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The Vatican created the Vicariate Apostolic of the Oregon Territory on 12/01/1843, the first Roman Catholic administration to oversee operations in the Pacific Northwest, and then subdivided it into three dioceses on 07/24/1846: Oregon City (Oregonopolitanus); Walla Walla (Valle Valliensis); and Vancouver Island (Insula Vancouver). Shortly after the creation of the Diocese of Walla Walla, tensions among Euro-American settlers and the Cayuse and Umatilla Indians came to a head; due to the influx of white settlers, the native tribes fell victim to various serious illnesses, including a measles epidemic in 1847; missionaries Marcus Whitman (1802–1847), a physician, and his wife, Narcissa Prentiss Whitman (1808-1847), living in a settlement called Waiilatpu near Walla Walla, attempted to heal the moribund natives, but failed to curtail the deaths. As was customary, the Cayuse held medicine men responsible if their treatments did not work. As a result, they killed the Whitmans as well as 11 other white men and boys on 11/29/1847. The Whitman Massacre caused a temporary white exodus from the area, resulting in the dissolution of the Diocese of Walla Walla in 1850. The Diocese of Oregon City, located well away from the Cayuse fighting, was given supervisory power over the Walla Walla territory, and became an Archdiocese on 07/29/1850. At about the same time, the Diocese of Nesqually at Fort Vancouver was created on 05/31/1850; the Church of Saint James, protected by the Hudson's Bay Company and the US Army, became the Bishop of Nesqually's original seat. (Originally, the diocese was spelled "Nesqually," but later came to be standardized as "Nisqually.") Bishop Augustin Magloire Alexander Blanchet (1797-1887), brother of the first Vicar Apostolic of the Oregon Territory, Francois Norbert Blanchet (1795-1883), blessed the newly-designated cathedral on 01/23/1851.

This was the second Catholic church built in the region, two years before the Oregon Territory was formed on 08/14/1848. (The first was one built by Catholic Canadians in the Willamette Valley in 1836.) The Church of Saint James stood 36 feet long and 20 feet high and held 500; it had a timber frame and siding, covered by a gable roof. Parishioners entered the building on one gable end, with two stories of windows illuminating the facade. The two long sides had only one story of windows.

At some point, perhaps when the church became a cathedral in 1850, a bell tower was added to the gable end. Worshipers gained entry through the base of the campanile.

Demolished; Saint James Cathedral #1 was consumed by fire in 1889. A second cathedral had been started previously in 1884 and completed in 1885.

PCAD id: 8122