Pioneer Profiles – September 2018
On September 22, 2018, the Friends of St. Joseph’s are hosting “A Bid for History”—a dinner and auction to support the ongoing care and preservation of Jacksonville’s classical 1868 Catholic Rectory, a significant piece of local history. However, it only became the Catholic Rectory in 1875 when Reverend Francis Xavier Blanchet purchased the property.
The house was originally built for either Nathaniel Langell or John Bigham, who jointly held title to the lot. Langell, a shoemaker with a store on California Street, was twice elected to the State Legislature, served as Master of the Masonic Lodge, and later was Supervisor of what is now Rogue River National Forest. Bigham, a prominent Valley farmer, donated land for construction of Jackson County’s first public school. However, Blanchet is the name we associate with the building.
Blanchet came from a long line of prominent French Canadians. One of his uncles was Francis Norbert Blanchet, Archbishop of the Oregon Territory, who had established missions throughout northern Oregon and southern Washington. In 1856, when Archbishop Blanchet appealed for recruits to do missionary work in Oregon, his nephew, who was studying for the priesthood at the time, answered the call.
In November 1863, a few months after being ordained, Father Francis X. Blanchet arrived in Jacksonville to take charge of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, the first parish church in Southern Oregon and the oldest Catholic Church still standing in this part of the state. His charge also included the Archdiocese’s entire Southern Oregon Mission.
In 1855, a missionary priest reported counting 105 Catholics in the Rogue Valley. Three years later, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church was constructed at the corner of D and 4th streets. The Southern Mission was intended to serve not only the needs of Jacksonville, but of all the mining districts in the region, a territory 200 miles long and 150 miles wide. In 1863, this extensive, and largely unsettled diocese, required a lot of traveling. Blanchet would have to cover over 1,000 miles to visit his scattered flock at least twice a year.
Traveling by muleback, carriage, or stagecoach, Blanchet undertook his mission. During his first winter in Jacksonville, a man dying of consumption (tuberculosis) who lived 75 miles out of town asked for a priest. Blanchet hired an open carriage and driver, not anticipating the pouring rain and swollen streams. He spent a soggy night under a frozen blanket before reaching the dying man in time to administer last rites. Another occasion involved a 264-mile round trip to minister to the sick.
Over the years, Blanchet augmented the Jacksonville church with 16 regional chapels and missions from Corvallis to Crescent City and from Coos Bay to Lakeview, serving them all.
Father Blanchet was also the driving force behind the establishment of St. Mary’s Academy. Within a year of his arrival, he saw the need for religious teaching and wrote Portland’s Mother Superior of The Holy Name of Jesus and Mary asking for a convent school to be established in the town. Three nuns were assigned to the order’s new convent.
With financial support from both Catholic and Protestant residents, Blanchet acquired property at the northeast corner of Fifth and D streets for the school. It opened in 1865 with 12 resident students and 33 day-students. The work of Blanchet and the nuns was appreciated by the entire community and St. Mary’s became known as “the hearth on which was kindled the fire of charity.”
Blanchet and the good Sisters played an equally vital role when smallpox appeared in the region in December 1868. Misdiagnosed initially as chicken pox, the plague rapidly gained epidemic proportions. Residents abandoned both the area and stricken relatives. A local newspaperman wrote, “Terror seized the townsmen, and there were few who dared nurse the sick and bury the dead.”
Father Blanchet and the Sisters at St. Mary’s were the exception, immediately offering their services. Initially the Board of Health turned them down, but as cases increased, their offer was gratefully accepted. The school was closed, and for eight weeks, two of the nuns went from house to house, nursing the sick and dying. Blanchet helped as much as he could, and when death was inevitable, he administered the sacraments and assisted in the burial.
Shunned by the townspeople during the epidemic, they became local heroes once the smallpox ran its course, and the Jacksonville press sang their praises. One local paper that had been anti-Catholic, now deemed it a worthy religion and complimented them on their charity.
But with the school closed, the Sisters were relieved of their duties and returned to Portland. However, a few months later, scarlet fever struck Jacksonville, and Father Blanchet traveled to Portland to obtain the services of four more Sisters. When this epidemic ended, the Sisters stayed and reopened St. Mary’s Academy in August 1869. A year later, the church purchased property now known as Beekman Square and relocated the Academy there until it moved in 1908 to its current Medford location.
In 1873, Father Blanchet finally took some well-deserved time off, returning for a few months to his native Montreal. During this time, he wrote his book, Ten Years on the Pacific Coast.
Father Blanchet served the Southern Oregon diocese for another 15 years, opening a boys’ school in the house he had purchased for his rectory, establishing one of the town’s earliest lending libraries, and even serving as a volunteer fireman.
In 1888, after 25 years in Jacksonville, Blanchet was named pastor of a church in St. Paul. He subsequently became pastor at St. Gervais mission, then was appointed Chaplain at Portland’s St. Vincent Hospital. And after years of dedication, Blanchet’s devoted service was acknowledged. In 1900 he was given the position of Vicar General and in 1903 was named a Roman Prelate. Monsignor Blanchet died on May 22, 1906, having said Mass and fulfilled the day’s ministerial duties….
The Chronicles of St. Vincent’s Hospital paid Blanchet the following tribute: “Monsignor had a heart of gold. All who came under his spiritual care were his children and he was their father. He had a kind word for all…and no one departed from him without carrying away a consoling word or a spiritual thought which never failed to bear fruit.”
If you would like to support St. Joseph’s Catholic Rectory by attending the September 22nd “A Bid for History” dinner and auction at Daisy Creek Vineyard, tickets are $45 per person and can be purchased by calling 541-301-4656 or 541-840-2624.