Alexis Bachelot

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Reverend Alexis John Augustine Bachelot, SS.CC., P.A., (February 22, 1796 - December 5, 1837) was a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a Roman Catholic priest and the Prefect Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands (present Hawaii).

[edit] Biography

He was born in Saint-Cyr-la-Rosière, Orne, France. He entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1811 and professed on February 22, 1813. After completion of his theological studies at the Irish College in Paris, he was ordained to the presbyterate in 1820.

In 1825, Pope Leo XII appointed Father Bachelot as the Prefect of the newly-created Prefecture Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands. This prefecture would later be incorporated (along with the Prefectures Apostolic of Tahiti and the Marquesas) into the Vicariate Apostolic of Oriental Oceania by the Holy See. He was assisted in his new position by Fathers Patrick Short and Abraham Armand and six lay brothers. They sailed from France on La Comète on November 21, 1826 and arrived in Valparaíso, Chile, on February 8, 1827. They left Valparaíso on February 25, 1827, and after making two short stops at Arequipa and Lima, they arrived in Honolulu on July 9, 1827.

After laboring for a short time in Hawai‘i, Father Bachelot was expelled from the Hawaiian Islands and ministered for a short time at Mission San Gabriel Arcangel near Los Angeles. In 1828, he planted the seeds of the algaroba tree (Prosopis sp.) from France.

In 1837 he left Hawaii in the company of Father (later Bishop) Louis Maigret. His destination when he left Honolulu for the last time was the South Seas. He died at sea on December 5, 1837, and was buried by Father Maigret on Pohnpei in the Senyavin Islands of the Federated States of Micronesia.