19 Facts About Michael Portier

Michael Portier was an American Catholic bishop who served as the first Bishop of Mobile from 1829 until his death in 1859.

Michael Portier later founded many parishes and Catholic institutions in Alabama and Florida, particularly in Mobile.

Michael Portier recruited religious orders of men and women to teach and care for parishioners.

Michael Portier is one of several early American Catholic bishops to have owned slaves.

Michel Michael Portier was born in Montbrison in the diocese of Lyon, France.

Michael Portier was a student at the seminary in Lyon when recruited by Bishop Louis William Valentine Dubourg for the American mission.

Michael Portier emigrated to the United States at the age of 22 in 1817 with the goal of becoming a priest.

Michael Portier sailed from Bordeaux with Dubourg and about thirty companions on the French ship of war Caravane and landed after sixty-five days at Annapolis, Maryland on 4 September 1817.

Michael Portier became the only Vicar Apostolic of the new Vicariate of Alabama and the Floridas, which included the Territory of Arkansas.

Michael Portier's parishioners were Catholics who were descendants of colonial era peoples, including ethnic French, Spanish, German and African of former French and Spanish territories.

Michael Portier began his administration by riding through his vicariate, offering the Eucharist, preaching, and administering the Sacraments as he went.

Michael Portier sailed for Europe in 1829 to recruit assistants, and returned with a few seminarians and a priest, Mathias Loras.

On May 15,1829, the vicariate was raised by Pope Pius VIII to become the Diocese of Mobile, and Bishop Michael Portier was made its first bishop.

Michael Portier's cathedral was a small church twenty feet wide by fifty feet deep, his residence a still smaller two-roomed frame structure.

In 1830, Michael Portier established Spring Hill College, and named Mathias Loras its head.

Michael Portier consecrated John Stephen Bazin, another president of Spring Hill, and later the third Bishop of Vincennes, Indiana on October 24,1847.

In 1833 Michael Portier secured from the Georgetown Visitation Monastery, Georgetown, Washington, DC, a colony of nuns who established the Convent and Academy of the Visitation in Mobile.

Michael Portier brought the Brothers of the Sacred Heart from France about 1847, and the Daughters of Charity from Emmitsburg, Maryland, to manage orphan asylums for boys and girls, respectively.

Michael Portier is entombed in the crypt of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile.