TOSI, PASQUALE, - Jesuit, missionary, born at S. Vito (Santarcangelo di Romagna, Forlì) on 25 April 1835, died at Juneau (Alaska) on 14 January 1898.
Having entered the Order already a priest, in 1862, he departed in 1865 for the missions among the Pellirosse of the Rocky Mountains (United States), which he governed for 20 years. In 1876 he accompanied the bishop of Vancouver, Mgr. Seghers, under whose jurisdiction Alaska then stood, in order to establish a mission there among the Eskimos. On learning of the bishop’s murder by his unfaithful servant, he was forced to return to S. Francisco to obtain missionaries; then, having gone back to Alaska, he began the work entrusted to him. He founded various Christian communities, undertook long and dangerous journeys by sled, reaching regions never before trodden by human foot, learned many Eskimo languages and dialects, composed a grammar and dictionary of the Nulato dialect, and wrote many lengthy reports on the country and on the origin, religion, usages, and customs of the Alaskans. These were of great service to geographers, naturalists, and ethnologists, as well as to the government itself, which supplied him with the necessary instruments. On 24 July 1894 the mission was established as an apostolic prefecture, and T. became its first prefect. He thus broadened the field of his apostolate, founding other stations and undertaking new labors and hardships in order to open the way for his colleagues.
He wrote many letters to several periodicals: Lettres de Jersey, de Vals, of Woodstock, and to the Missions catholiques; and also: La missione dell'Alaska. Memoria del r. p. P. T., superiore della missione, first published in the Civiltà Cattolica, then separately (Rome 1893), and again with a preface and appendix by Fr. E. Rosa, L'Alaska e i suoi esploratori (ibid. 1926). In 1935 a commemorative plaque was placed on T.’s birthplace.