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A commemorative address or sermon marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding by Fr. Luke Sheehan OFM Cap. of St. Francis Parish in Bend, Oregon. The address was written by Father William Stone, Pastor of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Madras, Oregon. The document includes a detailed account of the funeral of Father Luke Sheehan.

A survey of the geographic reach, institutions, and specific outstations managed by the Capuchin Missions across the 3,460 square miles of Mendocino County, California. The text organizes the territory into four main pastoral centres: Ukiah (the county seat and mission headquarters, which includes responsibility for four Native American chapels, a state insane asylum, a boy’s orphanage, and the county poor farm), Fort Bragg, Mendocino, and Greenwood. Each section lists specific outlying stations – such as Caspar, Albion, Branscomb, Westport, and Boonville – along with the distance from the main parish and the frequency of scheduled Masses. The bottom of the page features a prominent, critical handwritten note attributing an observation to Fr. Laurence regarding the local population, stating that despite claims of 1,500 Italians living in Fort Bragg, there were ‘certainly not a hundred people at mass’ on the Sunday he visited. A shorter note by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. identifies the handwriting as belonging to the late Fr. Luke Sheehan OFM Cap.

A report providing a structural, financial, and demographic overview of the Catholic Ukiah Mission and surrounding out-stations. The document outlines the territorial boundaries and pastoral history of the mission under the administration of the Capuchin friars, listing its active churches and dependencies across regional stations like Hopland, Willits, and Covelo. Additionally, it details the mission’s financial standing – accounting for itemized receipts, expenditures, and bank balances – and compiles the exact census data and sacramental figures (baptisms, marriages, and conversions).

A financial document from Roseburg, Oregon, detailing the repayment and management of a significant parish debt. It begins by listing an initial ‘Debt when taken over’ of $10,602.26, which is broken down into an ‘Irish Loan’ valued at £1,500.0.0, along with interest and principal payments made back to Ireland. To cover a total of $7,528.26 sent to Ireland, funds were sourced from Abbottstown ($4,375.00), an Extension society ($2,046.00), Father Luke Sheehan ($300.00), and the parish itself ($807.26). The bottom half of the page details a total of $12,762.83 in ‘Debts paid off’, which includes street assessments and sidewalks ($6,359.13), bank notes from Albany Bank and Douglas National Bank, personal notes to W. Kelleher and M. Marsh, and payments to Glendale Lumber Co. and Leona Lumber Co.

A chronological record of the Catholic Mission in Bend, Oregon, tracking its development from 1904 through the early 1920s. The narrative chronicles the early circuit priests and the 1910 arrival of the Irish Capuchin friars, led by Father Luke Sheehan, who initially ministered to a tiny congregation of just 72 Catholics. Despite a devastating 1911 fire that destroyed their original schoolhouse chapel, the parish expanded rapidly alongside Bend’s industrial logging boom fuelled by the Brooks-Scanlon and Shevlin-Hixon lumber mills. Over the next decade, the mission successfully incorporated the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, partnered with the Sisters of St. Joseph to found St. Charles Hospital in 1917, constructed a large new church in 1920, and grew its community to a census population of 610 Catholics.

A clipping of an article written by Richard E. Delany outlining the establishment of a Capuchin Franciscan college in Mendocino, California. The article profiles Father Marianus Fiege OFM Cap., a distinguished figure who established local devotions, compiled a prominent prayer book, and previously ran a printing press. Currently, the new college project is being advanced by Father Luke Sheehan OFM Cap. along with three other Capuchins who graduated from University College Cork. Operating under the encouragement of Archbishop Edward Joseph Hanna, the institution is designed to function as a boarding school to bring Christian education, moral guidance, and character building to the local families and the growing populations of lumbering coast towns.
The article is taken from the ‘San Francisco Leader’ (22 November 1924).

List of Irish Capuchin friars resident in Bend Oregon in 1928 and in 1931.

Letter from Mother Mary Gertrude, Mother Superior, St. Joseph’s Academy, Tipton, Indiana, to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Provincial Minister. She explains that she met Fr. Luke Sheehan on a ship from Ireland in 1908, and he has since written to her ‘making a great effort’ to get sisters to help his mission. Mother Gertrude proposes a plan to recruit young women from Ireland to join their order specifically to serve the Oregon mission. She describes their ‘young and flourishing institute’ in Indiana where these young women could be trained in religious and secular subjects before entering the novitiate.

Letter from Fr. Thomas Dowling OFM Cap. to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Provincial Minster, on his preaching of sermons in Portland and additional reports of his findings in Oregon. He writes ‘Catholicity is very strong here. The Catholics occupy very influential positions, and I have never met a more charming character than Archbishop Christie’.