Nativity Catholic Church, Campti: ca. 1720-1850
After the French revolution, a number of French refugee priests came to Louisiana and served a number of parishes. Some of the Spanish priests came from Nacogdoches and looked after Natchitoches and its missions for a time. The visiting priests made calls at settlements and at plantations completing baptism ceremonies for the many children and even adults who entered the registers as having been "ondoyes;" that is, having received lay baptism in the absence of a priest.
One of the French priests who visited Campti in the last decades of the 1700's was Father Jean Delvaus, who was the pastor at Natchitoches from 1786 to 1793, and again in 1795. For he next 11 years it was Father Pierre Pavie whose journeys around the vicinity of Natchitoches can be traced in his entries for baptisms, marriages and funerals. For te conducting of ceremonies in private homes, he stated in his entries that he had the permission of Bishop Penalver, the first Bishop of New Orleans. His tours included Grand Ecore, Campti, Ile Brevelle, Riviere aux Cannes and the Appalache Village. At Ecore he visited he homes of Jean Baptiste Cloutier and the Widow Monet.
Father Pavie's zealous pastorate ended in 1806, and for the next 7 years the Catholics of the upper Red River depended upon devoted Father Louis Buhot of Opelousas to come periodically to minister to them; or depended upon priests from Nacogdoches, Texas, who travelled to Natchitoches on the old Camino Real.
One of the latter was Father Francesco Maynes, a Franciscan. He deplored the religious conditions that existed in the Red River and Cane River sections, so he decided to devote himself to the people of that section. With Bishop Dubourg's permission he became a secular priest and took up work at Saint Francis Church in Natchitoches from 1813 to 1822. Father Maynes was very zealous in looking after the spiritual needs of Catholic groups along the Red River from the Post of Rapides up the Grappe's Bluff, including Campti. Unfortunately, Father Maynes left in 1822 and the area was bereft of a pastor until 1825.
Bishop Dubourg visited this section in 1821, travelling on horseback and again in 1825. He then assigned Father Dusaussoy to Natchitoches, and short afterward, Father A. Anduze, both of whom served that area until 1827.
A new era for Northwest Louisiana dawned with 1827, when Father Jean Baptiste Blanc was assigned as pastor of Saint Francis Church
Latest Articles