Denis M. Long, Pioneer and Early Priests, Archdiocese of Brisbane, Deceased or retired by 1929, 2021, pp 49-50:
Very Rev Dean Paul Elphege Tissot AA

Very Rev Père Paul Elphege Tissot was the first parish priest of Maryborough, his only appointment during his 14 years in the diocese. Fr Denis Martin covers the story of his ministry in his book, St Mary's Parish Maryborough 1861-2011.

Fr Tissot was born in Lyons France on 17 April 1801. In his youth he had seen Napoleon at a Te Deum in the Lyons Cathedral. Soon after, he went to Ars to consult the famous Curé about his vocation. He was ordained in August 1825. He joined the order of St Augustine of the Assumption, founded at Nîmes by the vicar-general of that diocese in the late 1850s. At 61 years of age, his superior granted permission for Fr Tissot to accept Bishop Quinn's invitation to come to the new diocese of Brisbane. The Donald McKay, with the new Bishop, five priests and six Sisters of Mercy, arrived in Melbourne in March 1861. Fr Tissot came on ahead of the bishop to arrive in Brisbane on 19 April.

The first church in Maryborough was envisaged by Fr Hanly. In 1856 he accepted a tender for a wooden church to seat 300. In 1857 development in the town was set back by a terrific hurricane and consequent flood. As the site was flood prone, the construction site was moved to three acres on higher land owned, and later donated, by pioneer settler, James Cleary. Building was under way when Fr Hanly was transferred to Singleton in August 1857. The building was opened in 1858 by Fr John Rigney who succeeded Fr Hanly. The building served mainly as a school but Mass was celebrated there when Fr Rigney was in town. Archbishop Polding celebrated Mass there on Sunday 7 September 1858 and confirmed several young people the following day.

On 23 July 1861 Bishop Quinn, accompanied by Fathers Tissot and Renehan, travelled to Maryborough on the steamer Clarence; the first extended visit by the bishop in his vast diocese. Bishop Quinn celebrated Mass there on Sunday 28 July 1861. Fr Tissot, unable to ride a horse, remained in Maryborough while the bishop and Fr Renehan continued their visit, on horseback to Gayndah, Dalby and Drayton.

Fr Tissot and lay brother, Br Francisco Gavette AA, stayed with Mr Cleary. Brother Francisco acted as a servant to Mr Cleary carrying out many duties for him. Fr Tissot said a 6.30am Mass each morning in the little chapel with an attendance of about 30 people.

In January 1865 250 immigrants landed in Maryborough, 'mostly Catholic and good ones'. Fr Tissot, realising that this church was too small for the congregation, looked to building a new church. He hoped to build one of Gothic style.

Bishop Quinn visited in October 1867, staying two weeks, during which time he administered the sacrament of Confirmation. During those weeks the Gympie goldfield was proclaimed; the quiet little town (Maryborough) was thrown into a state of intense excitement. Before the bishop left for Brisbane over 2,000 men were on the Gympie Creek diggings and an escort had arrived in Maryborough, after an 8 hour journey, with 500 ounces of gold. Brother Francisco deserted Fr Tissot and his religious vows to go to the diggings.

Fr Tissot visited the Gympie diggings and while there is no record of his saying Mass he attended a meeting of Catholics at Nashville, as Gympie was then known. They petitioned the bishop for a resident priest and the construction of a church. The chairman mentioned this as the first appearance of a Catholic priest at the Gympie Creek gold fields in the person of the Rev Father Tissot. Fr Tissot was on the committee appointed to assist Bishop Quinn to carry out the resolutions. Four days later Fr Tissot, in a letter from Maryborough to the Gympie committee, wrote: I have just learnt, and you will be glad to know, that the Rev Father Horan has been appointed your permanent pastor. He is young and zealous and I have no doubt that he will accomplish much good amongst you.

Fr Tissot prepared to construct a larger church. It was two years before the foundation stone was laid, by Bishop Quinn, on Thursday, 29 July 1869. The church was opened on Sunday 4 February 1872 by Fr Tissot; the occasional sermon being preached by Father Julian Edmund Tenison-Woods. Mr James Cleary, aged 78, died on Friday 26 April.

During the building of the new church, the Sisters of St Joseph arrived in Maryborough. Fr Denis Martin, in his book reproduces photographs of Fr Tissot with children in the Sisters' school. While a Catholic school had been educating a number of children, it was a great blessing for the charism of Mary MacKillop and her sisters to be brought to this city. Two Sisters – Sister Francis de Sales and Sister M Augustine – arrived by the steamer Lady Bowen, on 6 July 1870. Mother Mary, in a letter, speaks of 'Fr Tissot as a holy old priest, so stately and yet so venerable. The Sisters will live on the church ground in a house that he expressly built for religious and in which he had up to the present lived himself. He did not tell us where he was going instead. They will have Mass daily and Holy Communion'.

The sisters taught 150 children, infants and girls, in a building prepared before their arrival. St Joseph's School in Adelaide Street, was opposite the new church under construction. The wooden church/school became the boys' school, staffed by lay teachers.

In June 1873 two young Irishmen, who had commenced their studies in Ireland but finished their priestly education at St Killian's in South Brisbane, were ordained in St Stephen's Chapel. One of them Fr Thomas O'Brien was sent to assist Fr Tissot in Maryborough. Two years later Fr Tissot, at 75 years of age and fifty years ordained, chose to return to his native France.

Fr Tissot often brought smiles, if not laughs, from his congregation because of his poor command of English. Cardinal Moran says he could not speak English sufficient to be understood even when he sat at table and required the bread. The Chairman, in thanking Fr Tissot at the Gympie Creek meeting in 1867, said: If Fr Tissot did not preach very well with his tongue he at least preached a striking sermon by his humble, pious, zealous and unobtrusive life'.

Father Paul Tissot departed Maryborough for Brisbane on the steamer Queensland on Saturday 10 July 1875. He spent a month in Brisbane. The Brisbane Courier reporting on the High Mass celebrated for the Daniel O'Connell centenary says: The Mass was sung in the presence of the Bishop, by The Very Rev Dean Tissot. To Dean Tissot the ceremony had more significance; he was also celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his Ordination and first Mass.

The Maryborough and Brisbane press, in August 1895, carried a report of the death of Very Rev Fr Tissot, in the 94th year of his age, at the Noviciate of his order in Paris. He died on 16 April 1895, on the eve of his 94th birthday and is buried in the cemetery of the Abbey of Livy.

This is a precis of what Fr Martin wrote in his History of Maryborough.

Reproduced by permission of Fr Denis Long.