Jean-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Félix Pandosy (22 November 1824 – February 1891), commonly known as Father Pandosy, was a French Catholic priest who was the first settler in the

Kelowna Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ''ki� ...

area in British Columbia. He set up a church and a school and attracted many settlers to the area.The Kelowna Story An Okanagan History, Sharron J. Simpson, 2011, Harbour Publishing Company Limited, He founded the

Okanagan Mission Father Pandosy Mission, also known as the Okanagan Mission, was the original home for Father Pandosy in Kelowna, British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pa ...

which was the first permanent white settlement in the

British Columbia Interior , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Interior" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivi ...

aside from the forts for the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

and the gold rush boomtowns of the

Fraser Canyon The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser ...

.The History of Okanagan Mission A Centennial Retrospect, Primrose Upton, 1958, Okanagan Mission Centennial Committee

Background

Father Pandosy was born on 22 November 1824 in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, to Esprit-Étienne-Charles-Henri Pandosy, a sea captain, and Marguerite-Josephine-Marie Dallest. He was educated at Collège de Bourbon in

Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

. He then decided to enter the Oblate Juniorate of Notre-Dame de Lumières. On 14 August 1844, he entered the novitiate of the

Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is a missionary religious congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded on January 25, 1816, by Eugène de Mazenod, a French priest born in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France on August 1, ...

(O.M.I.) at Notre-Dame-de-l'Osier and took his vows one year and one day later, on 15 August 1845. After that, he studied philosophy and theology at the seminary in Marseille. Towards the end of 1846,

Eugène de Mazenod Eugène de Mazenod (born Charles-Joseph-Eugène de Mazenod; 1 August 1782 – 21 May 1861) was a French aristocrat and Catholic priest. When he was eight years old, Mazenod's family fled the French Revolution, leaving their considerable wea ...

, the founder of the O.M.I., granted the request of two Pacific Northwest bishops (

Augustin-Magloire Blanchet Augustin Magloire Alexandre Blanchet (22 August 1797 – 25 February 1887) was a French Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of the now-defunct Diocese of Walla Walla and of the Diocese of Nesqually in pr ...

Walla Walla, Washington Walla Walla is a city in Walla Walla County, Washington, where it is the largest city and county seat. It had a population of 34,060 at the 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,927 as of 2021. The population of the city and its two su ...

and

Modeste Demers Modeste Demers (11 October 1809 – 28 July 1871) was a Roman Catholic Bishop and missionary in the Oregon Country. A native of Quebec, he traveled overland to the Pacific Northwest and preached in the Willamette Valley and later in what would beco ...

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...

) to send Oblate missionaries from France to serve in their dioceses. Pandosy and 4 other men (one ordained priest, three scholastics, of which Pandosy was one, and one lay brother) left Le Havre on 4 February 1847 when Pandosy was 23 years old. They arrived in New York on 2 April 1847, met Bishop Blanchet in St. Louis and reached Kansas City on 1 May 1847. They then joined a caravan going to

Fort Hall Fort Hall was a fort in the western United States that was built in 1834 as a fur trading post by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. It was located on the Snake River in the eastern Oregon Country, now part of present-day Bannock County in southeastern Ida ...

in what is now southeastern

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

. When the party arrived at Fort Hall the Bishop and a few companions went ahead to prepare lodgings and provisions for the winter. Father Pandosy remained with the wagons in Fort Hall and finally arrived in Walla Walla on 5 October 1847, eight months after he had set out from France.

Work in Oregon Territory

Father Pandosy and the other Oblates began by proselytizing the

Yakama The Yakama are a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in eastern Washington state. Yakama people today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Their ...

people in the lower valley of the Yakima River. While they were there, the

Whitman Massacre The Whitman massacre (also known as the Walla Walla massacre and referred to as the Tragedy at Waiilatpu by the National Park Service) was the killing of the Washington missionaries Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa, along with eleven others ...

occurred near Walla Walla. The Bishop decided to immediately ordain two of the Oblates, Pandosy and Father Eugene Chirouse. Pandosy was ordained into the priesthood on 2 January 1848. Father Pandosy then returned to the Yakama Indians, and convinced them to stay neutral in the

Cayuse War The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the Northwestern United States from 1847 to 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local American settlers. Caused in part by the influx of disease ...

which broke out after the massacre. Pandosy and Chirouse befriended

Chief Kamiakin Kamiakin (1800–1877) (Yakama) was a leader of the Yakama, Palouse, and Klickitat peoples east of the Cascade Mountains in what is now southeastern Washington state. In 1855, he was disturbed by threats of the Territorial Governor, Isaac Steven ...

of the Yakama people and he protected them for many years. In early 1849 the two priests built the Mission of St. Joseph at Saralpes. In 1851 he was joined by Father

Louis-Joseph d'Herbomez Louis-Joseph d'Herbomez (January 17, 1822 – June 3, 1890) was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest, Vicar Apostolic of British Columbia, and Titular Bishop of Miletopolis from 1863 to 1890. Curriculum Vitae Louis-Joseph d'Herbomez was born on Ja ...

and they moved the mission to the

Ahtanum Creek Ahtanum Creek is a tributary of the Yakima River in the U.S. state of Washington. It starts at the confluence of the Middle and North Forks of Ahtanum Creek near Tampico, flows along the north base of Ahtanum Ridge, ends at the Yakima River near ...

. This was near Kamiakin’s camp. The

Yakima War The Yakima War (1855–1858), also referred to as the Yakima Native American War of 1855 or the Plateau War, was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama, a Sahaptian-speaking people of the Northwest Plateau, then part of Washington T ...

broke out in 1855. Volunteer soldiers went into the field to fight against the Indians. Some of these volunteers took the St. Joseph Mission and uncovered a keg of powder, leading them to believe that the priests were helping the Yakama. The mission was burned and Father Pandosy was forced to flee with the Yakama. He escaped from them and managed to find his way to the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

’

St. Paul's Mission St. Paul's Mission was a Jesuit mission church established in the Hudson's Bay Company's (HBC) Columbia District, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, in the 1830s. The mission was built near the HBC's Fort Colville, on the bluff t ...

Kettle Falls Kettle Falls ( Salish: Shonitkwu, meaning "roaring or noisy waters", also Schwenetekoo translated as "Keep Sounding Water") was an ancient and important salmon fishing site on the upper reaches of the Columbia River, in what is today the U.S. ...

. He stayed there until the middle of 1856, then spent the rest of 1856 and 1857 ministering to the Indians and US troops in that area. In 1858, he was transferred to

Esquimalt The Township of Esquimalt is a municipality at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is bordered to the east by the provincial capital, Victoria, to the south by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the west by Esquim ...

, which was then the headquarters of the Oblates in British Columbia.

Okanagan Mission

In 1858, Father Pandosy and the missionaries arrived in

in the summer. Father Pandosy wanted to start a new colony in the Interior and he chose the

Okanagan The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is par ...

area. He started looking for people to join him. French-Canadian brothers, Theodor and Cyprienne Laurence, Cyprienne's wife Therese who was a member of the Flathead tribe and an unnamed Flathead man joined Father Pandosy and set off for the

. In the fall of 1859 they arrived in the

and settled down. However, in the spring it became too marshy so they moved to a spot near modern-day

Mission Creek Mission Creek (from Spanish: ''misión'') is a river in San Francisco, California. Once navigable from the Mission Bay inland to the vicinity of Mission Dolores, where several smaller creeks converged to form it, Mission Creek has long since bee ...

that summer. They built a small log home with a church on the ground floor and they slept upstairs. They called it Mission of the Immaculate Conception and it was located on the site they called L'Anse au Sable (Sandy Cove). Father Pandosy's Mission is commonly called

. The site was not established for fur or gold but rather as a religious site and community settlement. Father Pandosy was just as much a farmer as he was a priest.

had hogs, sheep, oats, barley, wheat, tobacco and potatoes. Father Pandosy's Mission was the first cemetery,British Columbia Ghost Town Series Okanagan-Similikimeen, T.W. Paterson, 1983, Sunfire Publications the first place of worship and the first school in the Southern Interior. Two years after it was founded, 121 people were baptized at

. In 1865, a brother's house was added to the site to house the many priests that stayed there as they were passing through as well as travelers who needed a place to stay. In 1866, a log barn was added to the site. Father Pandosy farmed and found ways to irrigate the land so a root cellar was also built. In 1882, a new sawn lumber church was added. This new church had five

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style windows and a bell tower. A bell that was given to Father Pandosy by Joseph Christien hung in the tower of the new church. father Pandosy was sent on missions across

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

and sometimes he would stay away for years at a time but he always came back to

became the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

's headquarters for the area. However, in 1885, after the completion of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

's new transcontinental line, the oblates switched their headquarters to St. Louis Mission in

Kamloops Kamloops ( ) is a city in south-central British Columbia, Canada, at the confluence of the South flowing North Thompson River and the West flowing Thompson River, east of Kamloops Lake. It is located in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, w ...

. During his service in British Columbia, he established other missions, including one on

Harbledown Island Harbledown Island is an island in the Central Coast region of British Columbia, Canada, located west of West Cracroft Island. It is at the west end of Johnstone Strait and lies at the eastern edge of the Queen Charlotte Strait region. Hanson Is ...

in 1863 which was later closed by

Bishop D'Herbomez Louis-Joseph d'Herbomez (January 17, 1822 – June 3, 1890) was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest, Vicar Apostolic of British Columbia, and Titular Bishop of Miletopolis from 1863 to 1890. Curriculum Vitae Louis-Joseph d'Herbomez was born on Ja ...

in 1874. Louis d'Herbomez built mission with him in 1847, in Washington near Yakima, which was named Sainte Croix. Location was main summer camp for Chief Kamiakin

Death

In February 1891, Father Pandosy was called to

Keremeos Keremeos () is a village in the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. The name originated from the Similkameen dialect of the Okanagan language word "Keremeyeus" meaning "creek which cuts its way through the flats" referring to Keremeos ...

. He was 67 years old and in tentative health. Returning from Keremeos, he made it as far as

Penticton Penticton ( ) is a city in the Okanagan Valley of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, situated between Okanagan and Skaha lakes. In the 2016 Canadian Census, its population was 33,761, while its census agglomeration The ce ...

and was very ill. Chief Françoise of the Penticton Indian Band noticed Father Pandosy's illness and took him in. Thomas Ellis' wife was called because of her nursing skills. Little could be done for Father Pandosy and he died on February 6, 1891. His body was sent back to

on the steamer ''Penticton''. He was buried across the street from the site he founded. The Pandosy Mission Cemetery containing Father Pandosy's grave was discovered by a team of archeologists from Vancouver in 1983. The dig also discovered the graves of several early settlers pre-1900. The site is marked by a granite boulder with a commemorative brass plaque and is located on a working farm about 400 metres north-west from the mission.

Legacy

In 1896,

was sold to Father Eumelin. Father Eumelin ran the Mission until 1902. Father Pandosy's Mission closed in 1902 and the land was purchased by the Kelowna Land and Orchard Company. Father Pandosy's Mission had been a place of worship for forty-four years. 1947 saw the property sold again and it was slated for demolition but a group of volunteers rescued and restored the three original buildings on the site. Father Pandosy's original sawn wood church was sold to a local congregation and they moved the church to their site in Rutland where it was later destroyed by fire. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate bought the two acres that held the original buildings in 1954. In 1983, the site was designated as a B.C. Heritage Site. Father Pandosy's Mission is now four acres and other historic buildings have been put on site.

References