wrote of this experience much later, around 1839. Missionary In the Allegheny Mountains, in 1799, Gallitzin founded the settlement of Loretto, Pennsylvania in what is now Cambria County, Pennsylvania. In turn, Loretto was an expansion upon a small clearing, "the McGuire Settlement," established by Captain Michael McGuire in 1788. McGuire, who died in 1793, bequeathed in trust to Bishop Carroll to launch a full Catholic community with resident clergy. Gallitzin's military training had taught him engineering fundamentals, and in 1816 he marked out Loretto on the southern slope of a pleasant hillside. He named the town after the place of Marian devotion in Italy. With Gallitzin in the lead, Loretto became the first English-speaking Catholic settlement in the United States west of the Allegheny Front. Gallitzin dedicated Loretto's parish church to the honor of St. Michael the Archangel, both as a nod to Gallitzin's Russian roots and, indirectly, to Michael McGuire. For several years St. Michael's Church was the only Catholic Church between Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and St. Louis, Missouri. The church today is known as the Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel. In 1802, Gallitzin became a naturalized citizen of the United States under the name Augustine Smith. Seven years after he was naturalized and became a citizen of the United States, an Act passed by the General Assembly of Pennsylvania authorized him to establish his name, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, and to enjoy all of the benefits accruing to him under the name Augustine Smith. In the Alleghenies It was a sick-call that first brought Father Gallitzin to "the McGuire settlement." After he was established in Loretto, if a sick-call was within a few miles of wherever he was staying, he traveled on foot. For the last four years of his life, he traveled by sled because a fall prevented him from riding horseback. When Gallitzin first started, there were few families, and those were widely scattered. He bought land to attract other Catholic settlers. Gallitzin is believed to have spent $150,000 (USD) of his funds to purchase some additional which he gave or sold at low prices to newly arriving Catholic settlers. Traveling from one valley to the next, he was often away for over a week, sleeping on bare floors. For most of his time in the mountains, he worked alone and was relatively isolated. In September 1807, he wrote to Bishop Carroll: ...I am hardly recovered from