Capuchin, was in charge. There is no record to show how the eastern portion of the diocese was evangelized, but the Catholic names given to villages and lakes contiguous to the Mississippi indicate that priests must have visited that country. The priests probably were Jesuits, as they had charge of the Indians along the Mississippi under the Bishop of Quebec in the 18th century. The records show that in 1829 Father Martin of Avoyelles attended the Catholics on the Red, Black and Ouachita rivers; that, in 1840 and after, Father J. Timon, afterwards Bishop of Buffalo, made regular trips from Texas to attend the north Louisiana missions, and that Father O'Brien, a Dominican from Louisville, attended yearly the Catholics along the Mississippi. The Catholics located on the rivers of the state often drifted to New Orleans on barges to have their marriages blessed and their children baptized, and come back cordelling their boats. In 1852, the Fathers of the First Council of Baltimore recommended division of the Archdiocese of New Orleans by formation of a diocese with its see at Natchitoches and the appointment of Father Augustus Marie Martin, then the parish priest at Natchitoches, as its first bishop, to the Holy See. Pope Pius IX granted this request, erecting the Diocese of Natchitoches on 9 July 1853 with territory taken from the Metropolitan Archdiocese of New Orleans, making it a suffragan of the same metropolitan see, and appointing Fr. Martin as its first bishop. There were four priests in the new diocese at the time, three of whom returned to the Archdiocese of New Orleans, to which they belonged, while the fourth remained. Bishop Martin left a collection of unpublished letters that tell the early life of his diocese, his struggles with poverty, and his many trips to France to recruit his clergy. A fluent writer, his letters to the Propagation of the Faith were inserted in the "Annals"; the bishops of the Second Council of Baltimore and those of the provincial Council of New Orleans delegated him to write letters of thanks to the directors of the Propagation of the Faith for their generous contributions. Both letters were reproduced in "Les Missions Catholiques". Bishop Martin left an organized diocese with 20 priests, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart with one convent at Natchitoches, and the Daughters of the Cross with their mother house and several convents in the