USA > Indiana > St Joseph County > A history of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Volume 2 > Part 2
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a. This was at Twin Lakes, Marshall County, a little south of Plymouth. See Mr. McDonald's speech, referred to in the preceding note, for a de scription of the locality. It was at the time the chief mission to the Pottawatomies, and was their principal village.
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munion. I baptized eighteen adults, and blessed nine marriages. . . I cannot tell you how attached they became to me during my short stay amongst them. 'We were orphans,' they said to me, 'and, as it were, in darkness; but you came amongst us, and we live. You are to us in the place of our father who is dead; we will do nothing without your advice.' 'To whom shall we go when you have left us?' exclaimed an old man. 'While you are with us, if we are in sorrow, we come to you and are comforted.' Could you have witnessed how, with swelling hearts, they knelt down in silence around me to receive my benediction when I was departing, you would understand why, as I bade them farewell, I experienced the same feelings as when I left Rennes; it seemed as though I were once more leaving my family."
At the beginning of the year 1838, he again writes: "Here I am in the midst of my Indians. How I do love these children of mine, and what pleasure it is to me to find myself amongst them! There are now from a thousand to twelve hundred Chris- tians. I was asleep on my mat the last day of the year, when toward midnight I was sud- denly awakened by a discharge of firearms. It does not take much time to getup when one sleeps in one's clothes on a mat. I threw open my door, and in an instant my room was filled with Indians, men, women and children, who had come to wish me a happy new year. They knelt down around me to ask my blessing; and then, with countenances beaming with smiles, they every one shook hands with me. It was a real family fete. I said a few words to them on the year which was past, and on that which had just com- menced; and then led them to the chapel, where we spent a short time in prayer. I love them dearly. Could you see the little children, when I enter a cabin, crowding around me and climbing on my knees-the father and mother making the sign of the cross in pious recollection, and
then coming, with a confiding smile on their faces, to shake hands with me-you could not but love them as I do. In the evening you might see them stooping over the fire and singing hymns or repeating the catechism. I begin to speak their language a little, and to understand what they say to me. I am really too happy; do not wish me anything better."
In the spring he was able to take up his residence among his people. "I have a vast dwelling," he says, "built of entire trees laid one upon another; in more than one place the light may be seen through the walls; my fire place is large enough to hold half a ton of coal; the floor is of planks, which, not being fastened together, shake un- der the feet like the keys of a piano under the fingers of the musician. At night I have a mat laid upon it; and with two blankets, one under, the other over me, I sleep as well as if I lay on the most luxurious bed in the world." But his journeys were still long and fatiguing; sometimes he had forty or sixty miles to go to visit the sick. "Per- haps," says he, on one such occasion, with that simplicity so characteristic of his order, "you look upon missionaries as saints; but I must confess that during all that time I could scarcely say one prayer. When I had done hearing confessions, and had said my office, I fell asleep on my mat. However," he adds, "the Master to whom I have wholly devoted myself is pleased to accept the labor of each day as a continued sacrifice; and, when offered with proper motives, such labor is an unceasing prayer."
But all this while a great grief lay heavy at his heart. His Indians were to be taken from him, as he thought, and the mission extirpated. From "Pictures of Missionary Life," collected chiefly from the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, and published at London, in 1858, by Barnes and Lambert, we condense the following account of this eviction; a narrative that reminds one of
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the story of Ramona by Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson.
The government had given orders for the removal of the Pottawatomies, and seemed deaf to all entreaties. "I shall have to level the altar and the church to the ground," writes the fervent apostle, "and bury the cross which overshadows their tombs, to save it from profanation. And these Christian souls will pine away, deprived of those sacra- ments which they approached with so much fervor, and languishing under an unknown sky, where I, their father, shall be unable to follow them." Fain would he have com- forted himself with the hope of accompany- ing them on their way; but the bishop, fear- ful of even appearing to countenance the cruel measures adopted by the civil power, withheld his consent.
At last his worst fears were realized. Early in the autumn the government took possession of the house in which he lodged, and of the church in which the natives were assembled for prayer. Some would have re- sisted, but Father Petit exhorted them to submit. He said his last mass, and then the church was stripped and left desolate. Many fled to the woods, others crossed over into the Canadian territory; one band, the first that had embraced the faith, bought lands and accepted the law of the conqueror rather than be forced into exile. Once more the good priest gathered his flock together; it was on the morning of their departure: he wept as he addressed them, and his hearers wept too; they sang together for the last time, that hymn to the Virgin Mother which they loved so well; but their voices faltered, and few were able to sing it to the end. So they parted, and, as all thought, forever in this world.
A few days afterwards, the Indians, not- withstanding their peaceable dispositions, were made prisoners of war; they were as- sembled under pretext of holding a confer- ence, and, amidst a discharge of musketry, eight hundred of them were put under ar-
rest. They now unanimously declared that they would not go without their priest. The government invited Father Petit to accom- pany them, but he could do nothing without his bishop's consent; and the order was given to march without further delay. The Indians were driven on at the point of the bayonet; many were sick; huddled together in transport wagons, numbers died of heat and thirst. It happened, however, that Bishop Bruté was to consecrate a church in a neighboring mission on the 9th of Septem- ber; and on the 7th the Indians would be encamped within a mile of the place. Two days before, the bishop entered Father Petit's room. "He lavished on me," says the latter, "all the consolation which a father could bestow upon a son; for myself I was as a man who stirs not under a weight that threatens to crush him." Together they set out for Logansport, and on their way learned of the sufferings of the poor Indians. The news was like a dagger in the heart of the young priest; but to his delight, the sainted Bruté gave him permission to follow the emi- grants, on condition of returning as soon as he was summoned; and he hastened im- mediately to his post. No sooner did it get abroad that the priest was come than the whole camp was in motion ; the natives flocked out to meet him: the whites, drawn up in file, formed a lane for him to pass; they were astonished at the enthusiasm of affec- tion with which he was received, and the influence he exercised over these unmanage- able savages. "This man," exclaimed the officer in command, "has more power here than I have." On Sunday Father Petit said mass in the middle of the camp under an awning suspended from a lofty tree; in the afternoon came the bishop; the Indians knelt to receive his blessing as he passed to the tent; they then arranged themselves in order, and, some by heart, others from books, sang vespers in their native tongue. It was a sight never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
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On the 16th the faithful pastor rejoined his flock. He found them moving onwards. enveloped in clouds of dust, and surrounded by the soldiers who hurried on their march. Behind came the wagons, in which were crowded together the sick, the women and the children. The scene, as described by Fa- ther Petit, was one of the most mournful description; the children, overcome by heat, were reduced to a wretched state of languor and exhaustion. Some new-born infants he baptized. "Happy Christians," he exclaims, "who pass in peace from this land of exile to the mansions of bliss!" By this time General Tipton, the officer in command, had begun to understand something of Father Petit's worth, and treated him with marked respect. The chiefs, who had hitherto been treated as prisoners of war, were released at the priest's request, and took their place with the rest of the tribe. First went the flag of the United States, borne by a dragoon; after which came the baggage; then the ve- hicle occupied by the native chiefs. Next followed the main body of the emigrants. men, women and children, mounted on horses, marching in file after Indian fashion, while all along the flanks of the multitude might be seen dragoons and volunteers urging on unwilling stragglers, often with the most vio- lent words and gestures. The sick were ir their wagons, under an awning of canvas. which, however, far from protecting them from the stifling heat and dust, only de- prived them of air; the interior was like an oven and many consequently died. Six miles from Danville there was a halt for two days: and each morning Father Petit said mass in the midst of his people; he gave the viati- cum to the dying and baptized some. "When we quitted the spot," he says, "we left six graves under the shadow of the cross." Or- der had been so thoroughly restored through the presence of the priest, that the troops now retired, and Father Petit was left with the civil authorities to conduct the emigrants to their destination.
We will not pursue the pathetic narrative over the vast prairies of Illinois and Iowa. Suffice it to say that the march of the In- dians was henceforth as a Christian pilgrim- age, except when they stopped for an hour to bury their dead. A day's journey from the Osage river, the place allotted for their settlement, sixty miles beyond the western line of Missouri, they met Father Hoeken, of the Society of Jesus, who had been ap- pointed to take charge of the Pottawatomies in their new home. Into his hands Father Petit resigned his charge, and turned back to retrace his way to his bishop. But nature was exhausted and his task being accom- plished the reaction set in from which he was not to recover. He had fever on the way out, but recovered sufficiently to proceed with his charge. Now, however, he grew worse rapidly and could come no further than St. Louis. There, notwithstanding all that could be done for him, he departed to receive his reward. On the 10th day of February, 1839, "with a smile on his lips and his eyes on the crucifix," he went to "the Master to whom," as he himself had said, "I have wholly devoted myself"; to that Master who has said: "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He had died for his dear Christian Indians.
We need not wonder, therefore, that Fa- ther Sorin, burning as he was with admira- tion for the heroic martyr missionary wuo was his immediate predecessor, should desire that the body of that young priest should be placed at rest beneath the noble church built on the spot made holy by his labors; or that Father Sorin should himself, in 1856, have gone to St. Louis and brought the sacred remains to Notre Dame and laid them be- side those of Father De Seille. Surely those two guardian spirits, with the numberless white souls led by them to Christ, will forever ask the same blessed Lord to continue his blessing upon the spot made by them and their predecessors, holy ground.
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It was to this St. Joseph valley, to take up the work of Marquette, Allouez, Dablon, Chardon, Badin, De Seille, Petit, and other less known missionaries, that Father Edward Sorin came. During his whole life in this region he felt the very presence of these his sainted predecessors. It is enough to say that he and his brethren at Notre Dame and his spiritual daughters at St. Mary's have proved worthy followers of the holy men who had gone before.
II. THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME."
Sec. 1 .- THE CONGREGATION OF. THE HOLY CROSS .- A few years before the founding of the university, there had been formed at the city of Mans, in France, a religious society, or order, named The Congregation of the Holy Cross. The congregation consisted, at first, of three societies. The Abbe Moreau, a canon and distinguished preacher attached to the cathedral in Mans, had formed a so- ciety of priests to aid him in preaching re- treats to the people. A little earlier, a good priest, the Rev. James Francis Dujarié, one of the survivors of the French revolution, had formed a band of young men who en- gaged in the work of teaching. These last were united in a community, under the name of The Brothers of St. Joseph. Father Dujarié, growing old, requested the young and zealous Abbé Basil Anthony Moreau to take charge also of this religious band. Thus the two societies came to be under the direc- tion of the one head. In time the two com- munities were united under the name of The Congregation of the Holy Cross, retaining the original features of both communities, as preachers of the gospel and teachers of youth, and so they continue to this day. The Col- lege of the Holy Cross, founded by the Abbé Moreau at Mans, the original mother-house of the congregation, suggested the holy name by which the new order became known and
a. The greater part of this chapter is taken from the Golden Jubilee History of Notre Dame, compiled by the writer in 1895.
by which it was recognized in the rules and constitutions approved by the Holy See.
A little later, September 29, 1841, Father Moreau organized the Sisters of the Holy Cross. This society, however, although con- tinuing under the direction of Father Mo- reau, and in this country afterwards under that of Father Sorin, was never united to the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Yet the sisters are engaged in the same great work, the teaching of the young, to which labor they have added the care of the sick and dis- tressed, by serving in hospitals and otherwise.
Father Sorin became one of the earliest members of the new congregation. But, even while he was yet a student in college, he had larger mission fields in mind than those ori- ginally contemplated by the founders of the new order. He had listened as a young stu- dent to the sainted Bishop Brute, first bishop of Vincennes, when that holy man, while on a visit to France, made a strong appeal for helping hands to come to his aid in the la- borious and scattered missions of Indiana. The burning words of the aged Brute kindled the fervor of the youthful Sorin. The dis- tant missions of Indiana were never after- wards wholly absent from the mind of the ardent student, or the more recollected thoughts of the priest of the Holy Cross.
Accordingly, when Bishop Hailandière, the successor of Bishop Bruté, made special ap- plication to Father Moreau for volunteers to the Indiana missions, Father Sorin at once offered himself for the work. With him vol- unteered four professed brothers and two novices. Amongst the professed brothers was Brother Vincent, the first who had joined the Brothers of St. Joseph when that society was originally formed. He lived long, an exemplary religious, and the patriarch of the order at Notre Dame. Years after, when bent and gray-bearded, he was taken on a pilgrimage by Father Sorin to the Eternal City, and there had the supreme .happiness of an interview with Pius IX. On being in- troduced to the Pope as the patriarch of the
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Congregation of the Holy Cross, the venerable Pontiff would not suffer the equally aged but humble brother to fall at his feet, but took him into his arms and embraced him most tenderly.
Another of those zealous volunteers was Brother Lawrence, who, for over thirty years, was destined to be the efficient head of the farm establishment and business affairs at Notre Dame. He was a most excellent busi- ness man, as well as a faithful religious. His death, in 1873, was regretted by the public at large, and was mourned by Father Sorin in one of the most touching circular letters ever issued by him to the community.
A third of those heroic brothers was Brother Francis Xavier, who lived to the golden jubilee of the founding of Notre Dame, the last of the zealous band that crossed the Atlantic with the original colony, and for many years the only living one of those who stood together on St. Mary's lake on that cold November evening in 1842, and took formal possession of Notre Dame du Lac. His was for years the only life that ran back even to the first day of the history of Notre Dame and of the Congregation of the Holy Cross.
The little band of seven left the mother house at Mans, August 5, 1841; and on the 8th of August they set sail from Havre, on the packet ship Iowa, "a large vessel and a good sailer," as Father Sorin describes her.
That the voyagers were poor in this world's goods, we may well know from the circum- stance that they came as steerage, not as cabin, passengers. In writing of this after- wards, Father Sorin said: "I came in 1841, with my six beloved brothers in the steer- age. We expended very little money. In 1846, when I returned with seventeen de- voted members, in the steerage as before, and in the emigrant cars from New York, we again spent but little, and felt happy. Blessed are those who are imbued with the spirit of poverty!"
On the 13th day of September, the good ship, with its precious freight, entered the bay of New York. In "The Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac," we read the following account of this entry into the New World of the voyagers from their long sea journey : "It would be hardly possible to describe the sentiments of joy of the pious band at sight of this strange land which they had come so far in search of, through so many dangers and fatigues. It was a little after sunset when Father Sorin set foot on land with a few of the passengers, the general landing being deferred till the next day. One of his first acts on this soil so much desired was to fall prostrate and embrace it, as & sign of adoption, and at the same time of profound gratitude to God for the blessings of the prosperous voyage. The arrival of the new missionaries could not have taken place at .a more striking and propitious time. It was the eve of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, so that Father Sorin was able to celebrate his first mass in America . on the day of the feast. This happy co- incidence was of a kind to make a deep im- pression on the heart of the young religious of the Holy Cross, who himself had placed all his confidence in the virtue of the holy cross, and who desired rather than feared to suffer for the love of Christ. He there- fore accepted the presage of the circumstance gladly, by which heaven seemed to tell him, as formerly it told the apostle, that in this land he would have to suffer. Long after- wards will he remember that it was in the name of the cross that he took possession, for himself and for his, of this soil of America."
On the next day, September 14, 1841, he wrote to Father Moreau :
"Beloved Father :- Let us bless God, let us bless his holy mother; we have arrived in New York full of life, health and joy! Our good brothers have not yet entered the city; they were obliged to pass last night in quar- antine. But our good God permitted me
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to land yesterday evening, 13th of Septem- ber, the eve of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. With what happiness, my Father, did I salute and embrace this dear land of America, after which we have so ardently sighed. And what an increase of consolation to land on the eve of so beautiful a day! It is then in the name of the Holy Cross, of the Blessed Virgin, and St. Joseph, that we have taken possession of it. My God, what a happy coincidence! What joy for a poor priest of the Holy Cross, who must love noth- ing more in the world than the cross, to be able to say his first mass in America on the feast of the exaltation of that sacred symbol ! What a delicious day it is here; how beauti- ful is the American sky! Ah, yes, my Father, here is the portion of my inherit- ance; here will I dwell all the days of my life !".
Here we perceive the double . source of Father Sorin's success. Here was united the zeal of the saint with the fervor of the patriot, the devotion of Columbus with the unselfishness of Washington. From the moment that Father Sorin touched American soil, we behold in his soul the union, thor- oughly and completely, of the most uncompro- mising Catholicity with the most sturdy Americanism. To him America became his country; and next to his love of his God and his faith, was his unaffected love of the American people, the American character and American institutions.
As well said on the day of Father Sorin's golden jubilee of the priesthood, in 1888, by his well-beloved friend, the great archbishop of St. Paul: "From the moment he landed on our shores he ceased to be a foreigner. At once he was an American, heart and soul, as one to the manor born. The republic of the United States never protected a more loyal and more devoted citizen. He under- stood and appreciated our liberal institu- tions; there was in his heart no lingering fondness for old regimes, or worn-out legitimism. For him the government chosen
by the people, as Leo XIII repeatedly teaches, was the legitimate government; and to his mind the people had well chosen, when they resolved to govern themselves. He understood and appreciated the qualities of mind and heart of the American people, and, becoming one of them, spoke to them and labored for them from their plane of thought and feeling; and he was understood and ap- preciated by them."
The venerable Bishop Dubois, the first bishop of New York, who had himself, thirty- three years previously, founded Mt. St. Mary's College, near Emmetsburg, in Catholic Maryland, was still living; and received with all affection the missionary band, destined by Providence to become the founders of a great university in the west.
After a rest of three days, they proceeded on their journey to the still distant Vin- cennes. To save expense as on shipboard, they chose the more economical, though slower route, being twenty-five days on the road. From Albany to Buffalo they pro- ceeded by the Erie canal; thence across Lake Erie to Toledo; thence by wagon and canal to Fort Wayne, Logansport and Lafayette. Thence they took their final passage to their destination upon the Wabash; that noble river upon whose bosom, thirty years before, Tecumseh and his companions had moved in their fleet of canoes, when that great Indian made his famous visit to Governor Harrison at Vincennes.
"At length," continue the chronicles, from which we have already quoted, "about sunrise on the second Sunday of October, they beheld the tower of the new Cathedral of Vincennes. They were so filled with joy that they seemed to forget all their previous fatigue and pains, and they blessed God, who had at length granted them to see with their own eyes that city of which they had so often spoken during the last few months."
Bishop Hailandière had several places in view for the location of the society. One of these was at Francisville on the Wabash, a
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few miles from Vincennes. This did not seem suitable; and the next day after their ar- rival, Father Sorin, at the suggestion of the bishop, started with a priest of the diocese, Father Delaune, to visit St. Peter's, a mis- sionary station in Daviess county, about twenty-seven miles east of Vincennes. "It was a . place difficult of access," say the chronicles, "but in the midst of several Catholic parishes. It was one of the oldest missions of the diocese. Father Sorin arrived there Tuesday morning about nine o'clock. St. Peter's had a little frame church in good repair; two little rooms had been added to it, one for the sacristy and one for the priest." Other small buildings were for a kitchen and for a school. It was evident that this was the place best fitted for the purposes of the priest and his brothers, and that here they could at least pass the winter; and so the location was selected, and the brothers came on from Vincennes.
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