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 4
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 4
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25
The Religious of the Sacred Heart were pioneers of education in the West and zealous co-laborers of the Jesuit missionaries among the Pottawatomie Indians. Mother Philippine Duchesne, one of the first to resuscitate religious life in France in a lull of the French Revolution, joined the rising congregation established by Father Varin, in 1800, and later she became the leader and founder of the Sacred Heart in America, when, at the urgent entreaties of Bishop Dubourg to come to the help of the Indians in Missouri, she joyfully followed the call to a new conquest for the glory of the Sacred Heart, and with four of her Sisters, sundering the dearest ties of life, she quitted her native land forever and arrived at St. Louis on August 21, 1818. Madame Octavie Berthold, Madame Eugenie Aude and Sisters Catherine Lamarre and Marguerite Manteau were the other generous souls who made the same sacrifice : and they began their apostolate at St. Charles and Flor- issant, Mo. They had come to the new field of labor five years in ad- vanee of the Society of Jesus, which was yet confined to the Eastern States, with headquarters at Georgetown, D. C., and White Marsh, Md. On May 31, 1823, twelve Jesuits arrived at St. Louis, animated with similar zeal and destined for the same mission. They were located by Bishop Dubourg on a farm, a mile and a half to the northwest of the Sacred Heart Convent at Florissant. The place continued until recently to be ealled The Priests' Farm, and it has ever since been a Jesuit no- vitiate.
The Indian Sehcols.
As Missouri was received into the Union in 1821, very few Indians remained around Florissant. Nevertheless, an Indian seminary was started, where the boys were taught by the young scholastics preparing for ordination, and the girls, in a different building, were cared for by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. Madame Mathevon relates: "One evening, whilst we were saying office, the Father Rector arrived with two little frightened savages who were hiding themselves under his cloak, and he asked to see the Superior. He had sent a cart to bring them and he left them with us. So now we have begun our class for the natives. This is the work, dear Mother, for which we have been pining.
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
Each of us is longing to be employed in it." This occurred in April, 1825. Mother Duchesne was well pleased when she wrote: "Our school for the little Indians is at last beginning. We have given the care of it to an Irish Sister, Madame Mary O'Connor, who has just made her first vows. The little savages call her mamma, and run after her wherever she goes, to the stables, the poultry yard, and the garden." The Indian seminary served as a training for the teachers as much as for the children; in it they studied the characteristic traits and the language of the Indians.
Although the schools had only from twenty to thirty children and were discontinued after a few years, yet it was these teachers who after- wards distinguished themselves in the patient hardships of the mission.
Organizing Indian Missions.
In 1827, when seven of the young Jesuit scholastics had been raised to the priesthood, the time had come for extending their labors. The Superior, Father Charles Van Quickenborne, was the first to cross the State in search of the Osages; and he preached to them under a banner of the Blessed Virgin, designed and painted by Mother Duchesne. He made several excursions across Missouri, 1827-30, and in 1836 he began to reside with the Kickapoos, near Fort Leavenworth.
While the Jesuit Fathers were gathering the Indian tribes together on the Western border of Missouri and establishing Missions in the Western prairies and the Rocky Mountains, the community of the Sacred Heart at Florissant had increased in 1830 to sixty-four members, living in six houses along the Mississippi River and educating two hundred and fifty pupils.
Zeal for the Missions.
In 1840, Madame Galitzin was sent to visit the American founda- tion. Mother Duchesne earnestly begged to be relieved from the office of Superior, and obtained her request : but though seventy-one years old and reduced by infirmities and frequent sickness, her longing to serve the savages was as ardent as when in her vigor she had clasped the knees of Mother Barat at Paris, asking for permission to go to the In- dians. Mother Duchesne had been inspired with a great veneration for St. Francis Xavier and a tender devotion to St. Francis Regis, the apostle of the poor, and this gave a tone to her life. And like the apostle of the Indies, she had aroused the spirit of foreign missions in her congregation by her example, and, like the apostle of the Vivarais, she still burned with a love for the poor and neglected of mankind. Hence she used every means to persuade her superiors when the Jesuit Fathers urged the opening of a mission at Sugar Creek in 1841; and she was filled with joy on receiving word from the Mother General en- couraging her to carry out the first object that had inspired her Daugh- ters to go to America. Giving vent to her enthusiasm, she wrote: "There
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INDIAN DAYS
are half-castes there who are saints, and great saints also among the savages. A spirit exists in that mission unknown elsewhere. The faith of these simple Christians is such that reminds one of the early days of the Church."
Bishop Rosati, then in Europe, wrote that the Pope, Gregory XVI, had expressed great delight at the prospect of the establishing of the Sacred Heart among the Indians. This wish the Holy Father clearly indicated the will of God and made all envy the chosen band. Mother Lucile Mathevon and Mother Duchesne were the first selected; Madame O'Connor, who had been teaching Indian women at St. Charles and Florissant, and who could speak English and French, volunteered to join the mission; a Canadian Sister, Louise Amoyt, completed the band for the new foundation among the Pottawatomies.
The Welcome.
On June 29, 1841, under the guidance of Father Verhaegen and with the help of Edmond, a faithful and intelligent negro, the devoted nuns embarked on the Missouri and arrived at Westport Landing after July 4th; thence by wagon they traveled through scattered towns and settlements to the Osage River (Marais des Cygnes), about sixty miles southward. Here over night two Indian messengers arrived to greet them with the tidings that all the tribe was assembled to receive the women of the Great Spirit. "Go and tell them," said the Father, as they knelt for his blessing, "that tomorrow, by the first light of the sun, we shall meet them." The rest of the journey was a triumph. Groups of horsemen were stationed along the road to show them the way; and suddenly, at the entrance of a prairie, one hundred and fifty warriors on ponies appeared, waving red and white flags above the gay plumes of their head-dresses. The two resident missionaries, Father Aelen and Father Eysvogels, were at the front of the cavalcade, and amid the firing of guns and a display of horsemanship as grand as a review of troops, the little caravan was led up and halted before the mission church. There, as the Sisters alighted and were seated on benches pre- pared, they received an ovation from the whole tribe. Fr. Verhaegen presented Mother Duchesne: "My children, here is a lady who for thirty-five years has been asking God to let her come to you." Upon which the chief of the tribe addressed her a compliment, and his wife said : "To show you our great joy, all the women of the tribe will now embrace yon." The men, too, wanted to shake hands, and the Nuns held a levee with great benignity.
Their Life and Work.
The best accommodations for these disciples of the cross was a hut of one of the savages, who gladly retired with his family into a tent. But in the month of August they had a two-story house of six rooms, which their negro had planned and built with the help of the Indians.
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
"In our savage home," Mother Mathevon wrote, "we sleep better than in a palace. We live on bacon and milk, vegetables and bread. We would not give up our position for all the gold in the world; it is such happiness to feel we can imitate the poverty of our Adorable Lord." Father Aelen gave them two cows, a horse and a yoke of oxen, and on July 15th, his first care was to erect a school for the Sisters. Their abode and this school were near the church, on an eminence which over- looked the endless prairie. They opened school on July 19th, the Feast of St. Vincent of Paul.
Fifty young girls soon frequented the school, and the women came there to learn to work. The greatest difficulty at first was the Indian language. The mistresses had to begin by being scholars. Two Indian women taught them Pottawatomie, and after a fortnight, they were able to sing hymns in that dialect, though not yet able to speak it. "As soon as we could," adds Mother Lucile, "we taught our Indians the prayers of the Church, and especially the Litany of the Blessed Virgin as it is sung on Sundays after Vespers. Soon our cabin could not hold all our scholars, and we made a large room with green branches. Our children are very intelligent and understand easily all we teach them. They are as handy as possible with their fingers."
After six weeks, the Sacred Heart Sisters had their work in good order, when, on August 29th, a reinforcement of four Jesuits arrived, viz. : Father Christian Hoecken, the founder of this mission, and Brothers Andrew Mazella and George Miles, with Father Verreydt, the new Su- perior; thus with Father Aelen, who remained up to June, 1842, and Bro. Van der Borght, the missioners' house was increased to six, besides two Indian boys and two teachers. Now every kind of work went on apace. A new school for boys was built in the Fall, and opened in 1842 with sixty-six pupils, taught by Jos. N. Bourassa and John Tipton. Soon Father Adrain Hoecken arrived to teach English, and Father Eysvogels replaced Father H. Aelen. Brother Mazella, like Father C. Hoecken, was skilled in medicine, in which it is said he had taken his degree; besides, he was a deeply religious man, and his services were invaluable on such a mission.
So while the Brothers taught the natives tillage and various trades, and the Fathers cared for their souls and cultivated their hearts to Christian virtue, the Nuns of the Sacred Heart taught them how to cook, to sew, to knit, to card, spin and weave. They showed the women how to make themselves clothes, for hitherto their dress simply consisted of two yards of blue cloth rolled around the body, and the men wore long shirts in which they proudly paraded in Church. The Sisters could hardly keep their countenances at first when they saw these good people going up solemnly to Holy Communion in this strange attire, and to recover their gravity they tried to think of the white robes which neophytes wore in the early times of the Church.
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INDIAN DAYS
IMPRESSIONS OF THE MISSION.
Sugar Creek was the name of the Indian village. It stood in the midst of a gently undulating prairie, nine hundred miles in length and as much in breadth, which reached from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. It was situated at 38 degrees 20' north latitude, seven. teen and one-half miles west from the dividing line of Kansas and Missouri, and about eighteen or nineteen miles south of Osage River, on a tributary stream named by the missioners, Sugar Creek. The Pottawatomie mission presented a glorious contrast with the neigh- boring Indian settlements. "Half the people here," Mother Duchesne wrote, "are Catholics and live in a MOTHER PHILIPPINE DUCHESNE separate village from the heathens, who are being gradually con- verted. Once baptized, they leave off stealing and drinking; all the houses are left open, but nothing is ever stolen. The Pottawatomies assemble every morning for prayers, Mass and instruction, and the same for night prayers. Whenever the missionary Father is absent, one of the natives replaces him, not only in praying but in preaching. Some- times the priest makes a sign to one of the catechists, who comes out and begins to speak, at first bashfully, with two blankets wrapped closely around him, but soon he grows eager in the discourse, disengages his arm and becomes eloquent. The Christian faith transforms not only the souls but even the features of these savages. They lose the wild, fierce look of the pagans. All the parishioners go to Confession once a month. On Saturdays the Confessional is besieged ; and over one hundred go to Communion every Sunday."
There was, nevertheless, room for improvement, especially among the neighboring tribes, who were addicted to many vices. "Now, if by degrees," continues Mother Duchesne, "we can change the dreadful state of the neighboring tribes into the happy condition of our Christian village, shall we not be more usefully employed than in teaching human sciences in schools? If Alexander the Great wept on the shore of the ocean because he could not carry his conquests any further, I might weep also at the thought that my advanced age prevents me from saving so many poor people who destroy themselves by their bad lives."
Mother Duchesne's health and spirits seemed to be improved by
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
this atmosphere of holiness and poverty. But the winter at Sugar Creek proved peculiarly severe. Except in the hunting season, maize and sweet potatoes were their only sustenance; and such a diet soon told on one so weak. Spending half the day on a bed of suffering, she still prayed and tried to knit, offering herself as on a cross for the salvation of her dear Indians. After a year, in which she had won the veneration of the Pottawatomies, who called her, after their fashion, "the woman who prays always," she was recalled to St. Charles, in July, 1842. Her place on the mission at Sugar Creek was filled by Madames Thiefry and Xavier, who in 1845 retired together in favor of Sister Mary. And when the mission was moved from Sugar Creek in 1848, Mother Lucile, Madame O'Connor and Sisters Mary and Louise moved with it to St. Mary's Mission, on the Kansas River, and began the new foundation, which in twenty years developed into a large convent and academy. This scene of their labors is enriched by their hallowed remains. Altogether, we believe we have seven angels watching over the litle graveyard by the orchard. It would be a grateful task to record lessons of these hidden lives spent in the vineyard of the Lord. But for this we must be in- debted to some friend, as we are for the above to the Life of Madame Duchesne.
A pearl without price was the sacrifice Of their virtuous lives to the God who gave; But they cared for naught; their only thought Was some weak and erring soul to save.
(P. O'Sullivan, '92. In the Dial.)
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INDIAN DAYS
THE PEORIA VILLAGE.
The elevated ground or hill that is now a part of Paola rests on a granite formation from which issues a spring of excellent water. This spring attracted the Peoria tribe of Indians soon after their arrival in the territory, influencing them, no doubt, to set up their wigwams in its vicinity. The hill lay in a vast undulating plain through which many creeks and rivulets flowed to the Osage, now called the Marais des Cygnes River.
The Miamis, the Weas, the Piankeshaws and the Ottawas as also the Pottawatomies settled down within a radius of twenty or thirty miles around the Peoria Village. The head chief of the allied tribes resided here and, finally, the Osage River Indian Agency established its head- quarters at this point. It was a marked spot from the beginning. The whole section now known as Miami County was an ideal Indian hunting
INDIAN SPRING, PAOLA, KANSAS.
ground. The forests along the creeks and rivers were well stocked with game; wild animals were in abundance and the yearly migration of the buffalo, deer and elk actually covered the whole face of nature. They came in droves to browse along the prairies, moving from North to South and again from South to North like the robins in our day.
This was the Indian's hunting season, the harvest time, so to speak, when he went forth to reap his reward with as much zest as our farmers now enter their harvest fields. Over and above all this, the Government Agencies were ever present to supply his modest needs and the Mission- aries labored with zeal and much self-sacrifice to elevate him, to civilize him and make him self-sustaining if at all possible.
As the Pottawatomie band of Indians were encamped only eight or
1
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
nine miles from the Peoria and Wea tribes, it is presumed, of course, that Father Hoecken visited them during 1838. As the record goes, however, we find that Father Aelen, S. J.,* was the first to preach the gospel to the Peorias and neighboring tribes in May, 1839; he continued to visit them from Sugar Creek until 1842. It is safe to surmise that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered up on a spot within the con- fines of the present Paola, during that same May in 1839 and the place was near the spring around which the wigwams were set up. Father De- Coen, S. J., visited the Peorias and Weas on April 18, 1845, and remained until the 23rd.
The Council of Chiefs decided that the time had come for their people to be baptized. Father DeCoen instructed them until October, 1846, and Father Hoecken baptized the whole tribe in January, 1847. "He remained ten days," says the Diary, "by which time he had bap- tized them all and blessed their marriages according to the rite of the Catholic Church."
Soon afterwards, namely, in March, 1847, Father Hoecken returned from Sugar Creek to prepare a class of 40 Peoria Indians for their First Holy Communion, which took place on Trinity Sunday of that year. This was probably his last visit to Miami County as preparations were being made for the exodus to the new location on the Kansas or Kaw River during that and the following year.
About this time Fathers Truyens and Van Mierlo came from Floris- sant to the Miami Village. "How many people now living in Miami County," says Major Ben J. Simpson, writing in a local paper, "know the fact that in the year 1846 the brave Catholic Fathers, who all through our history appear to be the pioneers in religious work among the In- dians, established a Mission for the Miamis and the neighboring tribes of Peorias, Weas, Piankeshaws and Kaskaskias, and how Fathers Truyens and Van Mierlo with two lay brothers, labored for years to convert them to Christianity, but were finally recalled to St. Louis? And, then, how the devoted fathers at the Osage Mission on the Neosho river, eighty miles away, crossed the trackless and uninhabited prairie and visited the Miami Mission almost every month, and by this means preserved the Catholic faith among them: and then Fathers Schacht and Favre of Lawrence took charge of them until Father Wattron was located at Paola."
Around the Mission building and Agency-house at Miami Village,
*- Father Aelen was born at Osterhaut in Holland, April 20, 1812. Entered the Society of Jesus at Florissant, Mo., Feb. 5, 1835. Was treasurer and prefect of studies at St. Louis University.
Arrived at the Jesuit Pottawatomie Mission of Sugar Creek (near the site of Cen- terville, Linn Co., Kansas), in April. 1839. Was for awhile Superior of this Mission in succession to Father C. Hoecken. Visited Independence, Westport, etc. The Diocesan archives in St. Louis have a letter from Father Aelen to Bishop Rosati, in which the Father petitions that the old log church of Kansas City (present cathedral site) be given the name of St. Francis Regis. Father Aelen was recalled from Sugar Creek to St. Louis in October, 1842. He was subsequently pastor of St. Francis Xavier's Church in St. Louis, and Director of a Jesuit preparatory school-Purcell Mansion-in Cincin- nati, Ohio. In 1848 he retired from active work in America and is supposed to have died in his native land.
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INDIAN DAYS
on the east bank of the Marais des Cygnes river, ten miles southeast of Paola, in 1854, when the territory was organized, were grouped a dozen log houses. The Osage River Agency proper was located on the hill immediately north and adjoining the town site of Paola and around it were grouped some big houses. An Indian Chapel existed at the Peoria Village (Paola) in 1846 and was dedicated to God under the patronage of St. Francis Xavier; its location is supposed to have been at or near the famous old spring in the northwest part of the town.
Here resided the chief, Baptiste Peoria. He was born in 1800, near Kaskaskia, Ill. He did not receive a school education but by the natural force of his intellect acquired a number of Indian languages and also English and French. He was for many years interpreter and for some
BAPTISTE PEORIA AND WIFE.
time chief of the confederated tribes in Miami County, Kansas. He came to Kansas in 1829 and settled near what is now Paola. When the tribes removed to the Indian Territory he went with them and died there in 1874. The tribe moved to the Oklahoma Indian Territory in the fall of 1868.
"The story of the life of Baptiste Peoria," says B. J. Sheridan, "is threaded with the history of Miami County. He was an Indian, a dia- mond in the rough. No man of an early day caught a higher inspiration of coming events than Peoria, who was generally called by his first name, pronounced 'Batees.' Although he couldn't write his name, yet he was well informed and possessed a broad education. It was in deference to him that the legislature of Kansas, when it changed the name of Lykins County, gave it the tribal name of Miami. Indeed, it was his suggestion and ever after his great heart beat in unison with the chorus, 'The Rose of Miami.
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THE HISTORY OF OUR CRADLE LAND
"And how accurately he foresaw and foretold the succession in the rapid run of events connected with the early civilization of this favorite spot, that became the scene of drama, tragedy and comedy! Here began the pious work of the Fathers, and here followed, in bloody succession, the sorrow and the deaths of internecine war. Blood was as water and money as leaves, so lightly were human life and property regarded. After the war there was enacted the great drama of Kansas politics. Here Jim Lane, Ingalls, Wagstaff, and Simpson took the stage and briefly played their parts. With the comedies of county-seat struggles between Paola and Osawatomie, the rise and fall of parties, the clash of newspapers, and the wild speculations incident to the advent of the railway, came the ridic- ulous and the interesting entertainments of the day. And out of it all came finally, the better side of human life."
This result was, in a measure, due to the influence of the pioneer women of Kansas. The home, the school and the church were the means they employed to establish law and order in the new Territory. In those times nearly every district or county had noted women whose in- fluence went far to benefit the commonwealth, or whose ability helped to develop the great natural resources of the New Empire. Miami County can boast of many such women; one in particular deserves mention here ; her name was Mary Ann Isaacs, the wife of the Chief of the Allied Tribes-Baptiste Peoria. She was an Indian woman of French extraction who came to Kansas in 1844 as the wife of Christian Dagnett. After the death of her first husband she married Baptiste Peoria and henceforth became a person of great importance in this community.
In other times she might be called the "Queen of the Tribes," but to the new people she had a more beautiful name, they called her "Mother Batees," and they spoke the words with an affection and respect that was sincere.
Mrs. Peoria was much attached to Paola and refused to leave it when the tribe was transferred to the Indian Territory. She took a personal interest in the famous County seat dispute and used her influence to bring that honor to Paola. It is owing to her, as much as any one else, that the County Seat is located at this point and not at Osawatomie.
Through her influence, Baptiste Peoria donated the lands on which the Catholic Church now stands and also helped to build the little struc- ture which was afterwards known as the "Old Stone Church."
Many are still living who knew "Mother Batees" and the testimony of all is that she was a woman of unusual mental power-self poised, at- tractive and refined. She had a charm of manner and a personal mag- netism that even the stranger soon experienced.
She was as good as she was kind, and as sincere in her friendship as she was rich in simple natural gracefulness.
It is to be regretted that the story of her life has not been written: it would make a tragic tale of unusual interest and, all the more, be- cause it would be a stranger narrative than fiction could invent.
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INDIAN DAYS
"Mother Batees" was here long before the white man came and she was still here when there was not a red Indian left in all the land. She beheld the Civilized Savagery of our territorial days and, finally, lived to see Kansas take its place amongst the great and rich states of the Union. In forty years (1844-1883) she witnessed one of the greatest transforma- tions in all history and was, at the time of her death, the last living witness of the early Indian days in Miami County. She could still recall the ex- odus of her people from their ancient hunting grounds beyond the Mis- sissippi to the prairies of the west and the sadness of it all was too great to be expressed in the language of the conqueror; in her own tongue, however, she could tell the tale but, alas! there was none to listen, no one to understand.
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