Note 239 — OREGON MISSIONS AN OUTLINE SKETCH OF OREGON TERRITORY AND ITS MISSIONS (continued 2)

Right Reverend Mathias Loras was born in Lyons, France, in 1792. At the age of twenty-six he was ordained priest, and in 1829 came to the United States with Bishop Portier of Mobile. He served in the latter city until chosen (1839) first bishop of the newly-created see of Dubuque. Two years later he visited Europe for recruits, returning with two priests and four deacons. Bishop Loras died at Dubuque in 1858. In 1841 he sent Augustine Ravoux, one of the deacons who had reinforced his mission (ordained priest in 1840), to visit the traders in what is now Minnesota, and attempt the founding there of a Sioux mission; he was accompanied by Father Lucien Galtier. The latter built a chapel on the site of St. Paul, and gave the infant settlement its name, but in 1844 he was removed, dying in 1866 at Prairie du Chien. Father Ravoux made many missionary journeys over his wide territory—in 1845 to Fort Vermillion, in 1847 to Fort Pierre—and established an incipient Sioux mission. The withdrawal of Galtier made it imperative for Ravoux to devote himself to the care of the Catholic communicants of his wide diocese. See his Reminiscences and Memoirs (St. Paul, 1890). He was still living in 1904.—Ed.