Rev. P. J. Pelzer

Recently, I was searching through vital records from the San Marcial Mission. San Marcial is about 30 miles south of Socorro, New Mexico. It was once a fairly prosperous town until floods destroyed it the 1920s. Now, only a few people live there.

While looking at the marriage and baptismal records of that mission, I kept seeing the same name. This was P.J. Plezer, the priest who officiated these sacraments. I was wondering who he was, when I happened to find a short biographical sketch about him in "The Leading Facts of New Mexican History" Volume IV. Below is that biographical sketch:

Rev. P. J. Pelzer

Rev. P. J. Pelzer, whose priestly offices are performed at San Marcial and outlying missions in the Catholic church, was born in Holland, July 9, 1873, a son of Dominic and Catherine Pelzer, the former now deceased. He persued his early education in the schools of Holland and afterward attended the Louvain American College, where he studied theology, thus preparing for the priesthood, to which he was ordained in 1897. He was ordained for the Santa Fe diocese of New Mexico and was first assigned to mission work at the Guadalupe church at Santa Fe. There he spent a year and in November, 1898, arried in San Marcial, where he assumed pastoral charge of San Marcial church. He was also given charge of the Catholic church at San Antonio and several other outlying missions and under his direction there are now about three hundred and fifty Catholic families. He has been instrumental in building the San Antonio church and also at the San Antonito church and the churces of Carthage and Contadero. He also erected the parochial residence at San Marcial and his entire thought, purpose, and activity are given to his work.

Ralph Emerson Twitchell, editor, The Leading Facts of New Mexican History, Volume IV (Cedar Rapids, IA: The Torch Press, 1917), 376.

San Antonio is 11 miles south of Socorro, San Antonito was near San Antonio, Carthage was 10 miles E. of San Antonio, and Contadero was 4 miles south of San Marcial, across the Rio Grande from Ft. Craig.