Claude Marie Dubuis, a native of Teche, France was born March 8, 1817.  He was educated in two seminaries in France and ordained a priest January 1, 1844 in Lyons.

He heard about Texas when Bishop Jean Marie Odin was in France recruiting missionaries to serve in Texas and he was persuaded to follow him.  He came to New Orleans, then studied in Missouri before coming to Texas.  Odin assigned him to Castroville to take care of the German and Alsatian speaking colonists there and in the surrounding area.

When he arrived in late January, 1847 he found a very small church and a crude hut that had been used by a former priest, and some unresponsive colonists.  He set about building a new house with the help of his assistant Father Matthew Chazelle.  He opened a school teaching some eighty youngsters.  His energy and disposition soon won him the affection of the people.

Dubuis developed the cemetery and placed a cross on the hill next to the cemetery according to European custom.  Since then it has been called Cross Hill and was used by the Catholics in earlier times for pilgrimages and prayer petitions, such as rogation days.

When typhus fever claimed the life of young, Chazelle, Father Emmanuel Domenech was sent to help Dubuis.  The two priests were in charge of D'Hanis, Fredericksburg, and New Braunfels, in addition to Castroville and Quihi.  Domenech later published a journal of his adventures in Texas and Mexico, which gives us some valuable insights of the life of these early pioneers.

The church Dubuis found when he came to Castroville was too small and Dubuis was determined to build a larger one.  With the help of the men of the parish and Father Domenech, the second church was completed by Easter of 1850 (the church was razed in1880 after the third church was built.)