On Tuesday, July 15, 1833 Padre Antonio José Martinez began offering seminary preparation as part of the educational services he had been providing to students in Taos since 1826. He began with four students and because he had no seminary-level texts other than his own, each man used Martinez’s books to copy out his own. Three more seminarians were added in November.
They learned quickly. By August of the following year, Juan Jesus Trujillo, Eulogio Valdez, and Mariano de Jesus Lucero were on their way to Durango to complete their education. Trujillo and Valdez were ordained early in 1836 and returned to become pastor at Santa Cruz and Abiquiu, respectively. After Lucero’s October 1836 ordination, he also returned to New Mexico, in his case to assist Martinez in Taos. Between 1833 and 1845, Martinez prepared as many as 18 men for the priesthood.
While this appears to be the first seminary in New Mexico, Martinez’s educational establishment was not the first school in Taos. Although there was apparently no formal schooling offered they are when Martinez’s family arrived in 1804, by 1819 — 15 years later — Fray Sebastian Alvarez had organized a school taught by a hired schoolmaster.
Martinez’s efforts carried on this work, which enabled young men without the resources he possessed to obtain an education. In his own case, Martinez’s education had commenced at age 5 under the tutelage of Don Geronimo Becerra, while his family still lived in Abiquiu, and where he is said to have begun his study of English.
Teaching the seminarians may have also been helpful to Martinez, who during this period is reported to have been reviewing his theological coursework in preparation for the Durango Sinnott of 1840, where he hoped to be appointed permanent pastor, or curio propia, at Taos. To be appointed to this post, a priest was required to pass a competitive series of exams.
Source: Fray Angelico Chavez, But Time And Chance, The Story Of Padre Martinez Of Taos, 1793 To 1867. Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, 1981
Fiction and Fact From Old New Mexico 