
enough to say the first .Mass ever offered on the site of the discovery.* The
turn of the century (1702) brought another 'black-robe,' Jean Mermet, who came
down the Wisconsin with St. Denis enroute to the Ohio River. Again two Jesuits,
in 1727, passed on their way with the first Sioux Company to establish the
Mission of St. Michael, the present site of Fontenac, Minnesota.

  Such is the paltry record of the first hundred years. With the recall of the
Jesuits in 1764 ended what may be termed the 'European' missions in New France;
for when the Jesuits returned, sixty years later, New France had become United
States territory.

  After the withdrawal of the Jesuits, Canada had endeavored to supply native
secular priests for the French Canadian settlements in the United States. There
is no record, however, that any Canadian missionary ever set foot on the French
Canadian settlement of Prairie du Chien.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

Centennial History of St. Gabriel's Parish
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN WISCONSIN
1836       1936
DR. P. L. SCANLAN, M. D.


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