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

Back in the early 1800s, St. Louis wasn't exactly known for piety. When a man named Stephen Hempstead moved to this small trading post in 1811, he called it "the worst place I've ever seen. " The city's reputation troubled church leaders too. Roman Catholic Bishop Benedict Flaget visited in 1814 and found members skipping Mass. By 1820, the place earned nicknames like "fountain-head of devilism" from a fiery Methodist preacher named Jesse Walker, who swore to change it. The city’s religious history actually started decades earlier under French and Spanish rule. Yet progress moved slowly. The first building meant just for church services popped up in 1770—six years after the town’s birth. By 1776, a steady priest finally arrived. Lands set aside for church use never got sold, which later became a big deal when the Old Cathedral was built near today’s Gateway Arch. After America took over in 1804, Protestant settlers poured in. Most were farmers who didn’t like the French Catholic influence. Still, the first Protestant groups formed outside the main town. Hempstead, a Revolutionary War veteran and Presbyterian, took the lead in creating the city’s first Protestant congregation. He convinced a missionary named Salmon Giddings to start First Presbyterian Church in 1817, which met in a private home at Market and Fourth streets.New churches kept popping up: First Baptist in 1818, Episcopalians in 1819, and Methodists in 1821. The Catholics meanwhile built schools, hospitals, and by 1834, their grand cathedral. Church groups also created orphanages, schools, and later in 1837, the city’s first Jewish congregation meeting above a grocery. German newcomers started their own church in 1834. By 1860, you could count 66 houses of worship dotting the skyline—a mix of spires and history. Religious leadership didn’t stop with steeples. John Berry Meachum, born into slavery, made his way to St. Louis as a free man in 1815. He bought freedom for his wife and himself, then built barrels by trade. But he wanted more than just survival. He became pastor of First African Baptist Church in 1827, St. Louis’s first Black congregation. Worshippers met near what’s now Busch Stadium. Though illegal to teach slaves to read, Meachum kept teaching on a steamboat in the Mississippi River. He even bought freedom for twenty more people. He died preaching in 1854. Likewise, Rose Philippine Duchesne arrived in 1818 at age 48. She dreamed of teaching Native American girls but ended up running a school for wealthy French Creole children instead. For years, her work had a tough reception. Finally, at 72, she reached a Potawatomi mission in Kansas, earning the name "woman who prays always. " Despite feeling she accomplished little, her impact lasted long after her death in 1852. Today, the city still carries these roots of faith, freedom, and first steps.