The Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception traces its origin to July 20, 1703, when Jean-Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrieres de Saint Vallier, Bishop of Quebec, established it at Fort Louis de la Mobile, the city’s first permanent settlement, and appointed Father M. Henri Roulleaux de La Vente as pastor of the first formal church along the Mississippi Valley, extending from the mouth of the Mississippi to Canada. The missionary zeal of the early Catholic Jesuit priests who accompanied Mobile’s founders, brothers Pierre Le Moyne, d’Iberville and Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, de Bienville, was intrinsic to the religious development of Mobile, Alabama. Its archives preserve records of Mobile’s multicultural and diverse origin, with sacramental records begun in 1704 by M. Henri Roulleaux de La Vente documenting the first baptisms, marriages, and burials of the French, Spanish, British, Native Americans, Africans, and Creole de Color in Mobile. Many of these documents are the only reference to eighteenth century African slaves and are among the oldest on the Gulf Coast, and some are signed by Mobile’s founders, Pierre Le Moyne, d’Iberville and Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, de Bienville. The ceremonial placement of the cathedral’s cornerstone took place in the Catholic Graveyard on July 19, 1835.