Welcome to Saint Vincent Archabbey

From The Sportsman's Hall Parish Later Named Saint Vincent 1790-1846, By Omer U. Kline, O.S.B., Published by Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, 15650-1690, U.S.A. © 1990, 1998 by Omer U. Kline. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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Brouwer's Monument
Father Brouwers' life story is a very intriguing one, packed into fifty-two years of life. He was born in Rotterdam, Holland in 1738, and pronounced vows as a Franciscan Friar at twenty years of age. He was ordained a priest on June 5, 1762, and taught at Franciscan seminaries in Holland and Belgium until 1776. It was in this epochal year of American independence that Father Brouwers was appointed superior of a missionary band that was sent to CuraÁao, a Dutch island-colony in the West Indies off the coast of Venezuela. In CuraÁao Father Brouwers had the authority and title of Prefect Apostolic. On this "hot and soggy island" he labored and ministered for eleven years amid the most trying conditions. His departure from CuraÁao is shrouded in mystery; we know only that he left in 1787, and was next heard from in January 1789 in Philadelphia. Here he stayed for a few months, and became aware that the Catholic settlers of western Pennsylvania - in particular, those who had located in the area of the newly-founded town of Greensburg in Westmoreland County - strongly desired the ministry of a priest.

It was in the autumn of 1789 that Father Brouwers was commissioned by Bishop John Carroll to care for the spiritual needs of these neglected Catholic settlers. The latter had been selected by Pope Pius VI in 1784 to be "Superior of the Mission" of the newly independent United States of America; and, in this year 1789 he was named first Catholic bishop of the newly-established Diocese of Baltimore, which comprised the thirteen original states of the Union. As such, Bishop Carroll was empowered to appoint Father Brouwers the first resident pastor of the Catholic faithful in western Pennsylvania. This year had already been made most memorable in American history by the inauguration, on April 30, 1789, of General George Washington as the first president of the United States.

Father Brouwers died on October 29, 1790 and his body was laid to rest in a plot overlooking Sportsman's Hall - since 1869, his remains have lain at rest under the massive stone cross in Saint Vincent Cemetery.