In this series on the origins of Catholicism in the 50 states, this month we follow the story of the faith into lands beyond the Appalachians, examining the Church’s development in Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.
Kentucky
The origins of Catholicism in Kentucky are closely tied to Maryland. Beginning in the 1780s, hundreds of Catholic families left southern Maryland crossing the Appalachian Mountains in search of new opportunities. Some brought with them enslaved African Americans, many of whom were also Catholic.
The majority of these newcomers settled in the central part of the state around Bardstown, on lands well suited for farming. One historian noted that these families chose to migrate and settle together in order to sustain their faith, ensuring that Catholic life would remain at the center of their new communities.
The connection between southern Maryland and Kentucky remains visible even today. A visit to 18th-century Catholic cemeteries in southern Maryland and 19th-century Catholic cemeteries in Kentucky reveals many of the same family names on the gravestones, such as Spalding, Mattingly and Fenwick.
The first priest to settle permanently in Kentucky was the French-born Stephen Badin, who in 1793 became the first man ordained in the United States at the hands of Bishop John Carroll in Baltimore. That same year, Carroll sent him to Kentucky, where he began ministering to the growing but scattered Catholic population there. By 1794, Badin had settled in Marion County, making it the center of his extensive missionary activity.
In 1808, Pope Pius VII created four new dioceses — Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Bardstown — while also elevating Baltimore to the rank of archdiocese. At the time of its erection, the Diocese of Bardstown included Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Missouri, making it the westernmost diocese in the United States. Today, this territory is home to 44 dioceses, and in 1841 the see was transferred to Louisville.
To lead this vast frontier see, the Holy See appointed the French-born Benedict Joseph Flaget as its first bishop. When he arrived in Bardstown in 1810, he found that Badin had already spent nearly two decades laying the foundations of Catholic life across the frontier.
By the early 19th century, Kentucky had become the leading center of Catholic life west of the Appalachian Mountains and the launching point for the Church’s expansion across the American frontier.
Tennessee
When Father Badin first visited Tennessee in 1810, he wrote to Archbishop Carroll, “I found few Catholics there.” That would continue to be true for many decades to come, even in 1837 when the Diocese of Nashville was carved out from Bardstown and which included the entire state.
Appointed as its first bishop, Richard Pius Miles was raised in Kentucky, where he was ordained a priest by Bishop Flaget. As a young Dominican friar, he taught in a school for boys where one of his students was Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Confederate States.
At the beginning of his ministry in Kentucky, Miles was both the only bishop and the only priest ministering in the state, so he was constantly traveling by horseback to visit his far flung and tiny flock who probably numbered less than 1,000 souls. However, migration to Kentucky and the other states beyond the Appalachians continued in the antebellum era, and by 1850 Miles had recruited several new priests to serve and built the first diocese’s first cathedral.
Upon his death in 1860, Miles was succeeded by another Dominican, James Whelan. Continuing the work of Miles in responding to the needs of the small but strong Catholic community, Whelan asked the Dominican Sisters of Somerset, Ohio, to send a few sisters to establish a school, which they soon did. This group of sisters soon attracted local young women to enter the community, and eventually a separate foundation was begun called the Dominican Sisters of Nashville, which today numbers over 300 religious and is one of the most vibrant congregations of women religious in the United States.
Missouri
Missionaries from French Canada began traveling through what is now Missouri as early as the 17th century, but a permanent Catholic presence did not emerge until the mid-18th century with the establishment of the French settlement of Ste. Genevieve. In 1759, a parish bearing the same name was established there, becoming the first permanent Catholic parish in what is now Missouri.
Following the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which brought the French and Indian War to an end, France ceded much of its North American territory. Lands west of the Mississippi River came under Spanish control, while those to the east passed to Great Britain. As a result, many French Catholic settlers living east of the Mississippi chose to move west, preferring to live under the rule of Catholic Spain. Soon St. Louis became the largest and most important settlement of these newcomers to the region.
During the period of French and later Spanish sovereignty, anyone seeking to settle in the lands that would eventually become known as the Louisiana Purchase, a vast territory stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, was expected to be Catholic.
With the transfer of the territory to the United States in 1803, the Church’s privileged status came to an end. However, this did not slow the advance of the faith. William DuBourg, appointed bishop of Louisiana (a diocese that encompassed much of the nation’s interior), actively recruited missionaries from Europe to minister both to Native Americans and to the growing population of settlers (free and enslaved) arriving from the East as well as immigrants from Europe.
Among these brave missionaries was Rose Philippine Duchesne, who arrived in St. Charles, Missouri, in 1818. A member of the newly founded Society of the Sacred Heart, she founded schools and spent decades serving on the frontier. Late in life, she fulfilled a lifelong dream by ministering among the Potawatomi people in present-day Kansas, who affectionately called her “the woman who always prays.” She was canonized by St. John Paul II in 1988.
Arkansas
Although Arkansas was the last of these states to enter the Union in 1836, it can claim the earliest Catholic history. In 1541, when the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto crossed the Mississippi River into what would later become Arkansas, he erected a cross and joined his companions in singing the Te Deum, the Church’s traditional hymn of thanksgiving.
More than a century would pass before a missionary again entered the territory that would become Arkansas. In 1673, the Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette passed through the region during his famous voyage down the Mississippi River, although he remained only briefly. The first recorded Mass in present-day Arkansas was celebrated in 1700 by another Jesuit missionary as he journeyed along the great river.
For the remainder of the 18th century and well into the 19th, priests came and went from Arkansas with great frequency. Although the first parish was established in 1796, none of the clergy who served the region remained permanently, and before the Diocese of Little Rock was established in 1843, the longest tenure of any priest in the territory was just eight years.
In 1844, Andrew Byrne arrived as the first bishop of the newly established Diocese of Little Rock. A native of Ireland, he had previously served as a priest in New York City. Upon his arrival, the diocese consisted of just 700 Catholics served by four priests in four churches. The arrival of the Sisters of Mercy from Ireland in 1851 provided invaluable support to the work of the Church, particularly in the field of education.
Byrne generally avoided the political controversies that increasingly divided the nation in the years leading up to the Civil War, including the issue of slavery. Although he was not a slave owner, he left little record of his views on the subject. As the country moved toward armed conflict, Byrne focused his energies on building up his young diocese and ministering to its flock. By the time of his death in 1862, the diocese included nine priests, 13 churches, 30 mission stations, and 12 Catholic schools.
Although Catholicism arrived in Arkansas earlier than in any of the other states considered here, it took nearly three centuries for the Church to develop the institutions and leadership needed to sustain its growth.
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.
