| Summary: | Church History Early Beginnings The history of the Church in Dakota Territory is long and interesting. Travelling largely to minister to the French-speaking Metis (people of mixed Indian and Caucasian blood), missionary priests travelled to the fur trading outposts, usually from Quebec. The area around what is now Olga goes back to the early nineteenth century; Assumption Church in Pembina is the oldest parish in these parts and antedates even St. Paul, Minnesota and Winnipeg. These early mission churches served the needs of Metis Catholics who were involved mostly in fur trading. The land in those days was occupied largely by Indians, who were at war among themselves. The Sioux populated the Dakota Territory, while the Assinaboine Indians lived in the area of what is now Manitoba. The Chippewa who lived in the lower Midwest regions around the great lakes gradually moved westward with the expanse of the "Americans" from the East. The Chippewa by the middle part of the 1800's had occupied the territory of western Minnesota. As the white people moved into the Turtle Mountains and along the Canadian Border, the Indians developed a language called Cree. The Cree language was a jargon involving a unique mixture of French, Cree, Plains, Ojibway and English, not to be confused with the Cree tribe. Since the Sioux were being pushed farther and farther west, they were also at war to the north and protecting their territory. In 1848 just west of the city of Olga there was a battle between the Chippewa and the Sioux. And this is where the story begins. There was an old trail from Pembina to Fort Totten and among the settlements were St. Joseph (now Walhalla and Leroy) Gingras (just east of Walhalla), Beaulieu, Easby, and the settlement at what is now Olga. Apparently it was not too much, except that David Beauchamp operated a trading post there. In the last two decades of the last century, farmers came from Quebec to Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and gradually drifted south. Many of these were French in origin, some Irish. The first Mass which is remembered was offered near Olga by Fr. Bonin from Pembina and St. Joseph on September 9, 1881, on the "second Pembina Hill" ("sur la seconde Mon- tagne du Pembina"), according to Fr. Cyrille St. Pierre, the first Pastor of Olga. Fr. Bonin was a diocesan priest who was pastor of Pembina and Fort Totten andOakwood. including such missions as Leroy Among the first settlers who arrived were Jean Baptiste Beauchamp, Damase Charbonneau, Frederic Charbonneau, Ed Dorval, Charles and Antoine Marcelin, J. B. Chale, Antoine Lafreniere, Marjorique Plante, Olivier Lepiere, Olivier Brusseau, Andrew Brady and Peter Dunnigan. There were, no doubt, others, but it is clear that Fr. Cyrille St. Pierre came to this area after some settlers had already arrived. Fr. Cyrille St. Pierre came from Bay St. Paul, Manitoba where he had been pastor. After being flooded out by the Assinaboine River for three years in a row, he was forced to move on and found his way to higher ground at the settlement of what is now Olga. It was in Olga that Fr. St. Pierre built a log cabin for himself. It is said to have had a sod roof, which was common then. The structure, twelve feet by twelve feet, had no floor and the bed was made of poles and branches. It was in his hut he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass from May to December of 1882. The First Mass offered in the Olga community was offered in the David Beauchamp home, on May 18, 1882, the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord. Immediately, that summer a log church was constructed with lumber and labor donated. This first log church was thirty-five by sixty-five and sixteen feet high. It was used for only about eleven months and stood at the end of the east-west street on the west side of the road. Father Louis Bonin Founder of Sacred Heart Church of Oakwood Sketch of church building shortly before being torn down. At the end of 1883 it was sold to George Winter and J. B. Chale while the first frame church was being constructed. The log church became Porter and Bryant Drug Store and in 1885, Mr. Robillard bought the old church. In 1888 it became the Hotel de Log, and later a gas station. Throughout its long and colorful existence this structure was a bank, a loan office, an office for doctors, and a school. Finally it became a pig barn and a garage, owned by Art Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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