Croke, James, 1827-1888.

Born in Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland, in 1827, Father James Croke was educated in Irish College in Paris, France, and came to the U.S. in 1850. Croke traveled from San Francisco to Oregon at the invitation of Father Francis Blanchet; in 1851 he raised funds for and supervised the construction of the first Catholic church in Portland, Or. In 1853 he became a travelling missionary in southern Oregon, ministering primarily to Catholics in the area's mining camps, but also spending some time among the Native American tribes of the Rogue River Valley. Croke's efforts met with limited success, and he developed chronic health and financial difficulties. After overseeing the construction of a church in Jacksonville, Or., in 1858, Croke returned to the archdiocese of San Francisco, where he eventually rose to the position of Vicar General. His greatest achievement in California was the foundation of Saint Mary's College in 1863. Father James Croke died in 1888.

Born in Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland, in 1827, James Croke was educated in Irish College in Paris, France, where he met French Canadian cleric François Norbert Blanchet. Croke came to the United States in 1850, stopping first at San Francisco. In 1851 Blanchet, now archbishop of Oregon City, appealed to Croke to come to Oregon, as there were very few Catholic priests in the state. Croke’s first major accomplishment came later that year when he raised funds for and supervised the construction of the first Catholic church in Portland.

Croke’s career took a different turn in 1853 when he became a travelling missionary to southern Oregon. Croke’s missionary activity included some time spent among the tribes of the Rogue River Valley, but his main purpose was ministering to white Catholic Oregonians, many of whom lived without regular access to a priest. To this end, Croke traversed the rugged mountains of far southern Oregon where Irish, Italian, French, and Mexican immigrants had come to mine gold. Croke found these polyglot mining communities to be more fertile soil than the established agricultural centers of Albany, Marysville [Corvallis], and Salem, where Protestantism was strongly entrenched among the sons and daughters of the original pioneer generation. Even so, Croke’s efforts met with limited success, and he developed chronic health and financial difficulties.

In 1857 he abandoned Oregon and returned to San Francisco. The following year he briefly reentered the state on the urging of Blanchet to construct a church in Jacksonville. This task accomplished, Croke fully entered the service of the archbishop of San Francisco, where he eventually rose to the position of Vicar General. His greatest achievement in California was the foundation of Saint Mary’s College in 1863. James Croke died in 1888.

Source: O’Hara, Edwin V, Pioneer Catholic History of Oregon (Portland: Glass and Prudhomme, 1911). http://www.archive.org/details/pioneercatholich00ohar

Schoenbery, S.J., A History of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest (Washington D.C.: Pastoral Press, 1987).

De La Salle Institute, Pioneers: The Brothers Come West. http://www.delasalle.org/consumers/christian_schools/brothers_come_west02.pdf

O’Longaigh, David, “Irish Pioneer Missionary Lived Heroically” in The Catholic Sentinel, March 15, 2002. http://www.sentinel.org/node/2636

The Catholic Guide, Archdiocese of San Francisco. http://thecatholicguide.com/wiki/Archdiocese_of_San_Francisco