In this monthly series, we’ll explore the history of the Catholic
Church in the Pacific Northwest from pioneer beginnings to the present
day. The series will highlight important places of faith in the
Northwest, the “holy ground” where the seeds of faith have been planted
in our midst. --
Corinna Laughlin
Part 6, March 8, 2020
BLANCHET A BISHOP

Archbishop Francis Norbert Blanchet (center), first Archbishop
of Oregon City. On the left is his brother, A. M. A. Blanchet,
first Bishop of Walla Walla, and on the right is Modeste Demers,
first Bishop of Vancouver Island. Photo from
oregonencyclopedia.org.
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Father F. N. Blanchet was certain of two things: that the Oregon country
needed a bishop, and that he was not the right person for the job. In
his view, the failure of the California missions was attributable to a
lack of bishops (a questionable reading of history, at best!) and thus
the Church would not thrive in Oregon without a resident bishop. In
urging his case to Archbishop Signay of Quebec, Blanchet also made it
clear that he did not consider himself a candidate. “I am already old,”
he wrote (Blanchet was 44 at the time). “My powers diminish; I am slow
at business and it is only by close application that I arrive at a
knowledge of anything; I have a treacherous memory; my vigor is gone; I
do not know English; I have never had a time to study due to the demands
of the ministry where I have always been busy.”
Archbishop Signay agreed that Oregon needed a bishop. Father DeSmet
seemed to be the most likely candidate, and his name appeared at the
head of the terna (a list of three potential candidates for episcopal
office). The American bishops, who took up the subject of the Oregon
country at the Fifth Provincial Council of Baltimore, agreed. They
preferred an American—even if he was a Jesuit!—to a Canadian like
Blanchet. But when their request went to Rome, the Jesuits’ Father
General flatly refused the appointment of any Jesuit priest as bishop.
All eyes then turned to Blanchet. On December 1, 1843, Pope Gregory XVI
appointed Blanchet ‘vicar apostolic’ of the Oregon territory. Signay
forwarded the news to Blanchet, telling him that if anyone was to blame,
it was DeSmet, for “the good Father… has worked harder than myself to
have [this dignity] conferred on you…. You can show your resentment over
it at your convenience.”
It was not until November 4, 1844 that word of his promotion reached
Blanchet in Oregon. He did not even need to open the letter to realize
what had happened: the letter came addressed to the “bishop elect”!
Though he had resisted the appointment, now that it was done, Blanchet
embraced it. He wrote his first pastoral letter and then departed for
Canada to receive episcopal consecration from Bishop Signay.
To us, Blanchet’s route to Quebec seems fantastically roundabout, but at
the time it was both the fastest and the safest route. He travelled by
ship, sailing on the Columbia from Astoria in Oregon on December 5. The
ship stopped in Honolulu where Blanchet was able to spend a few days
with the Picpus Fathers and marvel at their “splendid stone church
measuring 150 feet.” Departing Honolulu, the ship rounded Cape Horn on
March 5 and arrived in England on May 22. Blanchet spent a few days in
London, then embarked from Liverpool to Boston and from there to
Montreal. When he finally reached Quebec at the end of June, he found
that Archbishop Signay was away on a visitation of his diocese, and not
due to return to Quebec for some months. Blanchet was in a quandary—who
would ordain him a bishop now? Fortunately, a coadjutor Archbishop had
just been appointed in Montreal, and so Blanchet was ordained alongside
him in Montreal’s St. James Cathedral on July 25.
Duly ordained, Blanchet spent a few weeks visiting family in Canada
before departing for Europe to raise funds and personnel for his new
diocese. By the time he arrived in Rome, where he had several meetings
with Pope Gregory XVI, Blanchet had conceived a plan for the Oregon
country. It was only a vicariate apostolic, not a diocese, but Blanchet
envisioned an archdiocese, centered in the Willamette Valley, with seven
suffragan sees—all this in spite of the fact that his territory was “a
wilderness” with “not a single city… no road, no postal service, not
even a sovereign government” (Schoenberg).
And yet, in what Wilfrid Schoenberg, SJ describes as “one of the most
amazing decisions in the history of the church,” the Holy Father agreed
with Blanchet. On July 24, 1846, he created the Archdiocese of Oregon
City—only the second Archdiocese in the United States, which until then
had had just one Archbishop, in Baltimore. Blanchet did not get his
seven suffragan sees, but he did get two: Vancouver Island and Walla
Walla. It would be nearly a year before Archbishop Blanchet turned
towards home. He had to collect funds and, even more important,
personnel. When he did return to Oregon, he did not go alone: with him
were seven Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, eight priests (three Jesuits
and five other priests), along with some Jesuit brothers and some young
men in various stages of priestly formation—twenty-two people in all.
They got a slow start—after loading themselves and their supplies into
L’Étoile du Matin, there was a dead calm and they were forced to
disembark. They spent a week in Brest, working on their English and
waiting for wind. At last, on February 22, 1847, they got underway,
reaching Oregon seven months later.
Who would lead the other new Northwest dioceses of Vancouver Island and
Walla Walla? Father Modeste Demers, who had labored alongside Blanchet
from the beginning, was an obvious choice for Vancouver Island. But the
appointment of Augustin Magloire Alexandre Blanchet, F. N. Blanchet’s
younger brother, as the first Bishop of Walla Walla, came as a complete
surprise. Unlike F. N. Blanchet, A. M. A. Blanchet had very little
missionary experience—in fact, at the time of his appointment, he was
serving as a canon in Montreal’s St. James Cathedral, a very far cry
from the wilds of Oregon country. But, at the age of fifty, he was a
seasoned pastor with a range of experience, a stern man of faith who
proved an excellent leader for what would, through considerable
difficulties, eventually become the Archdiocese of Seattle.
Times had changed since F. N. Blanchet and Modeste Demers had gone west
via the Hudson’s Bay Company roundabout “Express” nine years before.
A. M. A. Blanchet traveled via the Oregon Trail, by this time a
well-established route to the Willamette Valley. He later wrote to the
Bishop of Toronto with some helpful pointers for other priests who might
be thinking about traveling west: “if he has baggage, it will be
necessary to purchase a wagon at St. Louis and to buy some oxen, five or
six years old, not too fat; if the load does not weigh more than 1200 to
1500 pounds, three pair will be sufficient for the wagon but it is
necessary to have one or two extra pair in case of accidents, which are
likely to happen.” The increasing numbers of wagons on the Oregon Trail
meant that there was often nowhere for the oxen to graze: “from Fort
Hall to Walla Walla there were no less than a hundred wagons abandoned
because there were no more beasts to pull them…. My wagons are still
usable but the oxen are so worn with fatigue, hunger and thirst that it
was necessary to leave along the way some of the supplies carried from
St. Louis, such as the plow.” Even more concerning, the trip had cost
more than twice what Blanchet had anticipated: “Farewell, then, to the
hope of beginning the episcopal establishment with the money subscribed
by Quebec and Montreal.” Little did Blanchet know how many more dangers
awaited him after his arrival at Walla Walla.
—Corinna Laughlin, Pastoral Assistant for Liturgy
Works consulted · Wilfred P. Schoenberg, SJ, A
History of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest (1987)
· Roberta Stringham Brown and Patricia O’Connell Killen, Selected
Letters of A. M. A. Blanchet, Bishop of Walla Walla and Nesqualy,
1846-1879 (2013)

MAKE A VISIT
There are historic sites all along the old Oregon Trail, starting
from St. Louis, Missouri. The closest one to us is the National Historic
Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon. “Using life-size
displays, films and live theater presentations, this Center tells the
story of Oregon Trail pioneers, explorers, miners and settlers of the
frontier west. The 500 acre site includes remnants of the historic
Flagstaff Gold Mine, actual ruts carved by pioneer wagons, and
magnificent vistas of the historic trail route.” National
Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, 22267 Highway 86, Baker City,
Oregon 97814
https://www.blm.gov/learn/interpretive-centers/national-historic-oregon-trail-interpretive-center
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