Modeste Demers
Catholic bishop (1809-1871)
Modeste Demers (11 October 1809 – 28 July 1871) was a Roman Catholic Bishop and missionary in the Oregon Country. A native of Quebec, he traveled overland to the Pacific Northwest and preached in the Willamette Valley and later in what would become British Columbia.
Early life
Modeste Demers was born 11 October 1809, in Saint-Nicolas, Quebec, in Lower Canada. Of French descent, he studied at the seminary of Quebec and was ordained on February 7, 1836 by Archbishop Joseph Signay. After becoming a priest in 1836, he left the following year to be a missionary at the Red River Colony. There he worked under the direction of Bishop Joseph-Norbert Provencher. His stay there was short and he traveled to the Oregon Country with François Norbert Blanchet to perform his duties as a priest and missionary. (See St. Paul's Mission.)
Oregon Country
In 1838, Demers arrived with Blanchet in the Willamette Valley of what would become the U.S. state of Oregon. Demers quickly became immersed in the work with the local trading post staff and the Chinookan nation.
The public source identifies “Modeste Demers” as catholic bishop (1809-1871). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Modeste, Demers and Catholic.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3317901. VIAF identifies the subject as 105881162. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1809, 1871, 1836 and 1838.
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This entry incorporates text from “Modeste Demers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.