 Fr. Sebastian Henry Shaw, OP
Fr. Sebastian was one of our early great missionaries serving the area around Benicia,
California for close to twenty years. He was born in Boston and graduated from
Lowell High School in San Francisco. A convert to Catholicism, he joined the
Dominicans in 1880 and was sent to Louvain, Belgium to study. He became Prior of St.
Dominic's in Benicia in 1893, when he was only thirty years old. In the early 1900's
he went to Holy Rosary in Portland, Oregon. 1912 marked his return to Benicia and
the return of his missionary activity in that area. During his life, he was the
Pastor of both St. Catherine of Siena's in Martinez, and Queen of All Saints in
Concord. Notably he was a founding member of the priory at Holy Rosary in Antioch,
California. It was important for this young Province to have another priory, because
the creation of another priory moved us one step closer to becoming a real Province.
Tragically, he became the only friar to die from the influenza epidemic of 1918 at the age
of 55.
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