{"id":1210,"date":"2011-04-21T00:04:25","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T05:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/icath\/?p=1210"},"modified":"2026-04-20T15:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:50:07","slug":"earliest-church-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/?p=1210","title":{"rendered":"Earliest Church Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although I am sure that many baptisms, marriages etc. were performed in the early history of Indiana, many priests carried their sacramental records with them, mainly because there was no church to deposit the records into. [One example of this would be the Sacramental Record<\/a> carried by Simon Lalumiere]<\/p>\n

However, it is always a mark of true ‘stability’, if you will, when a sacramental record ‘stays put’ in one place. With that in mind, today we honor the memory of at least three people who helped to make that ‘stability’ happen. On April 21, 1749 The marriage of Julen Tratier and Josette Marie was witnessed by Fr. Sebastian Louis Meurin S.J. <\/p>\n

Martin Spalding, Bishop of Louisville and later Archbishop of Baltimore wrote about this event in 1852:<\/p>\n

The church records of Vincennes open April 21,.
\n1749. They begin simply and absolutely, without title
\npage or introduction, with a certificate of marriage
\nbetween Julien Trattier, of Montreal, Canada, and
\nJosette Marie, the daughter of a Frenchman and an
\nIndian woman. This record is written on a detached
\nsheet, afterwards appended to the Register by the resident
\nclergyman, with the proper certificate of its genuineness.
\nThe only baptisms recorded during this year
\nare those of two Indian adults.
\nThe residing priest, a Jesuit, was then F. Sebastian.
\nLouis Meurin; . who, the Register states, performed also.
\nthe functions of the civil court. There was, even at
\nthat early period, a rude church or chapel; and the
\nyoung woman, whose marriage is the first recorded in.
\nthe Register, was buried in the cemetery adjoining, in.
\nDecember, 1750: -her grave is under the present
\ncathedral. 1<\/a><\/sup>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the oldest church record preserved at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Vincennes 2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

  1. Life, Times and Character of the Rt. Rev. Benedict Joseph Flaget, First Bishop of Louisville, 1852[↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. Cauthorn p.228[↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Although I am sure that many baptisms, marriages etc. were performed in the early history of Indiana, many priests carried their sacramental records with them, mainly because there was no church to deposit the records into. [One example of this would be the Sacramental Record carried by Simon Lalumiere] However, it is always a mark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianacatholic.mwweb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}