Wednesday, May 28, 2008

From St. Anne, Detroit to St. Ann, Fremont

An excerpt from Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County Ohio and Representative Citizens, by Basil Meek, Chicago: 1909.

“On a stormy day in March, 1823, an earnest priest came all the tortuous distance from Detroit, to say mass to a little gathering of faithful French Catholics, in their rude little log cabin in the frontier village of Lower Sandusky [Fremont]. … here really begins the history of the venerable St. Ann’s Church.”

Three brothers, Joseph, Anthony and Peter Momenay, as well as John B. Beaugrand, his wife and seven children, French Catholics, came to Fremont from Detroit. Beaugrand asked his former pastor, Rev. Gabriel Richard of St. Anne’s in Detroit, to pay a visit and bless his home. Fr. Richard said the first Mass in Fremont.

Fr. Gabriel Richard

“His stay was only for a few days during which he also visited the French families at La Prairie, eight miles from Lower Sandusky. After Father Richard’s departure no priest visited the village for some years, but between 1826 and 1831 Bishop Fenwick, on his way to Michigan, stopped over at Lower Sandusky two or three times and looked after the spiritual wants of his neglected little flock.”

2 comments:

Jeffrey Smith said...

He was the first priest elected to Congress. It was as bad an idea then as it is now.

irene said...

Amen! So there is no need for my usual reflexive quote.