06/15/2026
Father John DeValles was a man of several cities. Fall River claimed him. New Bedford claimed him. He went to war. He came back more beloved than when he left, not just by those two cities but by Europe and by returning soldiers who carried his name home to dozens of cities across America.
In New Bedford there is a school named for him. In Fall River there is a boulevard. In Bourne there is a field. In Dorchester there is a Knights of Columbus council. In Boston there is a Hero Square at the corner of Stoughton and Pleasant Streets. In the Massachusetts State House there is a tablet. At St. Patrick's Cemetery in Fall River there is a granite monument thirteen feet high with his portrait cast in bronze. They were not built at the same time. They accumulated, one after another, because people kept finding reasons to remember him.
He was born João Baptista DeValles on São Miguel in 1877. His parents were Azorean and Cape Verdean, a pairing that was all but unheard of at the time. The family came to this country when he was two years old and settled in New Bedford. He graduated from New Bedford High School, attended Benton's Business College, and studied law at St. Charles' College in Baltimore before turning to the priesthood. He studied for holy orders at the seminary in Montreal and finished at St. John's Seminary in Brighton. He was ordained in 1906.
He spoke six languages. He played the violin.
When a soldier needed money, Father John would make the loan, record it meticulously in his journal, and on payday tell his orderly to tear out the page. When he had nothing left to give, he would find a worn dollar tucked between the pages of his breviary.
His ministry began as a curate at Santo Christo Church in Fall River, then at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in New Bedford. In 1908 he was assigned pastor of Espírito Santo Church in Fall River. There he founded the first Portuguese parochial school in America. It opened September 19, 1910.
From Fall River he returned to New Bedford, this time as pastor of St. John the Baptist Church. He stayed there for several years. When the diocese transferred him to St. Joseph's parish in North Dighton in February 1917, over seventy parishioners came to say goodbye. There were tears. The parish gave him $452, nearly $12,000 in today's money. He was just moving to the next town. The children, for their part, gave him roses.
When the United States entered the First World War that same year he volunteered, even though he was nearly forty. Commissioned in September 1917 and ordered to France, he attached himself to the 104th Infantry, 26th Yankee Division as a Knights of Columbus chaplain. When the division chaplain, Rev. Walton Danker, was killed by a shell at the front, John B. DeValles took his place.
Father John would go into No Man's Land at night. He would bring out the wounded. He made no distinction between Allied soldiers and German ones. His hands blistered from carrying stretchers. When they gave out, he tied wire strands around his wrists and kept carrying.
Those who served with him remembered him saying: "Remember we are all Americans here. We recognize no distinction of race, creed or color."
At Chemin des Dames in March 1918, he stayed with a group of wounded men through a heavy enemy bombardment. At Apremont, in the Toul sector, over four days in April 1918, he repeatedly exposed himself to artillery and machine gun fire to pull wounded men off exposed ground. That action won him the Distinguished Service Cross.
One night he did not return. Searchers found him the next morning lying wounded and unconscious beside a dead soldier he had been tending. While he was administering last rites, a sniper had fired. The wound was not fatal. He never fully recovered from it.
Then came the gas. The gas that destroyed his health had been banned by international agreement since 1899. Germany used it anyway.
According to testimony before the Massachusetts legislature, he was ordered home. He stayed with his men.
He was honorably discharged in 1919. His health was broken. The mustard gas he had breathed in continued to plague him. He was in and out of hospitals. He died at St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford on May 12, 1920. He was forty-two years old.
He was lying on his deathbed when the attendants read him the news. The War Department had awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross. The medal had not arrived from Washington.
He said, "Thank God" and died at 7:30 that evening.
Major General Clarence Edwards had commanded the 26th Yankee Division in France. His men revered him. He had watched DeValles work. Edwards came to the funeral and pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on the priest's breast. Father DeValles had earned the French Croix de Guerre with Gilt Star and was reported to have also received the Legion of Honor.
Edwards said of him: "I knew men as brave, but none braver than Father DeValles."
His body lay in state through Friday night, guarded by veterans of the 26th Division. Thousands came to view him.
On Saturday morning the funeral mass was celebrated at St. John the Baptist Church in New Bedford. One hundred fifty priests attended. New Bedford closed its stores in tribute.
The procession that followed was led by the New Bedford High School band. Behind them came the caisson, drawn by six black horses mounted by veterans of the 26th Division. Thousands lined the route. At the city line the Fall River delegation met the cortege and escorted it north through Pleasant Street and Robeson to Highland Avenue and St. Patrick's Cemetery.
He is buried at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Fall River.
One year after his death, with donations from as far as Boston and Dorchester, the Knights of Columbus erected the monument at his grave. They had raised over $1600.
In October 1920 the Katherine Street School in New Bedford was renamed in his honor. Two thousand people came to the dedication. General Edwards was among them.
The school he founded in 1910 is still open today.
Many soldiers called him Holy Joe. Most called him Father John. All called him the Angel of the Trenches.
