Father Michael Edgar Evelyn Shawe was born in Devonshire, England, in 1792. He served valiantly in the British Army as a Major General during the Napoleonic Wars, suffering injuries multiple times.  During the last battle at Waterloo, he was gravely injured and left with the dead.  After being found alive, his mother moved to France and nursed him back to health.  She died shortly after he recovered.  He traveled Europe looking for solace.  Shawe eventually decided to devote his life to his Catholic faith, enrolling in the seminary at the College of St. Sulpice in Paris. There, he was recruited, with several other men, as a missionary by Bishop Brute of the Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana, around 1835. Shortly thereafter, he set sail for the US.

On March 12, 1837, Father Shawe was the first new priest ordained by Bishop Brute in Indiana. He was the only priest in this group of missionaries who spoke English, and therefore preached to vast and diverse audiences. Father Shawe was sent to Madison, where he founded a parish and built Saint Michael the Archangel church.  The congregation at that time was composed mainly of Irish and German immigrants.  The first mass was held in St. Michael's in 1839.  He led the parish until November 1840. He was called to serve in Vincennes at the seminary for the next four years.  In 1844, he left the Vincennes Diocese to become a professor at the University of Notre Dame.

There, Father Shawe served as the chair for the Department of English Literature until 1845. Upon leaving, he moved to Detroit, where he was the first pastor at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, the only English-speaking congregation in the city at the time. Father Shawe remained a notable and well-respected priest in Detroit for many years. He tragically died on May 10, 1853, after a carriage accident. He left $2000 to St. Michael's Church upon his death, equivalent to $84,000 today.  Shawe Memorial High School in Madison, Indiana, is named in his honor.