The following clergymen are engaged in the missions of Oregon:—
Rev. Accolti, Michael, Rev. Nobili, John,
" De Smet, Peter J., " Point, Nicholas,
" De Vos, Peter, " Ravalli, Anthony,
" Hoecken, Adrian, " Vercruysse, Aloysius,
" Joset, Joseph, " Langlois, Anthony,
" Mengarini, Gregory, " Bolduc, John Baptist,
Who are all, with the exception of the last two, members of the Society of Jesus.
Archbishop Blanchet lately embarked from Europe, on his way to Oregon, with ten secular priests and two regulars, three lay brothers of the Society of Jesus, and seven female religious, for the wants of the mission. The total number of clergymen is twenty-six.
{49} Our information is not sufficiently detailed, to allow us to present the religious statistics of the different diocesses into which Oregon has been divided. We can only state in general, that since the year 1845, several new stations have been formed, new churches erected, and a large number of the aborigines of various tribes converted to the true faith.
The state of religion is as follows: there are eighteen
- [Footnote: in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and at Cape Breton; then he returned to parish work,
being arrested on a charge of participating in the Papineau revolt. No evidence to that effect being adduced, he was released, and was serving as canon of Montreal cathedral when called by his brother (1844) to be bishop of Walla Walla. After consecration as herein described, he set out for his diocese by way of St. Louis, first having declared his intention of becoming a citizen of the United States. Blanchet arrived on the Walla Walla September 5, 1847, shortly before the Whitman massacre. The Catholics were accused, doubtless unjustly, of having instigated that event, whose horrors they sought to mitigate. Blanchet was obliged to abandon the Cayuse mission, and in 1850 was made bishop of Nisqually, a diocese which later (1853) was co-extensive with Washington Territory. He established his headquarters at Vancouver, where was inaugurated a long litigation of the land claim of the church. Bishop Blanchet resigned in 1878, dying in retirement February 15, 1887.—Ed]
