Crawford County WI Archives History .....Pioneer Priests At Prairie Du Chien 
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Tina Vickery tsvickery@adelphia.net March 17, 2007, 2:46 am

Scanlan, P. L., Dr. "Pioneer Priests at Prairie Du Chien".
The Wisconsin Magazine of History December 1929: 97-106. 

PIONEER PRIESTS AT PRAIRIE DU CHIEN

Dr. P. L. Scanlan

In 1768 Pierre Gibault, a priest recently ordained by the
Bishop of Quebec, came from Mackinac by way of Green Bay, up
the Fox River, across the Portage, and down the Wisconsin on
his way to his mission in Illinois. He was accompanied by
his mother and sister, a group of traders, and his own
attendants. He had stopped at Mackinac some time. The last
record he made there on this visit was July 29, 1768.[1]
There is nothing more certain than the presence of white men
at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien at this time, but there is
nothing to show that Father Gibault tarried at either place.
He arrived in Illinois in September. His first record at
Kaskaskia was October 1, 1768.

The next priest to visit Prairie du Chien was Prior Marie
Joseph Dunand, a Trappist father who came to America to
assist a group of his order who arrived in 1805. They
stopped first in Pennsylvania, later in Kentucky, and then
at Monk's Mound, near Cahokia, where the order established a
large free school, using twenty buildings for school
purposes and for housing the group. When the Trappists
withdrew from the United States and went back to Europe in
1814, Father Dunand got permission to remain and do
missionary work. He established himself at Florissant, near
St. Louis, and from there made long trips, upon one of which
he reached Prairie du Chien, "having been invited" to come
probably by Nicolas Jarrot, as he had donated the land at
Monk's Mound to the Trappists and had a branch trading place
at Prairie du Chien.

The difficulties of Dunand's trip are set forth in a letter
written to the Bishop of St. Louis. Leaving St. Louis March
14, 1817, he encountered cold, floating ice, and snow, and
was in danger from the Indians. He hired six men at one
hundred francs a month, five to use oars and one to steer
the boat. It took thirty-four days to make the trip, and he
reached Prairie du Chien April 17. The following day-April
18, 1817—he said Mass here, perhaps the first ever
celebrated in Prairie du Chien.[2] It is probable this Mass
was said in old Fort Crawford, for he speaks of the welcome
given him by the commanding officer at that Fort.[3] It is
to Father Dunand that the credit of establishing the first
Catholic church at Prairie du Chien belongs, and he no doubt
called the parish St. John the Baptist, because it was known
as such in 1832, when Bishop Rosati commissioned Father
MacMahon to take charge of Galena and "St. John the Baptist
church at a place called Prairie du Chien."

This was Father Dunand's only visit. He stayed thirty days.
The dates of the first six baptisms are lost. A man who
examined the baptismal records in 1917 says the first and
second leaves stuck together and could not be separated.
They are no longer in the book. The first date now appearing
on the baptismal record—-April 23—shows that the fourteenth
person baptized was Caroline, daughter of Stephen Hempstead
and Louise Lefebre. The last record is number 135—a son of
J. B. Mayrand, baptized May 13, 1817. The first marriage was
April 29 between Denis Courtois and Marie Blondeau; and the
last marriage was on May 16, when the contracting parties
were Theodore Lupien and Therese Crely.

On May 6, 18179 Father Dunand laid out the cemetery, blessed
it, and erected a cross. As shown on the land claims map of
Prairie du Chien, it extended from what is still known as
Babin's near the St. Feriole Marais west of the road as far
north as the present Catholic cemetery. At present only a
few square rods of this cemetery remain. Here is to be seen
the grave of Joseph Rolette, one of the most prominent of
the early traders of Prairie du Chien. It is believed that
Father Dunand lost his life on his trip to Europe in 1820.

Father Francis Vincent Badin,[4] a brother of Stephen Badin,
the Apostle of Kentucky, visited Prairie du Chien during the
summer of 1827; and as the soldiers had been withdrawn,
Father Badin took up his residence, erected an altar, said
Mass and preached in the fort. He was there on June 28,
1827, when the Red Bird massacre took place at what is now
known as the Ackerly farm, about three miles southeast of
Prairie du Chien along United States highway eighteen, and
he buried Registre Gagnier on June 29, he "having been
killed about noon yesterday by the Indians." This was the
principal event in what is known as the Winnebago War of
1827. The baptismal records show that Father Badin baptized
Henry, a son of George Fisher and Genevieve Courville, on
May 29, 1827. On August 27, 1827, he recorded his eighty-
first baptism. This shows that he was here from May until
the last week of August.[5] He notes that he could hardly
say Mass in one spot in the old fort, as they moved him from
one place to another, while he had formerly used the hall of
the hospital for altar space.

Father Badin again visited Prairie du Chien in 1828. He
baptized on this visit Marguerite Louise Philip on August
10, 1828; and on June 10, 1829, he baptized three daughters
of Joseph Renville and Marie, a Sioux. This shows he was the
pastor at Prairie during the years 1827 to 1829. He was
under the bishops of Detroit and Cincinnati, and he
requested of the Bishop of St. Louis the faculties to attend
Galena, a request which was granted.[6]

Father Badin arranged to build a log church at Prairie du
Chien; in fact, a lot was offered and the men went into the
woods to cut the logs, but there is no certain record that a
church building was ever erected. Father Badin may have
named the parish St. John the Baptist, but we have no record
to show. When Father Mazzuchelli came in 1832, he did not
find a church, but in 1839 Bishop Loras speaks of a log
house where they said Mass.

In 1831, Father Joseph Anthony Lutz was assigned to the
Indian Missions, with Prairie du Chien as post headquarters.
The date he came to Prairie du Chien is not certain, but he
was here living in a tent half a mile from the Menominee
Indian camp on Rousseau Island in the Mississippi about half
a mile above old Fort Crawford when on the night of July 31,
1831, a band of Sauk and Fox warriors —somewhere between
eighty and a hundred—descended the Mississippi after
crossing from the Iowa side, and massacred twenty-five of
the Menominee. The men were nearly all drunk; the women had
taken the weapons away from the men lest they would hurt
someone. They were attacked while asleep, unarmed, and drunk
and became easy victims of the Foxes. This attack was
retribution for the one made in 1830 upon the Foxes just
below the mouth of the Wisconsin, when the Menominee and
Sioux ambushed and slaughtered Chief Kettle and ten of his
warriors. The United States made no effort to prosecute the
Sauk and Fox murders, and this massacre was one cause of the
Black Hawk War in 1832.

The account of the massacre that is credited to Father Lutz
differs as to time and place from the official report; and
as it lacks his direct evidence, we accept General Joseph
Street's official report, which names the night of July 31,
1831, and the place as mentioned above. The number of the
dead is given by several persons, but the official report
made on the morning of August first shows that the dead
Menominee were one war chief, three headmen, four warriors,
six women, and eleven children—twenty-five dead and six
wounded.

It is said that one Indian was found dead near the fence of
the Catholic cemetery, but with no marks of violence upon
him. This visit ended Father Lutz's efforts with Indians at
Prairie du Chien. He afterwards became vicar-general of St.
Louis and died many years later in Massachusetts.

In 1832 the Bishop of St. Louis sent Father John MacMahon to
Galena with instructions to visit Prairie du Chien, but
several things prevented him from ever reaching this place.
He was to come on a boat, and the boat had orders changed.
Then he sent word to the people of Prairie du Chien to send
him conveyance, and they did not. He was too poor to hire a
horse and guide to make the trip. Finally he learned that a
priest had been in Prairie du Chien in the fall of 1832, and
he was thus relieved of the necessity of making the trip. In
1833 he died at Galena of cholera.

Father Charles Fitzmaurice, his successor, died inside of
three months after his arrival at Galena in 1833. We find
that Father Badin, Father Lostra, and Father Piquart
baptized children at Galena in 1833.

Father Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli, O. P., was sent by Bishop
Fenwick to Green Bay and, learning of Prairie du Chien and
no doubt being invited, he set out from Green Bay in company
with Judge James D. Doty on horseback, coming by way of
Madison and arriving at Prairie du Chien on September 23,
1832, after being eight days on the road.[7] He said Mass in
a large vacant house and all the people came to hear him. He
said Mass, administered communion, baptized, and married
couples. As yet his record of this service has not been
found. He stayed there at this time fifteen days. He wrote
the Bishop of St. Louis from Prairie du Chien September 29,
1832, asking for the faculties to visit Galena, and
inquiring whether Prairie du Chien was under Bishop Rosati's
jurisdiction. He tried to gather the people to build a
church and not being overly pleased, he returned to Green
Bay by boat, up the Wisconsin, and down the Fox. On his next
visit to Prairie du Chien—February, 1835—he stayed until
after the middle of March. He wrote from Prairie du Chien
March 12, "I have been three months making arrangements to
leave here."

During his visit to Prairie du Chien in February, 1836, he
obtained from Strange Powers, the present site of St.
Gabriel's Church and cemetery. The deed is dated February
16, 1836, and signed by Samuel Mazzuchelli and H. L. Dousman
as witnesses. While stationed at Galena in 1836, Father
Mazzuchelli urged that the priests at Green Bay who belonged
to the Redemptorist order of Detroit take care of Prairie du
Chien,[8] but there is nothing to show that any priest
visited Prairie du Chien again until he did in February,
1837. It is probable he was the priest who changed the name
from St. John the Baptist to St. Gabriel's,[9] because we
find that Bishop Rosati in his report of the churches under
his charge in 1838 mentions St. Gabriel's at Prairie du
Chien. Bishop Loras was winterbound in St. Louis during
1838-39, not reaching Dubuque until April 21. No doubt he
then accepted the name when he laid the cornerstone.

The only records of baptisms performed by Father Mazzuchelli
are a few that were copied from the record of St. Michael's
Church, Galena, into that of St. Gabriel's. There are a few
marriage records also. As the records of Galena were
destroyed by fire, it may be that those of Prairie du Chien
for this period were also lost. It appears that Father
Mazzuchelli was at Prairie du Chien in February, 1837,
ministering to the savages and whites; he probably was here
some time during the year 1838, but no reference can be
found to substantiate it.

There is a record of his baptizing Hyacinth, son of Julien
and Magdaleine Lariviere in September, 1840, but the entry
is not in his handwriting. While he made the plans for St.
Gabriel's, secured funds, and directed the building of the
walls in 1840, he apparently did not act as pastor. He was
vicar-general of Dubuque under Bishop Loras from 1837 until
1852. He once refused to be made a bishop. To him Prairie du
Chien owes much in having a fine structure like St.
Gabriel's Church which is still one of the beautiful,
capacious churches of Wisconsin. It was a great surprise to
Bishop Henni of Milwaukee in 1844 upon his first visit here
to find such a permanent church. Prairie du Chien was a
contender for the Episcopal See of Wisconsin, and having the
largest substantial structure, would no doubt have won had
it not been that Dubuque was close by.

On July 21, 1839, Bishop Matthias Loras, assisted by Father
Anthony Pelamourgues, laid the corner stone of St. Gabriel's
Church as it stands today—the first permanent Catholic
church in Wisconsin. Its main part is fifty by a hundred
feet and twenty feet high. The stone walls two feet thick
are without a crack after ninety years. The church was
originally Gothic in style with one spire in front, but in
1908 Father Peter Becker remodeled it to imitate Grecian
architecture, adding a large sacristy on the rear, and two
towers in front. Bishop Loras left Prairie du Chien in care
of Father Pelamourgues and went to Dubuque in a hollow log
canoe with a half-breed for oarsman.

The next priest to come to Prairie du Chien was Father
Augustin Ravoux who was born in France and came to America
with Bishop Loras. The latter ordained him a priest January
5, 1840, and assigned him to Prairie du Chien where he was
stationed until September, 1841, when he was sent to the
Sioux Indians as a missionary. Again in the summer of 1843
he was sent to Prairie du Chien for three months by the
Bishop, to enable him to print a booklet containing the
catechism, some canticles, daily prayers, and short
instructions in the Sioux language. The press was loaned to
him by Father Cretin. Ravoux was later vicar-general of St.
Paul where he died January 17, 1906. From September, 1841,
until December, 1844, Father Joseph Cretin, later first
Bishop of St. Paul, was pastor of St. Gabriel's. In 1842
Bishop Loras baptized an Indian girl at Prairie du Chien. In
January, 1842, Father Remi Petiot was sent as an Indian
missionary to the upper Mississippi and made his
headquarters at Prairie du Chien where he recorded some
baptisms. He had been ordained shortly before.

Father Y. C. Perrodin, who had been at the Irish church at
Maquoketa, Iowa, came to Prairie du Chien in December, 1844,
and remained a short time. His period and that of Father
Florimont T. Bonduel, who came in the summer of 1844, seem
to overlap. The latter stayed until December, 1846. He kept
his records in Latin. Up to this time they had been in
French, except those made by Father Pelamourgues in 1839.

Father Jacques Caussa, another Frenchman, came in December,
1846, and was succeeded by Father Lucien Galtier in 1847. He
remained at Prairie until his death in 1866. During the
winter of 1849 and 1850, Father A. Godfroy acted as pastor.
It may be that Father Galtier was on vacation or sick.
Father Galtier was the first priest stationed on St. Peter's
River, and in 1842 he gave the name to the city of St. Paul.
He lies buried in front of the church at Prairie du Chien.
He was vicar-general under Bishop Henni of Milwaukee. He
left a diary which has been lost in recent years. Of all
these priests, perhaps the ablest, the most zealous, and the
one to whom Prairie du Chien owes the most was Father
Mazzuchelli, and yet he gives the credit to his successor,
Father Cretin, for making St. Gabriel's parish what it is.

The history of Prairie du Chien would be very incomplete
without the activities of the pioneer priests. Many useful
facts touching our early history would have been either lost
or ignored. Nowhere in the Wisconsin Historical Collections
is there mentioned the presence there for four months in
1827 of Father Badin, nor his share in the funeral of
Registre Gagnier, one of the victims of Red Bird's massacre.
Because of the self-effacement of Father Mazzuchelli his
trip on horseback over the Indian trail from Green Bay to
Prairie du Chien in September, 1832, has received scant
mention, while whole pages are given to other men of less
note.


[1] See Gibault's entries in the Mackinac Register,
translated in Wis. Hist. Colls., xviii, 487-488; xix, 73-75;
see also sketch in xviii, 292.

[2]Father Marest who was chaplain for Perrot in 1685 may
have said Mass at Fort St. Nicolas, erected somewhere near
what is now Prairie du Chien.

[3]The commandant for Fort Crawford at this time was Col.
Talbot Chambers; see a letter from him dated May 10, 1817,
in which he mentions a Roman Catholic priest; Wis. Hut.
Colls., xix, 458.

[4]Father Badin was a French priest born in Orleans.
Following to America his brother, Stephen Theodore Badin,
Vincent Badin was ordained at Cincinnati in 1825 and
assigned to the northern missions. He visited Green Bay in
1825 and was stationed at Detroit from 1832-40. He was
present at the death of Father Gabriel Richard in September,
1832, and was engaged with him in caring for cholera
patients. About 1842 Badin went to France and there died in
1852.

[5]See Badin's letters of this period in III. Oath. Hist.
Mag., ii, 185-186; an unpublished letter is found in Wis
Mss. 21B17.

[6]Photostatic reproduction of Father Badin's register at
Prairie du Chien is in the Wisconsin Historical Library.

[7]A letter in the Historical Library says Father
Mazzuchelli left Green Bay in company with Judge Doty. He
himself says he left September 13.

[8]Father Mazzuchelli is listed in the Catholic Almanac as
pastor of Prairie du Chien from 1832 to 1840. In reality he
spent more time at Galena and Dubuque than at Prairie du
Chien. In 1837 the diocese of Dubuque was founded with
Bishop Loras in charge and Father Mazzuchelli as vicar-
general.

[9]Mazzuchelli named the Galena church St. Michael
Archangel, that at Dubuque St. Raphael; he desired to name
the one at Davenport St. Gabriel but in this he was
disappointed. So it seems probable that he turned to the
Prairie du Chien church in order to assign the name of the
third archangel.

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