Background
Charles-Jean was born on December 26, 1839 in Ghent, Belgium, the son of Charles Francis and Pauline Seghers, and as an orphan was reared by uncles who were apparently comfortably situated.
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Charles-Jean was born on December 26, 1839 in Ghent, Belgium, the son of Charles Francis and Pauline Seghers, and as an orphan was reared by uncles who were apparently comfortably situated.
Charles-Jean Seghers was trained at the College of Ste. Barbe at Ghent, at the diocesan seminary, and at the American College at Louvain.
Seghers was ordained a priest at Mechlin, May 31, 1863, and enlisted for the Canadian missions at Vancouver under Bishop Modeste Demers of Victoria. From the time of his arrival on November 17, 1863, he entered into his arduous work with marked zeal despite his delicate health, learning the native dialects, living with the Indians, and serving the scattered tribesmen, hunters, and settlers. In 1869 he accompanied Demers to the Vatican Council.
When Demers died two years later, he became administrator of the diocese, and in 1873 he was appointed bishop. Consecrated in June 1873 by Archbishop Francois Norbert Blanchet, he visited Europe and more especially his native Belgium in quest of missionaries and financial assistance, for he was intent on bringing Catholicity to Alaska, which knew only a single priest, an Oblate Father.
On his return he busied himself with building chapels, establishing an occasional school, opening mission stations for the Indians (who were acquainted with Christian doctrines through the use of Blanchet's guide or "Catholic Ladder"), and founding St. Joseph's Hospital at Victoria.
Not until July 1877 was he able to make his preliminary survey of Alaska. At that time, with Father Mandart, he spent several desperate months of privation at St. Michael, Ulukuk, Nulato, Kaltag, and in various native villages of the Yukon region which knew civilization only through half-breeds and hunter-traders. In 1878 he assigned Father Althoff to establish a mission at Wrangell but could do no more, for he was suddenly named coadjutor to the aged Archbishop Blanchet of Oregon City (Portland), whom he succeeded two years later.
While he was in Rome, where he was called in 1883, he made clear his desire to return to British Columbia and to Alaska, on which he had published a widely read account, "The Cross in the North" (New York Freeman's Journal).
On his return, he took part in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, in which he spoke on Indian missions, and resigned his archepiscopal see for the episcopal seat at Victoria, to take up his duties in British Columbia and Alaska in 1884, a quite unusual sacrifice.
In 1886, accompanied by two Jesuits, Paschal Tosti (later prefect-apostolic of Alaska) and Aloysius Robaut, and Frank Fuller, a white attendant, he journeyed over the Chilkoot Pass for the headwaters of the Yukon, where he hoped to establish a mission at Nulato in fulfillment of an earlier promise to the Ten'a tribesmen. Leaving the Jesuits at the mouth of the Stewart River to found a mission among the Stickeen Indians, he continued on with Fuller, who was apparently so affected by fatigue and privation that he developed symptoms of insanity.
At Yessetlatoh Seghers was awakened early in the morning and shot dead by Fuller, who was brought by the Indian guides to Trader Frederickson and later convicted and sentenced at Sitka to ten years of imprisonment.
His regime as an Archbishop, was marked by normal progress and extensive visitations into the outlying regions of Idaho and of Montana. Charles-Jean Seghers established missions at Juneau and Sitka, Alaska, erected a school and hospital at Juneau, founded two academies for girls, and invited the Jesuits to enter his forbidding mission field. He published his famous account "The Cross in the North" (New York Freeman's Journal).
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