USA > Kansas > Linn County > A centenary of Catholicity in Kansas, 1822-1922 ; the history of our cradle land (Miami and Linn Counties) ; Catholic Indian missions and missionaries of Kansas ; The pioneers on the prairies : notes on St. Mary's Mission, Sugar Creek, Linn County; Holy Trinity Church, Paola, Miami County; Holy Rosary Church, Wea; Immaculate Conception, B.V.M., Louisburg; St. Philip's Church, Osawatomie; Church of the Assumption, Edgerton, Johnson County; to which is added a short sketch of the Ursuline Academy at Paola; the diary of Father Hoecken, and old Indian records > Part 3
USA > Kansas > Miami County > A centenary of Catholicity in Kansas, 1822-1922 ; the history of our cradle land (Miami and Linn Counties) ; Catholic Indian missions and missionaries of Kansas ; The pioneers on the prairies : notes on St. Mary's Mission, Sugar Creek, Linn County; Holy Trinity Church, Paola, Miami County; Holy Rosary Church, Wea; Immaculate Conception, B.V.M., Louisburg; St. Philip's Church, Osawatomie; Church of the Assumption, Edgerton, Johnson County; to which is added a short sketch of the Ursuline Academy at Paola; the diary of Father Hoecken, and old Indian records > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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"The soil of this portion of Missouri is very fertile, and there are prairies six or seven leagues in extent. In summer the heat is excessive. It was during this journey that the missionary was attacked by a burning fever which forced him to leave the Osages. He was obliged to travel twelve days on horseback, sleeping at night in the woods, not coming across a single miserable cabin. This is how they go about arranging their camp. Having chosen the most suitable place, they unload and unharness the horses, which they let run loose in the woods that they may pasture during the night. They build a hut with the bran- ches of trees, and having gathered wood they light a big fire. Over this they boil a piece of young buck placed on a stick planted before the fire, the meat being turned from time to time. This fire serves also to drive away bears and other wild beasts. After. their repast, they roll themselves up in a buffalo skin and fatigue renders this poor bed very comfortable."
FURTHER INFORMATION GATHERED FROM CATHOLIC CABI- NET, ISSUE OF NOVEMBER, 1843.
The zealous Bishop of Upper and Lower Louisiana directed the views of his ever active zeal towards the unfortunate Indians, es- pecially the Osages. With the co-operation of the Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, then Superior of the Jesuits of Missouri, two schools were opened for Indian youths in the township of Florissant, near St. Louis; the Indian boys were placed under the charge of the Jesuits, and the girls under that of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. To enable them to succeed in this undertaking, the reverend gentlemen under whose care the schools were placed, applied to the Government for a moderate an- nual income from the sum annually appropriated for the civilization of the Indians. This request was readily complied with, but the greatest obstacle to success was found to consist in the unwillingness of the In- dian youth to quit their parents' home, their sports and their games, and to go to a distant place for the purpose of acquiring the learning which they so little valued. It was soon discovered that to establish missionary stations among the Indians in their own country would be a more successful and less difficult enterprise.
In consequence, this having been determined on, the Rev. Charles de la Croix, then Missioner in the State of Missouri, set out on a visit to the Osages-one of the most savage of the Indian tribes. His efforts were blessed with success, and records now before us prove that
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the number of children baptized by him on that occasion was very large and the number of marriages he blessed not inconsiderable. Shortly after, he was followed by the Rev. C. Van Quickenborne, who also vis- ited the Osage nation, and who was particularly successful in inducing the Chiefs and Headmen of the tribe to send their sons and daughters to St. Louis County. The schools, composed of Osage, Iowa and Iro- quois youths, flourished for a few years, but were finally broken up, in consequence of the complaints of their parents, on seeing their children separated from them by such a distance, as also of the disinclination of the young Indians to bend under the yoke of discipline. A few years after, the Rev. Joseph Lutz, of the Diocese of St. Louis, visited the wild Kanzas. The courageous efforts of this zealous Missionary ap- peared likely to be crowned with signal success, and already the head- men of that ferocious nation knelt in prayer by his side, when, after a residence of more than four months among them, the paucity of clergy- men in the diocese caused him to be recalled to supply what appeared to be more pressing wants. The unsteady Kanza fell back into his for- mer irregularities.
In 1835, the Rev. Father Van Quickenborne paid a mission- ary visit to the Miamies, on the north fork of the Osage river. They are the small remnants of four once powerful nations, the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Weas and the Piankeshaws. He was received by them with great joy; and many of them, having been baptized in their in- fancy by the priests who attended the old French villages in Illinois. showed unfeigned readiness to enroll themselves anew under the stand- ard of the cross. They seemed to be indifferently pleased with the Methodist station, established among them, and willingly promised to re- turn to the faith of their fathers, among whom the Jesuit Missionaries had so successfully labored during the early part of the last century. An old woman, whose gray hair and bent up form showed that she had belonged to by-gone times, crawled up to the Missionary, grasped his hand with a strong expression of exultation, and pronounced him to be a true black-gown, sent to instruct her hapless and neglected nation. She had lived at least a score of winters longer than any other of her tribe, but yet she distinctly remembered to have been prepared for her first communion by one of the Jesuits who attended the flourishing mis- sion of Kaskaskias. His name she could not bring to mind, but de- scribed his dress and features in a manner to show what a deep impres- sion this recollection of her early youth continued to make on her mind. She also gave a description of the old church of Kaskaskias; recited her prayers and sang a Canticle in the language of the tribe. She told the Missioner that her constant prayer had been that her tribe, now exiled and almost extinct, might have the happiness to see a true black-gown among them. She congratulated those around her on the occasion and cried out, like Simeon, that her eyes had seen him now, and that she was ready to mix her bones with those of her fathers. Her death,
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
which took place a few days after, was a great loss to the Missioner. As she was the only person who knew the prayers in the Indian lan- guage, and the only one who appeared to have kept herself untainted by the general depravity of those by whom she was surrounded.
The few remaining Miamies have never had any permanent Cath- olic Mission in their situation; yet they continue to be visited at stated times. Among them, however, in their original residence, near Chicago, Father Marquette, the first explorer of the Mississippi, labored as early as 1675. In 1836 the first Catholic Missionary settlement was made among the Indians of this territory.
The Rev. C. Van Quickenborne, of the Society of Jesus opened a mission among the Kickapoos. Suitable buildings were erected, a neat chapel built, and the zeal of the Missionaries was displayed in almost incessant labors by day and by night; but the soil proved for the time ungrateful. It seemed that the hour for those corrupted and intemperate beings had not yet come. The Missionaries, as happens in every great undertaking for God, encountered great difficulties, occa- sioned especially by the opposition and imposture of one of the Indian chiefs, who styled himself a Prophet, and pretended to be sent by the Son of God. In 1839 some strong hopes of converting these Indians were entertained, but unhappily were not realized. By the exertions of the clergyman then at the head of that mission, the Rev. A. Eysvogels, 30 Catechumens were instructed and baptized in the Catholic Church. The foundation of the congregation thus appeared to have been laid, but it was of short duration. New clouds overshadowed these pleasing prospects, the few Christians who had entered into the pale of the Church emigrated to another settlement, and the aspect of affairs be- came more gloomy than ever. The following Jesuit Fathers labored in this mission: Charles Van Quickenborne, C. Hoecken, F. Verreydt and A. Eysvogels. They did not confine themselves, however, exclu- sively to the Indians; they took charge moreover of six stations among the border settlers of the State of Missouri.
"Through the courtesy of President Rogers of St. Louis University, that great institution of learning, founded by Father Quickenborne, I am enabled to present a list of missionaries who visited this section and made Fort Leavenworth one of their main stations," says Henry Shindler in his "Divine Worship at Fort Leavenworth." "It is as follows :
Charles Van Quickenborne, 1835, '36.
Christian Hoecken, '35, '36, '37, '39, '41, '42, '44, '45, '46, '47, '48, '49.
Adrian Hoecken, '42.
Felix Verreydt, '37, '41, '42, '44, '45. '46, '47, '48.
Anthony Eysvogel, '39, '40, '44. Herman Aelen, '39, '40, '41, '42.
Nicholas Point at Westport, '40. Francis Xavier DeCoen, '45. John F. Die's, (not yet ordained a priest) '45, '46.
Charles Truyens, '47.
Maurice Galliand, '48, '49.
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John Baptist Duerink, '49. This cousin of Dr. DeSmet was drowned in the Missouri, on one of his excursions. There was a general impression at the time that his death was due to foul work of thieves. His body was never found."
NOTE-Rev. Father Charles Van Quickenborne, S. J., was born in Peteghem, Bel- gium, January 21, 1788; died at the mission of St. Francis, in the Portage des Sioux, Missouri, August 17, 1857. He arrived in the United States in 1817, and in 1819 was appointed superior of the Jesuit novitiate at White Marsh, Maryland. After some years he was ordered to transfer his Mission to Missouri. He accordingly set out with twelve companions, and after traveling 1600 miles, arrived at Florissant and began the novitiate of St. Stanislaus. To form this establishment he had no other materials than the timber he carried from the woods and the rocks that he raised from the bed of the river. He was his own architect, mechanic and laborer, and, aided by his novices, finally constructed the buildings. In 1828 he set about building a university at St. Louis, and also erected at St. Charles a church, a convent of the Sacred Heart, and a paro- chial residence. His great desire from the first had been to evangelize the Indians. He, therefore, made several excursions among the Osages and Iowas, and made nu- merous conversions. He erected a house and chapel among the Kickapoos, and this tribe became the center of his missionary labors in 1836. He had visited neighboring tribes and formed plans for their conversion when he was recalled to Missouri.
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
THE CRADLE OF CATHOLICITY.
A Condensation of Father Hoecken's Diary.
In the year 1837 a band of Pottawatomie Indians, numbering about 150, set up their wigwams on the banks of Pottawatomie Creek in the present Miami County near where the town of Osawatomie now stands. They had migrated from Indiana and some of them had been baptized by the Revereuds Stephen Badin and Deseille. This same year two Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Felix L. Verreydt and Christian Hoecken, were living among the Kickapoos, near Ft. Leavenworth. Towards the close of that same year these missionaries received an invitation from Nesfwawke, the Chief of the little body of Pottawatomies, to come and teach them religion. Father Hoecken responded to this cry from the wilderness, all the more gladly because the labors of the Fathers had proved fruitless with the Kickapoos. In January, 1838, in the middle of winter, the journey was undertaken, and, after eight days of hardship, the missionary arrived at Pottawatomie Creek. This was the first visit of Father Hoecken to the Pottawatomies, and it lasted only two weeks, but to it St. Mary's College can trace its existence. Those who might be interested in the adventures and labors of the Father in those early days are referred to his Diary, also to the life of Mother Duchesne.
In March, 1839, the Pottawatomies, who had not settled definitely at Pottawatomie Creek, but had only been exploring the country for a suitable site, removed to Sugar Creek, a tributary of the Osage River." The site selected was near where Centerville now stands .* Here almost immediately the Indians built a small church, in which services were held regularly during the remainder of the holy season of Lent and until the end of 1840, when, owing to their steady increase in num- bers through migration, a larger church had to be erected.
Sometime in 1839 a school had been erected. It was not opened until 1840, however, and was kept up only for a time. In the first part of July, 1841, the pioneer band of Religious of the Sacred Heart arrived at the Mission, and on the 15th day of July a school for girls was constructed and placed under their care. A new school for boys was built towards the end of this same year, 1841, which began to be regularly frequented from the commencement of 1842. The Jesuit Fa- thers more especially connected with this beginning of the St. Mary's Mission, as it was afterwards called, were, besides the missionaries men- tioned above, Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, S.J., the Superior of the Jesuits in Missouri, and Father H. Aelen, S.J., the first assistant of Father Christian Hoecken. And on the 29th of August, 1841, Father Felix L. Verreydt and Brothers Andrew Mazella and George Miles were added to the number of the workmen in this primitive vineyard of the Lord.
*Five and a half miles northeast, on the Michael Zimmerman farm, but about fou1 miles in a direct line from Centerville.
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Father Verreydt organized an anti-liquor brigade, under the leadership of Bro. Van der Borght. They were instructed to keep a sharp eye on any liquor that entered the settlement, to surround the place, break the bottles, and scatter the liquor. There is a quaint little remark in Father Hoecken's Diary under 1843, somewhat amusing too, as is the whole incident, in the light of after-events in Kansas; it says: "This custom was kept up to the present day."
In 1842 we find that the United States Government assigned the sum of $300.00 yearly, for teachers and school purposes, to the Fathers and Religious at Sugar Creek, and also that annual School Reports had to be forwarded to the Government. We find that the schools were attended daily by 41 boys and 40 girls this year.
By this time things were fairly started at the Sugar Creek Mis- sion, and year by year the conversion, education, and civilization of the Indians progressed. Within the next few years, too, a number of In- dian books, prayer-books, grammars, and dictionaries were printed and distributed among the Indians. These earlier Indian books were the groundwork of a much more extensive grammar and dictionary by the Rev. Maurice Gailland, S. J., assisted by the Rev. John Diels, S. J., which however, were never published. This latter work, in fact, seems to have been hopelessly lost. Father De Smet, the great Indian missionary, took it along with him on his last trip to Belgium in 1871, and it seems he left it in Europe .*
Transmigration.
On the 17th of June, 1846, the Government signed a contract pur- chasing the Indian lands on Sugar Creek, and gave the Indians a res- ervation along the banks of the Kansas (or Kaw) River, extending west- ward from what is at present the eity of Topeka fifty miles on both sides of the Kansas River. Meanwhile the work of evangelizing the Indians, not only the Pottawatomies, but all the various tribes that were flocking westward at the instance of the United States Government- the Miamis, the Osages, the Peorias, the Piankeshaws-was going on uninterruptedly, the Sugar Creek Mission being in a manner the center of operation for the Religious men and women who were devoting their lives to the labor.
In the early part of November, 1847, an expedition of Indians ac- companied by Father Verreydt, S.J., started out to explore the land assigned them on the Kansas River, with the object of selecting a site for settlement; and not earlier than November 11, 1847, the Fathers and Religious moved to the new location.
On June 20, 1848, the north side of the Kansas River was definitely settled upon as the new site of the Mission buildings, and on September the 7th, Father Verreydt, S.J .. together with the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, crossed to the new buildings on the north side of the river.
*This work was found and identified in 1882 by Rev. G. J. Garraghan, S. J.
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
In this transfer and sale of the Indian lands no provision had been made for the Fathers and the Religious by the Government. The In- dians, however, contributed $1,700 and from other sources also some money had been gathered to continue the missionary work begun. On November 11th, however, the missionaries learned that an arrangement had been made between the St. Louis University and the civil Govern- ment to erect a school at the St. Mary's Mission. Still the work of education had already begun, for we find that in the winter of 1848 five new boarding scholars were received at the Mission. This, then, was the beginning of what we now know as St. Mary's College at St. Marys, Kansas; and since that winter towards the end of the first half of the last century the work of instruction has never been interrupted, the ground has ever been sacred to the cause of education .* In No- vember, 1849, the roof was put on the first church at St. Mary's Mis- sion, and this church was placed under the tutelage of the Immaculate Conception.
On the 24th of May, 1851, the Rev. J. B. Miege, S. J., having been raised to the dignity of Vicar Apostolic over the country inhabited by the Indians lying between the Rockies and what might be called the western boundary of civilization, arrived at St. Mary's Mis- sion in company of Father Paul Ponziglione, S. J., and a lay Brother, to make the humble mission church his Pro-Cathedral.
The Pioneer.
It seems no more than just that we should mention the fact that Father Christian Hoecken, S. J., who may justly be called the founder of St. Mary's, died in this year, a martyr to charity. He had been as- signed by the Provincial of Missouri to accompany the Rev. P. De Smet, S. J., on his journey to the Rockies. A pestilential disease broke out on the steamer upon which they had embarked. Father Hoecken, who was not a little skilled in medicine, made himself all to all. He became at once nurse, doctor, and spiritual father to the sick and dying until he himself fell a victim to the disease. His body was at first buried on the deserted shore in the wilderness, but it was afterwards transferred to the little historic mound at Florissant near St. Louis, to rest among the remains of his companions in the noble work of civilizing and Chris- tianizing the Indians of the Middle West. See full text of Father Hoecken's Diary in appendix.
*St. Mary's College is, therefore, the oldest educational institution in the State of Kansas.
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VENERABLE PHILIPPINE DUCHESNE.
By G. E. M.
In the early annals of the Catholic Church in this country, no name stands more pre-eminent than that of the Venerable Philippine. Du- chesne. She was one of the first, and altogether the greatest, among the spiritual daughters of the Blessed Madeline Sophie Barat, so well known as the Foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. The pio- neer of that Institute in the New World, it was in the midst of sorrow, and penury, and strenuous toil, that she cast the seed of the harvest whose plentiful sheaves are carried with joy by those who have come after her. She was a valiant co-operator in the work of the Catholic missionaries during the early part of the last century, and American Catholics can scarcely fail to be interested in her story.
She was born in Grenoble, France, August 29, 1769, the same year as Napoleon Bonaparte. Her father, Pierre Francois Duchesne, was a prosperous lawyer, practicing in the Parliament, or law court of Gren- oble, the capital of the Province of Dauphiny, while her mother, Rose Perrier, belonged to a family of wealthy merchants of the same city. Pierre Francois Duchesne had adopted the false teachings of Voltaire and his school, but his wife was very pious, and carefully brought up her children in the love and fear of God. Philippine was the next to the last in a family of six. From her earliest years she was noted for her serious turn of mind. One of her chief pleasures was reading, but even this had to be of a serious kind. Roman history was an especial favorite, but what she loved most of all was the lives of the saints, par- ticularly the martyrs. Another of her pleasures was to assist the poor. All of her pocket money, with everything else that she could dispose of went to them, and she loved to distribute her alms with her own hand. * It would take too long to relate the circumstances which led to the visit of Mgr. Louis Valentine Dubourg, the newly con- secrated Bishop of Louisiana, and describe the touching scene, when Mother Barat, in presence of the humble yet ardent entreaties of her strong-souled daughter, recognized the will of God, and gave the con- sent she implored, to let her have a share in the missionary labors of the zealous prelate in the far-off region of Louisiana.
In the hearts of God's saints, joy and sorrow are in close alliance. Mother Duchesne was overwhelmed with joy on seeing the realization of her ardent and long-cherished desires; but a midnight blackness set- tled upon her soul, when she found herself about to sail away from the shores of sunny France, leaving behind her all that her loving heart held so dear, and with the conviction that the parting was final, as far as this life was concerned. But her strong spirit did not flinch for an instant, and the world would never have known how keenly she felt the sacrifice, were it not for a few lines in one of her letters to Mother
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
Barat. Her companions were Madame Octavie Berthold, a fervent con- vert, whose father had been secretary to Voltaire; Madame Eugenie Aude, a young lady whose grace and elegance had been admired at the court of Savoy, and two lay sisters of tried virtue. After a tedious voyage of ten weeks in a small sailing vessel, they reached New Orleans on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, May 29, 1818, and as soon as it was possible, they set out for St. Louis in one of the primitive steamboats of the time, a trip of six weeks, with numberless inconveniences and a very rough set of fellow-passengers.
First Schools in the New World.
Mgr. Dubourg cordially welcomed them to his Episcopal city, but the best he could do for them was to assign to them a log-house, which he had leased for their use at St. Charles, a village on the Missouri River, at a distance of thirty miles from St. Louis. Here they opened a boarding school, which at first was only very scantily attended. They also opened a school for poor children, which immediately gathered in twenty-two pupils. As the nuns could not afford to keep a servant, they themselves had to cultivate the garden which, when they arrived, was a wilderness of weeds and briars. They also had to care for their cow and milk it, to chop wood for their fires, to bake their bread, to do the cooking and washing, besides teaching the two schools. For their sup- ply of water, they were compelled to depend upon the muddy current of the Missouri River, brought to them in small bucketfuls, for which they had to pay an exorbitant price. The summer was very hot, and the cold of winter was so intense, that the clothes, hung up to dry near the kitchen stove, froze stiff. They had to be careful in handling the tin plates, etc., which served for their meals, lest their hands should adhere to them. The white fingers of Mesdames Aude and Berthold soon became hard and grimy. As for Mother Duchesne, her hands had become rug- ged and horny long ago, from hard, rough work to which she had de- voted herself, especially after her re-entrance into Sainte Marie d'en Haut. Indeed, it had always been her custom to reserve to herself, as much as possible, every kind of work that might be most painful or fatiguing for others.
* *
Sixty years have gone by since Venerable Mother Duchesne was laid away to rest, close to the old "Rock Church" adjoining the convent of St. Charles; but she still lives in the memory of the people among whom she toiled, and prayed, and suffered.
She had personally founded six houses, three in Missouri and three in Louisiana, and also the mission among the Pottawatomies, was due in a great measure to her prayers and exertions. Just at the time of this last foundation, the Society of the Sacred Heart entered upon a period of rapid expansion, and when the venerable Mother died, ten years later, it already counted sixteen houses in the United States and
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INDIAN DAYS
Canada; while now, there are twenty-seven in the former country and five in the latter. But the great tree, of which Mother Duchesne was the vigorous root, spread its branches still further. For she it was who had enkindled the sacred fire of the apostolie spirit in the heart of Mother du Rousier who, in the designs of God, was to be the pioneer of the Sacred Heart in the vast regions of South America. (Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, New Zealand, Australia and Japan were afterwards added to the list).
The Ladies of the Sacred Heart on the Indian Mission. "Justi in perpetuum vivent, apud Dominum est merees corum."
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