He was the seventh of nine children, and he was born into a well-off middle-class family and grew up in a three-story manor home (the chateau de la Roche) with seven acres of land.

On August 15, 1840, Sorin - together with Basil Moreau and three other priests - were the first members of the Congregation of Holy Cross to take solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

[2] Simon Bruté, who Sorin has witnessed recruiting priests and missionaries for his recently established diocese in Vincennes in Indiana, died in 1839.

His successor Célestin Guynemer de la Hailandière renewed the call for help, and Moreau decided to send assistance.

They spent three days in the city hosted by Samuel Byerley, a rich trader and convert to Catholicism, and met with New York's bishop John Dubois.

On September 16 they went up the Hudson River by paddleboat to Albany and then reached Buffalo via the Erie Canal, with a short detour to view Niagara falls.

The school was soon headed by Charles Rother, a German immigrant who soon desired to join the congregation and became the first to do so in the United States, with the name of Brother Joseph.

The start of the mission saw some hardships, particularly in adopting foreign agricultural practices and the cultivation of corn, but they adapted with help from the locals.

This disagreement was partially diffused by Father Juliane Delaune, who was able to solicit funds and donations amounting to 15,000 francs, which he divided between Sorin and the bishop.

A second and deeper misunderstanding arose when Sorin made his intentions to start a collège (a college-high school on the French model).

[3] Instead, the bishop mentioned that he owned land in northern Indiana, close to South Bend, and Sorin could start his college there instead.

may this new Eden be ever the home of innocence and virtue!At the time, the property only had three buildings: a log cabin built by Stephen Badin (the original burned down in 1856 but a replica was built in 1906), a small two-story clapboard building that was the home of the Potawatomi interpreter Charon, and a small shed.

[10] Next, Sorin dedicated himself to building a college proper, since the foundation of such within two years was the condition on which he had been given the land by bishop Hailandière.

While the income from the post office was negligible, its major advantage was to increase the visibility of Notre Dame and incentivize better roads and communications to the campus.

Far from Indiana to India, the flourishing mission in Eastern Bengal, headed by the Congregation of Holy Cross, owes much of its success to Father Sorin's active co-operation and zeal.

The founding of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in the United States is regarded as one of Sorin's most important services to religion.

During the American Civil War, under Sorin's forethought, this sisterhood was able to furnish nearly eighty nurses for sick and wounded soldiers on transports and in hospitals.

Sorin's strength was demonstrated on April 23, 1879, when a fire destroyed the Main Building, which housed virtually the entire university.

Catholicism generally and millions of working-class first- and second-generation American Catholics were inspired to see their sons (and eventually daughters) pursue higher education.

During his tenure as Superior General, Sorin made around 50 voyages across the Atlantic to deal with the affairs of the Congregation in France and Rome.

In the fledgling institution's first year, 1878, three farm boys made up the student body and met for classes in a makeshift building on the old Doyle homestead.

[2] During the Civil War, he allowed several priests and eighty sisters of the community to volunteer as chaplains and nurses, despite their absence affecting the university.

After dinner, Sorin and the faculty members gathered on the Main Building porch and watched the Notre Dame Band perform in the quad and the student military units give their gun salutes.

[28] Sorin's golden jubilee was the climax of a long history of expansion and success for the Congregation and the university, and for the Catholic Church in America as whole.

O'Connel writes that "What had been accomplished at Notre Dame under [Sorin's] stewardship seemed to a wider public emblematic of the growth and maturing of the American Catholic Church as a whole, an there were those in high places anxious to give expression to this fact.

To honor the founder of Notre Dame was in effect to proclaim the enduring and legitimate status of the Church, after much struggle, had attained within American society.

In accord, therefore, with the late nineteenth century's predilection for gaudy celebrations, featuring bands and banquets, fireworks and fiery oratory, plans were formulated at the beginning of 1888 to solemnize Father Sorin's golden anniversary as a national as well as personal triumph.

[5] He died a peaceful and painless death of Bright's Disease at the University of Notre Dame on the eve of All Saints' Day, October 31, 1893.

Students from both Notre Dame and Saint Mary's celebrated with theatrical and musical performances, fireworks, athletic events, a feast in the dining halls, and by sending cards and well wishes to Sorin.

[43][44] Over the years, the magnitude of the festivity waned, and by the 1960s a wreath was lay at the bottom of Sorin's statue, and in recent times it is commemorated simply with a special Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.