The Pioneer Priest Who Cleared the Forest for a Church
In 1883, Father Frefontaine laid the cornerstone of a grand new cathedral in Seattle, reflecting on a journey that began with clearing dense timber by hand to serve a tiny, fractured congregation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In 1869, Father F. X. Prefontaine came to Seattle to establish a Roman Catholic Church. Finding less than a dozen disorganized members, he rented a house on Third Street and fitted up two rooms as a chapel. By 1872, with proceeds from a series of fairs held throughout Puget Sound, he purchased four lots on Third Street—then a dense forest. He cleared, grubbed, and burned the land himself to build the original church. By May 1883, membership had grown to 500, necessitating a new structure. A large crowd gathered on Sunday evening to lay the cornerstone of the new building, which was designed to hold 700 to 1,000 people. Inside the cornerstone, a glass jar was embedded, containing coins, local newspapers, and a Latin document naming the architect Donald Mackay and the church wardens. In his address, Father Prefontaine reflected on his early days: 'Without any means whatsoever, but full of confidence in God... I went begging for the great purpose of my life. ... Thirteen years ago I was free to build a small chapel, and today I am as free to build one of the most beautiful edifices.'
“I went begging for the great purpose of my life. ... Thirteen years ago I was free to build a small chapel, and today I am as free to build one of the most beautiful edifices.”
Father Prefontaine's struggle to carve out a place for his community in an untamed, rapidly growing Seattle echoes the modern-day effort to preserve cultural and religious spaces amidst the city's intense real estate development. The Third Street site remains in the heart of downtown, reminding us that Seattle’s 'urban core' was once literally carved from dense timber by the hands of its early residents.
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