Background
Joseph Projectus Machebeuf was the son of Michael Anthony and Gilberte (Plauc) Machebeuf. He was born on August 11, 1812, at Riom, in the heart of Auvergne, France.
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Joseph Projectus Machebeuf was the son of Michael Anthony and Gilberte (Plauc) Machebeuf. He was born on August 11, 1812, at Riom, in the heart of Auvergne, France.
Since his family was in comfortable circumstances, Machebeuf was privileged to attend a private school, a Christian Brothers' college, and the old Oratorian College of Riom, which had become secularized.
In 1831, he entered the Sulpician Seminary of Montferrand, where his theological studies were interrupted by forced vacations in the Volvic Mountains for the preservation of his health.
Ordained on December 21, 1836, Abbé Machebeuf was named curate at Cendre, where he was inspired with missionary zeal by Dr. J. M. Odin and Bishop B. J. Flaget, traveling through their native France in the interest of American missions. Along with Abbé J. B. Lamy, he accepted the call of Bishop John Purcell and accompanied him and Bishop Flaget to Cincinnati in 1839.
Though only slightly acquainted with German and English, he was immediately sent to Tiffin, which served as a mission center for northern Ohio and was being settled by Germans with a sprinkling of Irish and French. In 1841, he was assigned to Lower Sandusky (Fremont), and Sandusky City, where he built three churches, made extensive visitations to railroad camps and labored for temperance among hard-drinking navvies.
He journeyed to Montreal and Quebec soliciting financial aid, and on behalf of Bishop Purcell went back to France and Rome seeking helpers and bringing back in 1844 a colony of Ursuline nuns and the first American group of sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.
In 1849, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, learning of Machebeuf's disinterested missionary zeal, visited him in the hope of obtaining his services for the Rocky Mountain missions; but while he longed for a wider field, he hesitated to go unless Father Lamy would accompany him, for on leaving France they had pledged themselves to remain together.
The desire for a frontier field was soon answered, for in 1850, Lamy was appointed vicar apostolic of New Mexico and Machebeuf went with him to Santa Fé. He learned Spanish and the Mexicans turned out in mass to meet the itinerant señor Vicario when he visited the scattered stations with his mule team.
At Albuquerque in 1852, he replaced the popular but irregular José Gallegos, later a delegate to Congress, and quieted a tumultuous congregation by sheer personal courage. As vicar general, he administered the vicariate during Mgr. Lamy's absence, and in 1856 journeyed to France for additional priests.
As pastor of the adobe cathedral of Sante Fé, he ministered to 5, 000 souls and yet found time to attend missions at Arroyo Hondo and Taos, where with Kit Carson's aid he put down an uprising caused by a Mexican priest who did not relish the new American jurisdiction.
Sent to care for Arizona, he barely escaped assassination, but neither Indians nor desperadoes could deter one who boasted the Auvergne motto Latsin pas. At Tucson, he erected a rude chapel and undertook the preservation of the historic mission of San Xavier del Bac. Since the newly developing region of Colorado could not be cared for from Santa Fé, Lamy sent him in 1860 to Denver along with Father John B. Raverdy.
Soon his strange wagon loaded with supplies, cooking utensils, bedding, and books was known in all gulches, boom towns, mining camps, and army posts of Colorado and Utah. It was a desperate field for a lone missionary, yet he was everywhere, even fraternizing with Brigham Young and his elders in Salt Lake City.
Consecrated in Cincinnati by Archbishop Purcell, August 16, 1868, he traveled through the East visiting the chief seminaries in a vain effort to obtain volunteers. A year later, he sought aid in France from the Propagation of the Faith and finally obtained three French missionaries and an Irish priest for his distant diocese. A boom in Colorado was followed by hard times.
Rumors reached the East and even Rome that Machebeuf was insolvent, although the only danger lay in frightened creditors driving him to the wall by forcing property sales at auction prices. Going to Rome he offered to resign, but his resignation was refused. Instead, he was made a bishop (1887), and his friend, Nicholas C. Matz, was named coadjutor with the right of succession.
Meanwhile, a holding company had been established, some properties were sold, and in time the financial tangle was straightened out, leaving a surplus besides some of the finest church sites in the state. Active to the end despite injuries received in mountain wrecks, he journeyed to Washington for the foundation of the Catholic University in 1888, the year the Jesuits removed their college from Morrison to Denver and his dearest friend, Archbishop Lamy, died.
Within a year, after an illness of a few days, Machebeuf, too, passed away.
Alive to the future of Colorado and Denver, Machebeuf bought church sites when land values were low, though he invested little in mining properties. On small plots of land, at a time when few men looked beyond gold diggings, he demonstrated that Colorado valleys were suitable for agriculture. Within a few years, he built churches, in Denver, Central City, and Golden City, besides establishing a dozen chapels and stations in mining towns and the new agricultural villages. Under his direction the Sisters of Charity erected hospitals in Denver and Pueblo, the Sisters of Loretto founded St. Mary's Academy in Denver and a school in Pueblo, and the Sisters of St. Joseph erected a school at Central City. In 1868, when Colorado and Utah were made a vicariate, Machebeuf was named vicar apostolic with the title of Bishop of Epiphania.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
