Monsignor FRANCIS XAVIER PREFONTAINE, born in 1838 was a French Candian priest and missionary , an early
resident in the pioneer days of SEATTLE. He was a noted figure in the history of Seattle and the Puget Sound region of Washington State and Seattle's first
resident Catholic priest who built Seattle's first
Catholic church.
He was the
eldest of five children in a French-speaking, devout Catholic family. His early
education took place at parochial
schools and Nicolet
College and he went on to
study for the priesthood at the Grand Seminary of Montreal in 1859.
Within three weeks after his graduation and ordination on
November 20, 1863, he departed on a long sea voyage for Washington Territory in the United States via the Isthmus of
Panama. He was never to return to his native Quebec.
Father
Prefontaine's voyage brought him to Vancouver,
Washington, in February 1864. In Vancouver he served under Augustin-Magloire
Blanchet, Bishop of the Diocese of Nesqually (now the Archdiocese of Seattle) and
a fellow French Canadian. Father Prefontaine spoke no English, so during his
stay in Vancouver he studied English and also Chinook
jargon, a pidgin trade language of the Pacific
Northwest.
Bishop
Blanchet assigned the young priest to a ministry at Fort Stevens on
the Oregon side of the mouth of the Columbia
River. During his trip out to this rainy and
foggy coast, he lost his way and had to spend a night out in the
open. When he awoke in the morning he discovered that he had spent the night in
an Indian burial ground.
Upon
completion of his assignment at Fort Stevens,
Bishop Blanchet sent him to Steilacoom,
near Tacoma.
The bishop assigned him to such duties as saying Mass for
the nuns and parishioners, providing for the education of the children, and
supervising the building of several churches in the area. While he was in
Steilacoom he met and worked with Mother Joseph of
the Sisters of Providence. She
was a fellow French Canadian missionary, whose mission was also to build
churches and schools.
In 1865
Bishop Blanchet divided the Puget Sound region
of the diocese into two missions. He assigned Father Prefontaine to the
northern mission where he set up his headquarters in the only town that had a
Catholic church, Port Townsend (which sits across the waters north of Seattle). From
there he journeyed around the entire territory, travelling in canoes with the
Indians and sleeping in forests and on stream banks. He ministered to the Indians
and the white settlers, both Catholics and non-Catholics.
Fr.
Prefontaine first landed in Seattle,
at what is now Pioneer Square, and decided to set up
a ministry there. At that time Seattle
was a lumber-mill town
and had only about 600 residents. Father Prefontaine counted only ten Catholics
in the town and only three attended the first Mass that he conducted.
Bishop
Blanchet warned him that Seattle
had little potential as a Catholic mission, but nevertheless, the bishop gave him
permission to establish a permanent parish there.
Father Prefontaine
rented a small two-room house at Third
Avenue and Yesler Way in Seattle for $6 per month to be used as a
church as well as his living quarters. He converted one room into a small
chapel so that he could conduct services there while working to raise funds to
build a church. He held his first Mass there on November 24, 1867.In order to
raise money for the church, he held fairs in various towns around the Puget
Sound area, including Seattle, Olympia, and Port Gamble, eventually raising $2,000. He
then purchased a plot of land near his house on Third Avenue and Washington Street and began construction
of a small church. He did most of the work himself, including clearing the land
and constructing the building.
The plot of
land that he purchased was heavily wooded and had to be cleared in order to
build the church.
Recalled
Father. Prefontaine in 1902:
I have
vivid recollection of the time we had clearing the land for the new church.
Every foot of it was covered with monster trees and dense underbrush. One giant
of the forest that we cut down I remember measured eight feet in diameter at
the butt and had roots which extended from one side of the block to the other
and which on the south drank in the waters of a little creek that ran down the
ravine on the north side of which the church was to stand. We were three months
in getting rid of the stumps and underbrush that remained after the trees were
felled. In clearing the ground we dug up three relics of the Indian War of
1856, one was a monstrous iron key which belonged to the quartermaster of the
sloop of war Decatur and
two government bayonets.
Father Prefontaine
began construction of the church in the winter of 1868–69 and the church was
completed and dedicated in the autumn of 1870.
The church was
small, measuring only 50′ × 25′. After
the church was completed, attendance at services increased rapidly and by 1882
the congregation of 300 had outgrown the small church.
So Father
Prefontaine once again set to work to remodel and enlarge the edifice at a cost
of $16,000. Only the belfry and spire of the old church were used in the
rebuilt church. The
new church was considerably larger with inside dimensions of 35′ × 120, space
for 700 parishioners. It was dedicated in May 1883.
His home was in the basement of the church, where he lived for more than 20
years.
In 1876 Father
Prefontaine secured a contract from King County to care for the sick. He
purchased an old soap factory at Fifth
Avenue and Madison Street and persuaded the Sisters of Providence to
come to Seattle
and establish a hospital there.
In 1880 he
asked the Sisters of the Holy Names to set up Catholic education for
the children of Seattle.
He purchased a plot of land at Second
Avenue and Seneca Street for $6,800, and in
that year the order established the Holy Names Academy at that location. In his
final years he served as chaplain at the academy, which is still in
operation in Seattle. (Our
Mother Martina attended this school many years later).
By 1900 Father
Prefontaine's health was declining, so his niece Marie Rose Pauze came to live
with him and tend to him. He retired in 1903 and purchased a roomy, three-story
house on Capitol Hill near Volunteer
Park and enjoyed reading from his large library there.
Father
Prefontaine was a secular priest, which meant that he had not
taken a vow of poverty. Thus he was able to accumulate property and wealth. His
niece once stated that he had a "sound head for business" and
"expensive tastes." Over the years he bought and sold numerous
properties and accumulated a comfortable fortune.
When
he died in 1909, at the age of 70, he left an estate worth over $33,000, which
was a considerable sum of money in the early 20th century.
Judging by
the scrapbook of collected stories told about him, Father Prefontaine was one of
Seattle’s more
beloved pioneers. C.T. Conover, himself a pioneer, as well as longtime and
often-quoted Seattle Times correspondent, described Father Prefontaine as,
“large, ruddy, genial and jovial with a liking for his fellow man.”
His relaxed
candor included a taste for expensive cigars, whiskey and real estate. His reputation
as a fine cook mixed well with his conviviality.
The Catholic Church of our region owes much to this little known missionary: Churches, schools and hospitals.
2nd
image: Bishop Augustin-Magloire Blanchet
