Pierre-Jean De Smet [SEP] religious order
Pierre-Jean De Smet
Pierre-Jean De Smet (30 January 1801 – 23 May 1873), also known as Pieter-Jan De Smet, was a Belgian Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He is known for his widespread missionary work in the mid-19th century among the Native American peoples, in the midwestern and northwestern United States and western Canada.
His extensive travels as a missionary were said to total . He was known as the "Friend of Sitting Bull", because
1840, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., a Belgian missionary, was appointed to minister to them. The first Mass in Idaho was thus celebrated by Fr. De Smet on 22 July 1840 at Henry's Lake.
Fr. De Smet's Jesuit order constructed the first Catholic church in Idaho, built in 1843 along the St. Joe River (near the present-day town of St. Maries) under the leadership of Father Nicholas Point, S.J.. The mission was later moved to banks of the Coeur d'Alene