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OUR LADY OF THE GULF CHURCH
•BAY ST. LOUIS
LONG before the advent of the French explorers, the city of Bay St. Louis was an Indian village bearing the name of Achoupoulou. In all probability, Robert Chevalier de la Salle was the first white man to explore this part of the coast. Jacques de la Metairie, the official historian of La Salle’s expedition, tells us that on April 7, 1682, La Salle went to reconnoiter the shores of the Gulf coast. Six years later the faithful Tonti came as far as the Gulf to seek tidings of his lost friend.
When Pierre Le Moyne d’lberville came to plant the Fleur-de-Lis of France on the Gulf coast, his attention was drawn to this little village. French, the historian, tells us: “On the 12th of April, 1699, d’lberville set out to visit a bay about nine leagues from Ship Island, to which he gave the name of St. Louis. But, finding the water very shallow there, he concluded to fix his settlement at Biloxi.” This, however, was just a casual visit to sound the depths of the water, and it remained for his brother, Jean Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville, to set foot on the land and give it the present name. This he did on the feast of St. Louis, August 25, 1699.
The location of the bay was so inviting, and its natural resources so abundant, that in December of 1699 d’lberville sent a sergeant and 15 soldiers, together with a few families, to form a colony at Bay St. Louis.
If the age of chivalry had passed, the spirit of the Crusaders yet survived; and wherever the French explorers unfurled the flag of France they planted at the same time the Cross of Christ. Side by side with the noblest knights stood the consecrated priest, patient in suffering, fearless in danger, sublime in enthusiasm. The expedition of d’lberville was no exception to this rule. Father Athanasius Douay and Father Bordenave accompanied him on this first expedition to the coast, and it is not unlikely that they occasionally visited the little colony at the Bay.
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