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154	Catholicity	in	Mississippi
For many years history was silent about the names of the missionaries who visited this section. We know, however, that missionaries from Mobile and New Orleans visited the coast occasionally during the years that followed. In 1820, the Bay was attended by a young priest named Michael Portier, who was destined to become the first Bishop of Mobile. After him came the Lazarist Fathers—Borgna, De Angelis and Aquatoni—and the seculars— Gallagher, Gury and Martin.
Pope Gregory XVI established the Diocese of Natchez on July 28, 1837, and Rev. John Mary Joseph Chanche, a Sulpician, who had refused the mitre at Baltimore, Boston and New York, accepted the appointment as Bishop of Natchez. Bishop Chanche realized that Bay St. Louis needed a resident pastor, and to this office he appointed Rev. Louis Stanislaus Mary Buteux. In the diary of Father Buteux we read: “Saturday, July 31, 1847, the feast of St. Ignatius: Bishop Chanche told me at Natchez that he confides to me Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Pearl River, Jordan and Wolf River, as far as 20 to 25 miles to the north.”
Father Buteux First Pastor at the Bay
Father Buteux, pastor of Bay St. Louis from July-31, .1847,.-to November 17, 1859, was of a family which had given a martyr to the Church in the person of Rev. F. Buteux, S. J., who was put to death by the Iroquois in Canada. Father Buteux was born in Paris on July 2, 1808, and received his education at the Seminary of St. Sulpice. He volunteered for the missions of Indiana and was ordained by Bishop Brute in Paris in 1836. He was the first chaplain to the Sisters of Providence when they came to found St. Mary of the Woods college near Terre Haute, Ind. In the construction of their first academy he worked as a day laborer. The climate of the North was too severe, and he was forced to seek a mission in the South. Bishop Chanche welcomed him into the diocese and appointed him as first pastor of Bay St. Louis.
This truly apostolic man found few attractions and much hard work. His flock was scattered and, for the most part, ignorant. He did not have a church, so Mass was offered in the courthouse or in the home of some private family, until finally a church was undertaken. On March 26, 1848, Bishop Odin of Galveston blessed the cornerstone of the new church. It was a brick structure o Gothic style, measuring 165 feet 7 inches long and 46 feet wide.
Our Lady of the Gulf Church
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From its dimensions we may well imagine that it was the largest church in the diocese at the time. Bishop Chanche blessed the church on August 19, 1849, when Bishop Blanc of New Orleans honored the Bay with his presence on this happy occasion and performed the ceremony of blessing the bells.
When the church and rectory were completed Father Buteux determined to have a school. On September 1, 1852, he opened a school for boys and placed the Christian Brothers in charge. The school was primarily intended for the boys of Bay St. Louis, but a few boarders from New Orleans were accepted and lodged in the rectory. In all probability this was the first boarding school for boys in the Diocese of Natchez. The epidemic of yellow fever in 1853 forced him to dismiss the boarders and close the school.
Father Buteux, however, was a man of courage and did not lose heart. He reopened the school in June, 1854, and placed the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in charge. In August of the same year he sailed for France and pointed out to Brother Polycarp, superior of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, the advantages of a boarding school for boys in Bay St. Louis. St. Stanislaus college, named after the patron saint of Father Buteux, was the result of this meeting.
Sisters of St. Joseph Open School
While in France he obtained three Sisters of St. Joseph of Bourg to open a school for girls in this parish. The Sisters arrived in Bay St. Louis January 6, 1855, to begin the foundations of the present St. Joseph’s academy. The pastor went to France a few years later to seek additional Sisters for his mission. He went to Ars, where he consulted the saintly cure, St. John Mary Vianney. From Ars he petitioned Mother Claude to send more Sisters to the Bay. Wisely enough, he had the holy priest countersign the letter to the superior. It is hardly necessary to add that the request was granted. St. Joseph’s academy was the first foundation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Bourg in the United States.
Long years spent in pioneer mission work finally sapped the strength of the good pastor. On November 17, 1859, he was relieved of his duties, and the remaining years of his life were spent as chaplain to several Catholic institutions in Boston. Bishop Elder paid him this final tribute: “On June 14, 1875, Rev. Louis Stanislaus Mary Buteux died in Boston, after years of fruitful