Pioneer Bishops of Oregon

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Oregon up to 1900.  For more information about Oregon, see my blog of July 8, 2017.

Spanish and English explorers sailed along the Oregon Coast as early as 1543, but it would take over 200 years for Europeans to become interested in Oregon.  The English Captain James Cook came to Oregon in 1778 and purchased furs from the Native Americans living along the coast.  His return to England opened up Oregon for commercial exploitation.  The American Captain Robert Gray “discovered” the Columbia River in 1792 and the Lewis and Clark expedition came to Oregon during 1805-1806.  The first commercial post was established at Astoria by the American Fur Company in 1811.  Control of the Oregon Country would be disputed by the British and Americans for the next 37 years.

A few Americans settled in Oregon in the mid-1830s and a provisional government was established at Oregon City—Oregon’s first permanent non-Native American settlement—in 1843.  The Americans and the British eventually resolved their dispute over Oregon—in the Americans favor—and Oregon was organized as a Territory in 1848 and entered the Union as the 33rd State in 1859.

Canadian fur traders and other Catholics had settled in the Willamette Valley and in 1834 petitioned a Canadian bishop to send them a priest.  The bishop sent Fathers Francis Blanchet and Modeste Demers who arrived in Oregon in 1838.  The first Mass in Oregon was said at St. Paul, about 20 miles north of Salem, on January 6, 1839.  Other priests followed, including the Jesuit Father Peter De Smet, who brought the Faith to the Flathead and Nez Perce tribes.  Pope Gregory XVI created the Vicariate Apostolic of Oregon City in 1843 with Blanchet as the Vicar Apostolic.  Pope Pius IX created the Province of Oregon City in 1846, making Oregon City an archdiocese—the second in the United States.  The name would be changed to the Archdiocese of Portland in 1928.  Pope Leo XIII created the Diocese of Baker City in 1903 to serve eastern Oregon—its name was changed to Baker in 1952.

Francis N. Blanchet, the “Apostle of Oregon,” was born in Quebec in 1795 and was ordained a priest there in 1819.  He spent the next two decades working in Quebec and New Brunswick, where he learned to speak English.  He was sent to the Pacific Northwest in 1838, accompanied by another priest and some nuns, to serve the few Catholics (mostly French-Canadian) in the area (which included what is now the Northwestern United States, Alaska, and part of western Canada) and to evangelize the Native Americans.  Blanchet was appointed the first Vicar Apostolic of the Oregon Territory in 1843, although Oregon was so remote in those days, that it took almost a year for news of this appointment to reach Blanchet.  He left Oregon in November 1844 to travel to Montreal to be consecrated as bishop—a trip that took him by steamer to Hawaii, around Cape Horn, to England.  He then took another ship to Boston and a train to Montreal arriving in July 1845.  Blanchet than left for Europe to recruit priests and other religious and secure funding for the Church in Oregon.  He did not return to Oregon until August 1847 accompanied by 8 priests and 13 religious brothers and sisters.  In 1846, during Blanchet’s travels, Pope Pius IX appointed him Archbishop of Oregon City, Oregon (which is today a suburb of Portland).  The Archdiocese of Oregon City, now the Archdiocese of Portland, is the second oldest archdiocese in the United States.

During his years as a bishop, Blanchet devised a system of signs and notations to teach the Faith to the Native Americans.  He protested the U.S. Government’s policy of placing Catholic missions under Protestant control.  He also faced a financial crisis brought about by the end of the California gold rush.  He held the first Provincial Council in 1848 and attended councils in Baltimore and the First Vatican Council.  He established many churches, schools, and other Catholic institutions throughout Oregon, and established a diocesan newspaper in 1870.  He moved his residence to Portland in 1862 and retired in 1880.  Blanchet died in 1883. 

Charles J. Seghers was born in Belgium in 1839 and ordained a priest there in 1863. Later that year, he arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, and spent the next ten years serving the Church as pastor and missionary.  Seghers suffered from poor health throughout his life and almost died of tuberculosis in 1868.  He was appointed Bishop of what is now the Diocese of Victoria in 1873—he was at that time the youngest bishop in North America.  Soon after his appointment, he went to Alaska, which was then part of his Diocese, where he established and visited missions to the Native people.  Much to his dismay, he was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Oregon City in 1878 and became Archbishop upon Blanchet’s retirement in 1880.  

Archbishop Seghers traveled to parishes and missions throughout Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, despite his continued poor health.  He was noted as a skilled preacher and musician.  He established a Catholic school system and brought in members of the Benedictine Order to establish Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon.  He increased the number of churches and schools and encouraged his priests to make their opinions known.  He resigned as Archbishop in 1884 and returned to Vancouver Island so that he could go back to his beloved Alaska.  Seghers, later to be known as the Apostle of Alaska, made his fifth and last trip there in 1886, during which time he was shot and killed by a mentally deranged member of his party.

William H. Gross was born in Baltimore in 1837—his father was of German ancestry and his mother of Irish ancestry.  He enrolled in a seminary in Ellicott City, Maryland, at the age of 13, but returned to work in his father’s store in 1853 after the seminary decided he was not suited to become a priest.  He thought about becoming a sailor, but in 1857 joined the Redemptorists.  He was ordained a priest in 1863.  Gross ministered to wounded Union soldiers in Annapolis and to Confederate prisoners-of-war as well as freed African Americans.  He joined a Redemptorist mission band and served at missions in Maryland, New York, Florida, and Georgia before he became ill.  He regained his health and served in New York and in Boston.  He was appointed the fifth Bishop of Savannah in 1873 and became the youngest bishop in the United States.  Gross was named Archbishop of Oregon City, Oregon, in 1885.

Archbishop Gross was the first American-born bishop in the Far West.  As Archbishop, he established a religious order that has become the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon.  He also invited other religious orders to the Archdiocese to establish churches, schools, a maternity home, and a home for the aged.  He dedicated the third Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland and established a seminary and a Catholic newspaper.  He traveled throughout the Archdiocese by train, horseback, and on foot.  He died in 1898 in Baltimore after giving a retreat in Annapolis, Maryland.

Alexander Christie was born in Vermont in 1848 and moved with his family to Wisconsin and then to Minnesota.  After attending seminary in Montreal, Christie was ordained a priest for the Diocese of St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1877.  He served at parishes in Minnesota, most in Minneapolis, until 1898 when he was named Bishop of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  The following year he was named Archbishop of Oregon City. 

Archbishop Christie was an advocate of Catholic education.  He helped establish the University of Portland (then called Columbia University) in 1901 and took on the Oregon government.  The Oregon legislature passed a law in 1922 that required all children to attend public school.  The archbishop and others fought this measure before and after it became law and the Supreme Court of the United States declared the law unconstitutional in 1925.  Christie also introduced a novel way of bringing the Church to the people by buying two chapel cars—railroad cars converted to rolling chapels.  The size of his archdiocese led him to ask the Vatican to create the Diocese of Baker City, which was done in 1903.  Christie was also known as an eloquent speaker.  He died in 1925.