In this continuing series on the origins of Catholicism in the 50 states, we now turn our attention to the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
Before the Constitution went into effect in 1789, the new nation’s first organ of government was the Articles of Confederation. Ultimately judged to be too weak and thus replaced, one of its few actions of lasting significance was the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which ultimately brought each of these states into the union.
The first to be admitted was Ohio in 1803. Originally home to Native Americans including the Shawnee, the lands that became the Buckeye State were later settled in the 1780s by Revolutionary War veterans as well as immigrants from Europe.
At the turn of the 19th century, one of these newcomers, Jacob Dittoe, a German Catholic, began petitioning the nation’s first bishop in Baltimore, John Carroll, to send a priest to minister to the small community of other German Catholics around what would become the town of Somerset.
Eventually in 1808, Carroll sent Father Edward Fenwick, a Dominican priest working in Kentucky who began making regular visits to the Catholics of the area. In 1816 he set up full-time residency there thanks to the Dittoe family, who constructed a residence for him and a band of other Dominican missionaries, as well as a log church dedicated to St. Joseph.
At the time of its dedication two years later in 1818, this simple structure became the first Catholic church in Ohio. Staying only a few more years, in 1821 Fenwick was named the first bishop of the newly formed Diocese of Cincinnati.
Thanks to the deep faith of these German Catholics and the missionary zeal of these Dominican friars, the Church in Ohio has grown and expanded over the next two centuries to today, where six dioceses serve over 2 million Catholics comprising about 16% of the state’s population.
Indiana
Moving west from Ohio, we come to Indiana, which was admitted to the union in 1816 as the 19th state. The Church in Indiana traces her origins to the brave work of Jesuit missionaries when the area was still part of New France (Canada). They evangelized the Miami people along with other tribes in the region, and the first Mass was celebrated in 1676 near present-day Fort Wayne.
Several decades later, on the western edge of what is now Indiana, French settlers began making their homes along the Wabash River, and in 1732 the town of Vincennes was established. By the late 1740s, French Jesuits had built a church there dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, which became the first parish in what is now Indiana.
After the American Revolution, the Indiana Territory eventually fell under the jurisdiction of Bishop Carroll, and in 1791 he sent Father Benedict Joseph Flaget to serve in Vincennes. Thanks to slow but steady growth, in 1834 the Diocese of Vincennes was erected (which included all of Indiana and the eastern third of Illinois) with Simon Bruté, a French Sulpician priest, as its first bishop. At the time of his installation, he had only three priests ministering to about 1,500 Catholics. Undeterred, Bruté visited each Catholic family in the diocese, regardless of the distance from his rectory at Vincennes.
At his death in 1839, little did the bishop know how strong the Church in Indiana was soon to grow. Just three years later, in 1842, a few members of the newly founded Congregation of the Holy Cross would arrive from France and start what is now the University of Notre Dame, one of the world’s premier Catholic universities.
Strongly shaped by its French roots, from the Jesuit missionaries and Bishop Bruté to the founders of Notre Dame, the Church in Indiana developed one step at a time to the present day, when nearly 800,000 Catholics are served by five dioceses.
Illinois
The story of the beginnings of the Church in neighboring Illinois begins also with French missionaries who carried the Gospel into the vast Mississippi Valley. Among them was the Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette, who in 1674 traveled from the mission at Green Bay to establish a mission among the Illinois people.
On that journey he passed through the area that would later become Chicago, building a small cabin — the first known European dwelling on the site of the future city.
In the years that followed, other French missionaries and voyageurs continued to travel through the region, strengthening the Catholic presence in the region. After Illinois became part of the United States, Catholic life gradually expanded. The construction of Fort Dearborn in 1804 helped bring new settlers to what would become Chicago, and visiting priests such as Stephen Badin and Gabriel Richard ministered to the growing Catholic population.
In 1826 with the creation of the Diocese of St. Louis, the Church in Illinois fell under the jurisdiction of the new bishop, Joseph Rosati. After receiving a plea for a priest from the small Catholic community in the town of Chicago, Rosati sent John Saint Cyr, who became the first resident priest in Chicago which would become a city in 1837. Thanks to slow but steady growth, Rome created the Diocese of Chicago in 1843 while also appointing William Quarter, a priest originally from Ireland but ordained in 1829 for the Diocese of New York, as its first bishop.
From modest beginnings, the Church in Illinois grew with remarkable speed. Fueled by waves of Irish, German, Polish and other Catholic immigrants, Chicago became one of the great centers of Catholic life in the United States. Today, more than 3.5 million Catholics are served by six dioceses across Illinois, a testament to the faith first planted by French missionaries along the rivers and prairies of what was then the American frontier.
Michigan
Entering the union as the 26th state in 1837, Michigan’s Catholic origins again, like Illinois and Indiana, trace to New France and French Jesuits. Isaac Jogues (who was later martyred in 1646 in New York) first visited the region to work among the Chippewa, and in 1668, Marquette helped found the first permanent European settlement at Sault Sainte Marie.
In the same year that Detroit was founded in 1701 by a small group of French settlers accompanied by two priests, they erected a simple log chapel dedicated to St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary and one of French Catholics’ most beloved saints. While this original structure no longer stands, the parish of St. Anne’s continues to serve the local community, making it the second oldest continuously operating parish in the United States after the Cathedral of St. Augustine in St. Augustine, Florida, which was founded in 1565.
Other missionaries followed in the path of these pioneering missionaries, but the most significant among them was the French Sulpician Gabriel Richard. Forced to flee his homeland like thousands of other priests because of the violent anticlericalism of the French Revolution, Richard first worked in Illinois before coming to minister in Detroit where he became pastor of St. Anne’s in 1802.
Indefatigable in his promotion of the Gospel, Richard helped build several Catholic schools, hospitals and even a seminary. In addition, he brought the first printing press to Detroit, started the first Catholic newspaper in the United States as well as spoke on behalf of the rights of Native Americans who were being pushed off lands their ancestors had lived on for millennia.
Imprisoned by the British during the War of 1812, Richard went on to help found the University of Michigan in 1817. After becoming an American citizen, he was elected in 1823 as Michigan Territory’s delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first Catholic priest to serve in Congress. In 1832, he died of cholera after tirelessly caring for those stricken by the epidemic.
Father Gabriel Richard stands as one of the most important figures in the history of the Church in Michigan. A missionary priest, educator and civic leader, he helped shape both the Catholic Church and the wider development of Michigan. Beloved by Catholics and Protestants alike for his generosity, wisdom and public service, he left a lasting legacy that extended far beyond the walls of his parish.
Father Anthony D. Andreassi, a priest of the Brooklyn Oratory of St. Philip Neri, holds a doctorate in history from Georgetown University. His research and writing have focused on the American Catholic community. After spending many years in Catholic secondary education, he is on the staff of the Oratory parishes of Assumption and St. Boniface in Brooklyn, New York.
