This black and white photographs shows Reverend Joseph Perrier, (1839-1917), copied from the "Biographical History of Cloud County, Kansas", by Mrs. E. F. Hollibaugh. Perrier a native of Savoy, France, came to Lawrence, Kansas in June of 1866 at the age of twenty-seven as a missionary priest to serve the Lawrence community. In 1871, he transferred to Topeka, Kansas to become a teacher in the Catholic seminary, a position he held for a short period of time, before serving the church in Emporia, Kansas in 1874. During his time in Emporia, he organizing forty missions within a four hundred mile radius. His spiritual journey lead him to a number of towns and in 1880, he arrived in Concordia, Kansas to become the first residential pastor. Perrier's responsibilities to his parishioners and to the Catholic church were further recognized when he became vicar general of the Concordia diocese.