The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-01-06
Continued from page ~
REV. ALBERT LAcoMBE, o. M. l.

sissippi and the Red River. He Of
fered himself for the work and was
accepted. He was ordained to the
priesthood on June Is, 1849, at st. Hy-
acinth, and seven weeks later set out
for the West. In these days the jour
ney was by no means an easy one.
A Priest of the Diocese of St. Paul.
He passed by way of Buffalo to Du-
buque, where he obtained his jurisdic-
ton from the sanity Bishop Loras
within the confines of whose diocese
lay the distant mission of Pembina and
intervening territory. At Dubuque he
met the Rev. Joseph Cretin, Vicar Gen
eral of the diocese, and destined in a
few years to become the first Bishop
of st. Paul. From Dubuque the young
missionary passed up the Mississippi
to the then frontier village of ST. Paul,
where he met the Rev. Augustine
Ravoux, the only priest between Du-
buque on the South, and Pembina on
the North. In ST. Paul, Father La
which he officiated in the little log
chapel on Bench Street Hill, in the alb
sence of Father Ravoux, who took ad-
vantage of the presence of another
priest to visit the scattered Catholics
at some distance from st. Paul. At
the end of a month, when the Red
River ox-carts began their return jour
ney to the North, Father Lacombe set
out with them for Pembina, which he
| reached just at the beginning of the
winter of 1849. He Immediately took
up the study of the Indian language
and during the winter made such prog
ress in it that he was able to accom-.
pany the Indians and Metis on their
buffalo hunt the following summers
He remained in Pembina until the
approach of winter in 1851, when he
decided to return to Montreal, which
he did by way of St. Paul and Du-
| buque.
This sojourn of Father Lacombe at
Pembina until the fall of 1851, links
his name with the early history of the
Diocese of st. Paul. When Bishop
Cretin took possession of the diocese
in July, 1851, he found within it's con-
fines three priests-Father Ravoux, in
his See-city, and Fathers Belcourt and
Lacombe at Pembina.
Out on the Plains.
The year following Father La
combe's return to Eastern Canada,
Father Tache was appointed coadjutor
to Bishop Provencher of st. Bon;face,
Man., and while on a visit to Quebec,
Father Lacombe offered himself for
the Red River mission and was ac-
cepted. In the meantime he joined
the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and
was about to enter upon his novitiate
when Bishop Tache decided that the
youthful recruit had better journey to
the West and make his nOvitiate at st.
Boniface before entering upon active
missionary life on the plains. Once
more, in 1852, Father Lacombe passed
through st. Paul, on his way to the
Canadian Northwest. AS soon as he
arrived in st. Boniface, instead of en-
tering upon his novitiate, he was sent
to the Fort Edmonton district, the
chief point of the Hudson Bay occupa-
ton on the Western plains. Then be-
gan his career as an Indian missionary
among the Blackfeet and the Crees
Father Lacombe took up his resi-.
dence at the Lac Ste Anne Mission,
established for the Crees by Father Thi-
bault, and from that as a center, Wis
tied many outlying posts. In 1856, he
made journey to Peace River to min
lister to the savage tribes of that reg.
ion and on his return to Ste. Anne en-.
tered upon the long deferred years
novitiate, at the end of which he made
his vows and was formally incorpo-
rated among the Oblates. When
Bishop Tache visited Ste. Anne in the
year 1861, he and Father Lacombe
founded the mission of ST. Albert for
the war-like Blackfeet. In 1862,
Father Lacombe organized the first
brigade of ox-carts to cross the prairie
with freight between the Red River