The first form of the Christian religion to gain a footing in Indiana was the Catholic faith, which was introduced among the Indians very early in the French regime and perpetuated among the French inhabitants. St. Xavier's church was planted in Vincennes before Clark's conquest and remains there to the present day. In the early times it was, as described by Henry Cauthorne, the historian of Vincennes, a rude structure made of timbers set on end, picket fashion, without windows and with a dirt floor.

Protestantism was introduced among the settlers of Clark's Grant as early as 1798 when a Baptist Church was founded in the neighborhood of Charlestown. As this denomination was the very pioneer in the Protestant field, so, for some years, did it gain in strength. By 1809 it was organized into two associations, covering, respectively, the Wabash and Whitewater districts. Methodism appeared in 1804, also near Charlestown, according to the Rev. F. C. Holliday, with the proselyting of Peter Cartwright and Benjamin Lakin, although the Rev. George K. Hester gives 1803 as the date of the first organization. These sects spread rapidly and during the territorial period circuits were organized pretty well over the settled portions of the country. The Presbyterians founded the "Church of Indiana" in 1806, "the service being held in the barn of Colonel Small, about two miles east of Vincennes" (Edson's "Early Indiana Presbyterianism," p. 41).

The Quakers, or Friends, built their first meeting house on the site of Richmond in 1807 (Young's Wayne County) and soon planted others throughout the upper whitewater region. Two other sects, both peculiar I character, appeared in Indiana during the period we are covering. These were the "Shakers" and the "Rappites." The first of these settled at "Shakerstown" on Busseron Creek, a few miles north of Vincennes some time prior to the Tippecanoe campaign, as John Tipton in his journal of the march mentions the place. The "Rappites," so named from their leader, George Rapp, were a German colony who held to communism and celibacy. They were the founders of the present New Harmony in Posey County, where they dwelt from 1815 to 1825.

A mere mention of these religious elements and the dates of their introduction are all that comes within the scope of this section. It may be added, however, that the degree of their growth when introduced interprets to a degree the psychology and the status of the people. This is more conspicuously true, perhaps, of the Quakerism, Methodism and Presbyterianism. The attitude of the Friends, then as now, was quite distinctive on certain fundamentals of life - on the simplicity of live, on the sovereignty and dignity of the individual, on justice between man and man, and on the doctrine of non-militancy. Methodism made its appeal to the emotional nature, and among those who felt rather than reasoned in religious matters it swept the field like a conflagration. Presbyterianism, while it showed no lack of zeal, stood for intellectualism. It stood for learning and, a little later, was the first agency to found a school (Hanover College) which aimed to produce an educated clergy. Its expounders were among the first educators in the new territory and they, more than any other class brought private libraries into the country. The Baptist church, though at first in the lead, declined in influence, perhaps because of schisms arising from the doctrinal differences that seem to have been particularly bitter in that church. Of the several denominations mentioned, Methodism, as measured by its growth, made the greatest appeal.