2022-0295
Title
Proclamation: 300th Anniversary of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church
Body
P R O C L A M A T I O N
WHEREAS, St. Charles Parish, formerly referred to as the German Coast, is the 3rd oldest settlement in Louisiana after Natchitoches and New Orleans; older than the nation itself; and,
WHEREAS, 300 years ago in that first German Coast Settlement in 1722, St. Jean des Allemands Catholic Church was established at Karlstein, site of the first German Villages; and,
WHEREAS, in 1723, in the earliest census of the German Coast by French Officials, it reads: "Entry No. 45 The Chapel at the end of a yard surrounded by ditches and about 15 toises square; a house, a kitchen at the end of the yard; a garden, a cemetery covering all one arpent and a half"; and,
WHEREAS, St. Charles Civil Parish has been intricately linked for centuries to its religious namesake, the ecclesiastical Parish of St. Charles Red Church; and,
WHEREAS, Tradition says that in 1740, St. Jean des Allemands Catholic Church was relocated to the east bank and referred to as "St. Charles" or "Church of the Germans"; and,
WHEREAS, in 1770, Louisiana's Spanish Governor Luis de Unzaga gave land grants to establish churches and cemeteries on the German Coast-one each in the ecclesiastical parishes of St. Charles and St. John; and.
WHEREAS, in 1806, the original log church in Destrehan burned and was replaced by a wood framed church painted red and thereafter referred to as "The Little Red Church"; and,
WHEREAS, St. Charles "Little Red Church", now known as St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Destrehan, remained on the Spanish land grant through the centuries serving as the mother church for many mission chapels in the Parish; and,
WHEREAS, St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery is the oldest German cemetery in the South. This Spanish land grant and the church and cemetery along with their centuries old neighbors, Destrehan Plantation and Ormond Plantation, remain in St. Charles Parish's Mile of His...
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