TOSI, PASQUALE — Jesuit, missionary, b. at S. Vito (Santarcangelo di Romagna, Forlì) on 25 April 1835, d. at Juneau (Alaska) on 14 January 1898.
Having entered the Order already as a priest, in 1862, in 1865 he set out for the missions among the Blackfeet of the Rocky Mountains (United States), which he governed for 20 years. In 1876 he accompanied the bishop of Vancouver, Msgr. Seghers, under whose jurisdiction Alaska then stood, in order to found a mission there among the Eskimos. On learning of the bishop's murder at the hands of his unfaithful servant, he was forced to return to San Francisco to obtain missionaries; then, having returned to Alaska, he began the work entrusted to him. He founded various Christian communities, made long and dangerous journeys by sled, reaching regions never trodden by human foot, learned many languages and dialects of the Eskimos, composed a grammar and dictionary of the Nulato dialect, and wrote many lengthy reports on the country, on the origin, religion, customs and manners of the Alaskans, which were of great service to geographers, naturalists and ethnologists and to the government itself, which provided him with the necessary instruments. On 24 July 1894 the mission was erected into an apostolic prefecture, and its first prefect was T., who thus widened the field of his apostolate, founding other stations and taking upon himself new labors and hardships in order to open the way for his colleagues.
He wrote many letters to various periodicals: Lettres de Jersey, de Vals, of Woodstock, to the Missions catholiques; and furthermore: La missione dell'Alaska. Memoria del r. p. P. T., superiore della missione, published first 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.