Marianne Luban

Lucien Galtier-pioneer Priest, Second Edition Marianne Luban

In the spring of 1840, a riverboat stopped at Fort Snelling in the Minnesota Territory, dropping off a Frenchman named Lucien Galtier. No one expected the young priest in this small settlement of fur traders, farmers, and whiskey sellers. The local Indian tribes were involved in a bloody feud, the fort commander was battling the purveyors of drink and, in the midst of this strife, an inexperienced Catholic clergyman attempted to establish a congregation and build a place of worship. In this remote region, the sound of a church bell had never been heard. This is the first biography of Father Galtier, the story of his struggle to survive physically and spiritually in the frontier towns on the Mississippi. It begins in the future city of St. Paul, the place with which Lucien Galtier will always be associated as it was he who provided its name.

"Marianne Luban looks at this proud and sometimes prickly man, who worked in often-uncomfortable circumstances on the frontier... Luban does a nice job of evoking life around Fort Snelling and Mendota when Galtier arrived. Eventually, some families who were moved away from the fort formed a community that would become St. Paul, where men named Gervais and Guerin donated adjoining lands for the first log church. Galtier also served in Iowa and Prairie du Chien, Wis. This story of Galtier, who died in 1866, is also the story of men who shaped the state (including good old Pig's Eye Perrant and Henry Sibley) and of the Catholic church's struggles to establish a working hierarchy in the new land." ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS