John Baptist Vincent de Paul Wehrle

Vincent de Paul Wehrle, O.S.B., (December 19, 1855 – November 2, 1941) was a Swiss-born Benedictine monk and prelate of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. He was the first Bishop of Bismarck (1910–1939).

He was born Johann Baptist Wehrle in Berg, St. Gallen, to Johann Baptist and Elisabeth (née Hafner) Wehrle. He had studied at the minor seminary of St. Gallen for four years, when it was closed down by an anti-clerical state government. He then studied at Einsiedeln Abbey for two years. He made his profession as a member of the Order of St. Benedict (more commonly known as the Benedictines) at Einsiedeln on December 3, 1876. He was later ordained to the priesthood on April 23, 1882. That same year he was sent by his superiors to the United States, where he joined Subiaco Abbey in Logan County, Arkansas. He later went to St. Meinrad Abbey in Spencer County, Indiana.

In 1887 Wehrle came to the Dakota Territory and was named chancellor by Bishop Martin Mary. After laboring as a missionary among the Native Americans in Yankton, he was assigned as pastor of Devils Lake. He there founded St. Gall's Priory in 1893, and was elected as its first prior. He later established Assumption Abbey at Richardton, where he was abbot, in 1903. He also established new parishes in the surrounding towns of Mott, Richardton, Lefor, and Strasburg.