Establislmze11t of tire Dioceses, 1847-1948
1 37
dreaded visitor in the loss of three members of their struggling con- gregation. 67 Bishop Manucy was transferred to the Diocese of Mobile on March 23, 1884, to succeed Bishop Quinlan. But within a year he resigned and begged to be permitted to return to his beloved Vicariate of Brownsville, poor, filled with hardships and want, and distant as it was. He was reappointed on February 21, 1885, as Titular Bishop of Maronea, but before he could arrange for his return death overtook him on December 4, 1885. 68 The Erection of tlze Diocese of Dal-la.r. The State was rapidly devel- oping, as immigration steadily flowed north and west into the great plains. With the Indian menace removed by 1876, settlers began to make their way into this area through Dallas, the gateway to the west. John Neely Bryan, a pioneer from Arkansas, had built his cabin in 1841 near the point where the three forks of the Trinity meet, not far from the present city of Dallas. Other settlers made this their stopping place on their way west and some decided to stay. The result was that a prosperous little settlement arose by 1846, at which time a town site was surveyed of which Bryan was appointed postmaster. Eight years later, the pioneers saw a group of strange men arrive from France to establish a model colony. They were the advance guard of some two hundred settlers from Belgium and Switzerland, recruited by Victor Considerant, follower of the French socialist Fram;ois Charles Marie Fourier. Slowly the settlement grew. Pioneers, buffalo hunters, and trappers stopped to secure supplies; some stayed, others went on, only to return to settle permanently. Father Claude Neraz, the future Bishop of San An- tonio stationed in Nacogdoches in those early years, and his assistant, Father Sebastian Augagneur were the first to visit Dallas to tend the faithful in this region. By 1872 the little band of Catholics had increased sufficiently to form a parish which was placed in charge of Father M. 61 0,P. cit., 66, 72-73. 68 O,p. cit., Year 1886, 323. Sister Mary Xavier states he was transferred to Mobile in 1883 (History of tl,e Di{Jcese of Corpus Cnri.sti, 35-36). C. Jaillet was named administrator and served in this capacity from 1885 to 1887; Bishop J. C. Neraz, of San Antonio, became administrator that year and served as such nominally to 1890, when Father Peter Verdaguer was appointed Titular Bishop of Aulan and Vicar Apostolic of Brownsville. Verdaguer was consecrated on November 9, 1890, in Barcelona, Spain, took possession in Corpus Christi, May 21, 1891, and shortly afterwards decided to move the episcopal residence to Laredo, which was a more populous town. Laredo remained the residence of the Vicar Apostolic of Brownsville until the erection of the Diocese of Corpus Christi in 191 2.
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