SEATTLE'S PIONEER PRIEST

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