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, 9:27 pm

FATHER GALTIER—FOUNDER OF ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA

   The first pastor of St. Gabriel's to be appointed by Bishop Henni of
Milwaukee was the Rev. Lucien Galtier, since become famous as the founder of the
city of St. Paul, Minnesota. He succeeded Father Bonduel in 1847, after a lapse
of a few months during which a Father James Causse assumed charge of the parish.
St. Gabriel's was Father Galtier's third mission—and his last. For nineteen
years he spent himself for Prairie du Chien and its outlying missions, and died
at his post February 21, 1866. 

[Engraving of REVEREND L. GALTIER]

   From St. Paul, his first mission, Father Galtier had gone for.a brief visit
to Keokuk, Iowa, in 1844. The following two years he spent in his native France,
whence he had come to America in 1838 with Bishop Loras. It was on his return
from his trip abroad in 1847 that he took up his duties as pastor at Prairie du
Chien.

   Though the congregation of St. Gabriel's afforded him a goodly amount of
work, he found plenty to occupy him in caring for the outlying missions. Like
Father Mazzuchelli, he too was a builder, by choice as well as by instinct; but
unlike his predecessor at St. Gabriel's his specialty was not stone churches but
log chapels. Yet only on two occasions during his long career as pastor do we
find him away from his post at St. Gabriel's for any extended period. During one
of his missionary excursions in 1850 Father Anthony Godf ert took charge of the
parish. Again, in 1857, a Father Perrodin was assigned to St. Gabriel's for a
brief period, during which Father Galtier was away on a trip to Europe.

   It was at the time of this visit to Europe, that he presented at Rome his
reasons for the erection of a new diocese in Western Wisconsin. In a letter from
the Bishop of St. Louis to Father Galtier we are informed that the latter had
won his support for the cause to such an extent, that the Bishop had even
forwarded to the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda recommendations in favor of
Prairie du Chien as the See of the proposed diocese. Indeed, not long afterward,
it was rumored that Father Bonduel, the first resident pastor of St. Gabriel's,
had already been appointed bishop of Prairie du Chien.

   Ten years later, in a letter to Bishop Henni, we find, that Father Galtier,
then vicar-general of the diocese, continued to agitate for a division of the
Milwaukee diocese. That division, as we know, came two years after his death;
but LaCrosse, which he had suggested, not Prairie du Chien, became the episcopal
See for Western Wisconsin, 1868. At the time, the population of LaCrosse was
6,000, one-sixth of which was Catholic. Had Father Galtier lived, there is
little doubt that the choice of a bishop for the new diocese would have fallen
to him. Already in 1857, his name along with that of Father Perrodin had been
proposed for the then vacant Sees of St. Paul and Nebraska. In a word, Father
Galtier possessed, we are tempted to remark, everything that goes to the making
of a bishop— except the appointment. Once before, we had occasion to compare him
to Father Mazzuchelli; in yet another respect he resembled his great
predecessor: episcopal honors, in the providence of God, were not for him.

   Despite the large debt that hung heavily upon his parish, the progressive
pastor somehow managed in 1858 to install the Stations of the Cross at St.
Gabriel's church. Thus was brought to completion what Father Mazzuchelli had
begun eighteen years before—a fully-equipped Catholic church at Prairie du
Chien. Succeeding pastors might add to it, might make improvements upon it,
might even seek to modify its 'chaste Gothic' lines; but here was the original
St. Gabriel's rock-church complete.


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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