French friars were the first in the Attakapas area

Capuchin priests were among the first missionaries to visit the Attakapas region, and the first priest at the church of the Attakapas Post was a member of the order that was founded in 1520 as an offshoot of the Franciscans.
Capuchin Father Jean Francois de Civray came with the first group of Acadians who settled in St. Martinville in 1765, and established a church that he called l’Eglise de la Nouvelle Acadie aux Attakapas, the Church of New Acadia at Attakapas.
It was appropriate that a Capuchin traveled with the Acadians; the order and the Acadians had a long history. In 1632 Capuchin friars from the province of Paris were put in charge of the missions in old Acadie. The center of the mission was at Port Royal, but the Capuchin ministry extended from what is now Hancock County, Maine, northward to the Bay of Chaleur, an arm of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence between Quebec and New Brunswick.
According to the Catholic encyclopedia, “The missions in Acadia were in a flourishing condition when the English Puritans broke up the settlement in 1655 and expelled the friars. Yet in 1656 the friars were still at work amongst the Micmac Indians.”
Priests had been coming to the Attakapas post even before the Acadian arrival. Louisiana was a part of the Diocese of Quebec in 1714, when French Capuchins were invited to set up permanent missions in Louisiana. Early ones included New Orleans, St. Louis, Galveston, Mobile, Pensacola, Natchez, Natchitoches, and other places. Until 1770, Capuchin missionaries traveled the Old Spanish Trail into southwest Louisiana or followed the Opelousas road that ran up the Teche from New Iberia through St. Martinville to Opelousas, and on to Natchitoches.
The first baptism recorded at the Attakapas post was on June 5, 1756, when Father Pierre Didier, baptized John “of the Manega nation” and “Marie of the Senegal nation” and married them that same day.
In 1765, Father Jean Francois, the priest who came with the Acadians, built the first church at St. Martinville. For many years, this church and the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the St. Landry community of Washington were the only churches between the Atchafalaya and Sabine rivers. Between them they served the whole lower third of the state west of the Atchafalaya.
When Spain assumed control of the territory in 1770, the French priests and Spanish governors found themselves at political loggerheads. The Capuchins ended up leaving Louisiana and Spanish priests replaced the Frenchmen.
A permanent church building in St. Martinville was completed in 1774, but it continued to be served by visiting priests for some time.
Father George Murphy took charge of the church in 1791 and is generally credited with being the first priest to refer to it as the Church of St. Martin de Tours

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.