This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

The First Fifty Years
As we proudly celebrate the one hundred and fifty years of our Catholic heritage in this parish, we recognize Our Lady of the Gulf as the oldest Catholic church in Hancock County, the third oldest on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the fifth oldest parish in the state of Mississippi.
Although pioneer Catholic families of the BayAVaveland area had not been completely without the ministry of priests from the time of d’Iberville’s landing in 1699, they had been dependent on visiting priests, mainly from Mobile, New Orleans and Natchez. It was not until July 31, 1847 that Bishop Chance of Natchez appointed Rev. Louis Stanislaus Buteux first pastor of a parish that would include Pass Christian, the Pearl River, Jourdan River and Wolf' River communities and all territory extending 20 to 25 miles to the north. Considering the area served by Our Lady of the Gulf Parish today, one can only marvel at the magnitude of Father Buteux’s assignment.
Father Buteux, who had been ordained in Paris in 1836, arrived in Bay St. Louis, then known as Shieldsboro, on August 8,1847 after a two-to-three day trip by water from New Orleans, staying at the Grand Hotel in Bay St. Louis (going rate for hotels at the time, $35 a month, which most likely included meals) as he immediately began work securing property for a church and rectory.
One week after his arrival in Bay St. Louis, Father Buteux celebrated his first Mass in the courthouse, at that time located in Gainesville. Until the church and rectory were built, he celebrated Mass at the courthouse or in private homes in Gainesville, Logtown and Pearlington, which were thriving sawmill towns, as well as in Kiln, Waveland and Bay St. Louis.
Deed for the property where the church and rectory now stand arrived September 15, 1847 and on March 26, 1848 Bishop Odin of
5