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OUR LADY OF THE GULF CATHOLIC CHURCH:	OUR	HERITAGE	AND	OUR
HISTORY.
Long before the advent of the French explorers, the city of Bay St. Louis was an Indian village bearing the name of Achoupoulou.	Robert Chevalier, in all probability, was the
first person to explore this part of the coast. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville came from France and his attention was drawn to this little village. A French historian writes: "On the 12th of April, 1699, d'Iberville set out to visit a bay about nine leagues from Ship Island, to which he gave the name of St.	Louis." In December of 1699 the first
families came to form a colony at the Bay of St. Louis.
Father Athanasius Douay and Father Bordenave were probably the first French priests to visit the little colony at the Bay. From this time until 1820 missionaries from Mobile and New Orleans visited the coast occassiona1ly. In 1820 the Bay was attended by a young priest named Fr. Michael Portier, who was destined to become the first Bishop of Mobile. After him the Lazarist Fathers and some seculars staffed the mission area.
Pope Gregory	XVI	established the Diocese of Natchez in
July of 1837 and realized that Bay St. Louis needed a resident pastor and to this office he appointed Rev. Louis Stanislaus Mary Buteaux. We read in his diary:	"Saturday,
July 31,	1847,	the	feast	of St. Ignatius:	Bishop Chanche
told me at Natchez	that	he confides me to	Bay St. Louis,
Pass Christian, Pearl River, Jordan and Wolfe River, as far as 20 to 25 miles north."
Fr. Buteux pastored from 1847 to November 1859. 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. On March 26,	1848,	Bishop Odin of Galveston blessed the
cornerstone of a	new Church. Bishop Chanche blessed the
Church on August 19, 1849, when Bishop Blanc of New Orleans honored the Bay	with his presence and on this happy
occassion and performed the ceremony of blessing the bells.
On September 1, 1853, Fr. Buteux opened a school for boys where the Christian Brothers were in charge. An epidemic of yellow fever forced him to dismiss boarders and close the school soon after it was opened. In 1854 he reopened the school with the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in charge. St. Stanislaus is named after the patron saint of Fr . Buteux.
Fr. Buteux travelled to his home country, France, and worked with the Sacred Heart Brothers and also obtained three Sisters of St. Joseph to open a school for girls in the parish. They arrived in Bay St. Louis January 6, 1855, to begin the foundations of St. Joseph's Academy. St. Joseph's academy was the first foundation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Bourg in the United States. When returning
--Our Lady of the Gulf History page 1 --