A look at how St. Louis became a city of faith and firsts

In the early 1800s, St. Louis was far from a bastion of piety. When Stephen Hempstead arrived in 1811, the trading post was so rough he dismissed it as "the worst place I've ever seen." The city’s moral reputation troubled even the religious elite—Roman Catholic Bishop Benedict Flaget visited in 1814, only to find congregants skipping Mass. By 1820, the fiery Methodist preacher Jesse Walker had branded it the "fountain-head of devilism", vowing to cleanse the city of its sins.

Yet St. Louis’s religious story began long before American rule. Under French and Spanish governance, the foundations were laid—though progress was painfully slow. The first dedicated church building rose in 1770, six years after the town’s founding. By 1776, a priest finally settled in, and lands reserved for the church remained intact—later becoming crucial for the Old Cathedral, now near the Gateway Arch.

A City Divided: Catholics vs. Protestant Pioneers

When the U.S. took control in 1804, Protestant settlers—mostly farmers—flooded in, resenting the French Catholic dominance. Yet the first Protestant congregations formed beyond the city’s core. Hempstead, a Revolutionary War veteran and devout Presbyterian, led the charge. In 1817, he convinced missionary Salmon Giddings to establish First Presbyterian Church, meeting in a private home at Market and Fourth streets.

The denominational boom followed:

• First Baptist (1818)
• Episcopalians (1819)
• Methodists (1821)

Meanwhile, Catholics built institutions—schools, hospitals—and in 1834, completed their grand cathedral. Other faiths soon followed:

• 1834: German newcomers founded their own church.
• 1837: The city’s first Jewish congregation gathered above a grocery store.
• By 1860, 66 houses of worship punctuated the skyline—a testament to St. Louis’s spiritual diversity.

Faith in the Face of Oppression: Meachum and Duchesne

Religious leadership in St. Louis wasn’t just about steeples. John Berry Meachum, born enslaved, arrived in 1815 as a free man, purchasing his family’s freedom through barrel-making. But he sought more than survival. In 1827, he became pastor of First African Baptist Church—St. Louis’s first Black congregation—gathering near present-day Busch Stadium. Defying laws against educating enslaved people, he taught literacy secretly on a Mississippi River steamboat and freed twenty more souls. He died preaching in 1854, a legacy of resistance.

Across the city, Rose Philippine Duchesne, a French nun, arrived in 1818 at age 48 with dreams of teaching Native American girls. Instead, she ran a school for wealthy French Creole children—work that met resistance for years. At 72, she finally reached a Potawatomi mission in Kansas, earning the nickname "woman who prays always." Though she felt her efforts fell short, her influence endured until her death in 1852.

A Lasting Legacy

Today, St. Louis still bears the marks of its tumultuous spiritual past—a city where faith, freedom, and first steps collided to shape its identity.