USA > Minnesota > Stearns County > History of Stearns County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 27
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but had to yield to the policy of political party patronage-a policy that has been obsolete in European countries for a century.
Beginning in 1880 he was for about a year editor and principal owner of the St. Paul Dispatch, and during that time advocated the settlement of the Minnesota State railroad bonds, the election of Garfield as President, the re- election of Senator McMillan, the appointment of Senator Windom as Secre- tary of the United States Treasury, and the erection of St. Paul's first high school building. The subscription list of the Dispatch, while under his charge, increased twenty-five per cent.
He prepared for the United States Commissioner of Agriculture a report on spring wheat culture in the Northwest, visiting many leading farmers for information, which report was printed and extensively circulated. He at- tended as a delegate the American Forestry Congress at Cincinnati, May, 1882, and contributed a paper for it. Having been appointed by President Arthur, Consul General to Brazil, he in July, 1882, with his wife and daughter, their only child, sailed for Rio de Janeiro via Europe. During the three years he served there, 2,000 American seamen arrived at the port. One of his consular duties was to hear and after writing down the testimony, decide the disputes between shipmasters and seamen. His reports and efforts to increase American trade were highly commended by leading American commercial journals and periodicals. He was recalled by President Cleveland the summer of 1885, and was succeeded by General H. C. Armstrong of Alabama. His book, "Brazil, Its Condition and Prospects," was published by D. Appleton & Co. in 1887. Two later editions, the last one after the change in form of government in Brazil, were issued.
In 1887, he wrote a pamphlet advocating Civil Service reform, which he had printed with the title "Administrative Reform as an issue in the next Presidential canvass," and which was very favorably noticed by the press. He suggested the plan for the official history of Minnesota troops in the Civil and Indian Wars and was its editor. The state had the work printed and a copy given to each Minnesota soldier. The historian Lossing pronounced it "a model of excellence" for other states to follow. He was the first to advo- cate the building of a State Soldier's Home; and by first getting the ex-soldiers in Minneapolis and St. Paul to agree in respect to its site, he was principally influential in securing its location near the Twin Cities. He was for several years a member of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, was chairman of its committee on the Mississippi river, attended waterways conventions at Quincy, Ill., and Superior, Wis .; also advocated the construction of a canal from Lake Superior to the Mississippi, via the St. Croix river. His wife died in 1893.
Previous to the Hinckley forest fire of 1894, in which 418 persons perished, General Andrews had contributed articles to the press urging greater pre- cautions and additional legislation for preventing such fires. The Minnesota legislature of 1895 enacted a law, many provisions of which, including the making of town supervisors fire wardens, were copied from the New York law, and he was appointed by State Auditor Dunn Chief Fire Warden to enforce it, his title in 1905 being changed to Forestry Commissioner. He served continuously sixteen years and was active in stimulating the zeal of
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local fire wardens in preventing and extinguishing fires, and in habituating them to promptitude and precision in making their reports. Though his field of work covered over 20,000,000 acres, the average annual damage done by forest fires reported during the thirteen years and up to 1908 was only $29,819, and by prairie fires only $16,397. With increased settlements, logging and railroads, the danger of fires increased. The year 1908 was exceptionally dry and fire set by fishermen ten miles away and driven by a gale September 4, destroyed most of the village of Chisholm, its leading citizens being at the time absent at the State Fair. For that year, as for previous years, the total amount appropriated to carry on his work was only $11,000. The legislature of 1909 increased the amount to $21,000, though he asked for more. The year 1910 was the driest Minnesota ever had. All the rangers, 26 in number, had to quit work September 1 for want of money, and on October 7 following, the Baudette fire occurred in which thirty persons lost their lives and about a million dollars damage was done. He was required to make an annual report to include important facts relating to forest interests, and four thousand copies were annually published and gratuitously distributed. He made many trips through the forest regions, one, in 1900, being by rowboat from the source of the Big Fork river to its mouth. He delivered many addresses on forestry before commercial associations, clubs and high schools. He visited the pine forest at Cass lake, August, 1898, and his recommendation then made that it be set apart for public purposes finally resulted in the establishment of the Minnesota National Forest of about 200,000 acres. It was his recommen- dation of May 10, 1902, to the Commissioner of the General Land Office that led to the creation of the Superior National Forest of upward of a million acres. He first suggested the project and drew the bill introduced by Sen- ator Nelson, which was passed by Congress April 28, 1904, granting to Min- nesota 20,000 acres of land for forestry purposes. He helped to select the lands in the vicinity of Burntside lake. They are known as Burntside Forest. The proposed amendment to the Constitution for a tax for reforestation by the state, which he drew and which was submitted by the legislature in amended form, received over a hundred thousand votes at the election in 1910, though not enough for its adoption. His salary, at first $1,200 a year, was raised in 1905 to $1,500. Beginning in 1899 he served as Secretary of the Forestry Board several years without pay and then was allowed $600 a year for such service, making his total pay annually $2,100. The legislature of 1911, following the Baudette fire, abolished the office of Forestry Com- missioner, reorganized the Forestry Board, gave it supervision of the forest service, authority to appoint a trained forester at a salary of $4,000 a year, and a secretary of the board at a salary of $1,800. General Andrews was retained as secretary. The legislature appropriated $75,000 a year to defray the expense of the forest service.
His articles on the Indian Tribes and the Public Lands were printed in the North American Review for January, 1860, and July, 1861, respectively. His article on Cuba will be found in the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1879. He was a member of the. three commissions for building a state monument at Camp Release, Vicksburg and Shiloh.
FATHER FRANCIS X. PIERZ
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CHAPTER XV.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN STEARNS COUNTY.
The Catholic Pioneers-Noble Work of the Early Fathers-Arrival of the Benedictines-Diocese of St. Cloud-the Vicariate-the Right Reverend Bishops-Diocesan Officials-Present Status-Statistics-Institutions-By Reverend Alexius Hoffmann, O. S. B.
A history of Stearns county would be incomplete withont some account of the part taken in the development of this section of the state of Minne- sota by the Catholic settlers of the county, whose children form the majority of its inhabitants. There was but one white settler within the limits of the county before 1850-Gen. S. B. Lowry, who established an Indian trading post called Winnebago in the present town of Brockway about 1849. (Hist. Upper Miss. Val. 370.)
At what precise date the first catholic settler arrived may never be ascer- tained, but there is reason to believe that the first priest who visited this region-it was not called Stearns county before 1855-was the Rev. Francis de Vivaldi, who had been a canon at Ventimiglia in Italy and had come to the United States with Bishop Cretin of St. Paul in 1851. In 1848-49 the Winne- bago Indians had been placed on a reservation at or near Long Prairie, Todd county, where they remained for six years. Bishop Cretin, whose jurisdic- tion as bishop of St. Paul covered the entire territory of Minnesota, in 1851 sent Rev. de Vivaldi as missionary to this reservation. He remained with the tribe for three years, until the Indians were removed to Blue Earth county, whither he accompanied them. He may be remembered by some of the pioneers of St. Cloud.
The influx of German Catholic settlers from Iowa and other states in 1854-55 was due chiefly to the efforts of the Rev. Francis X. Pierz (properly Pirec), then Indian missionary at Crow Wing, who believed that Stearns county, and the country west of the Mississippi generally, was desirable coun- try for thrifty settlers and set forth his views in several German Catholic journals. This typical pioneer of the Gospel had an eye not only for the spiritual, but also for the material welfare of the settlers,-he was a skilful farmer and horticulturists. He wrote in 1855: "In a short notice to the 'Wahrheitsfreund,' a German Catholic newspaper published at Cincinnati, March 4, 1854, I informed the Germans that Minnesota is an ideal place for a home and that they can secure good lands in a short time. In consequence of my invitation, about fifty families have already arrived and settled in my Sauk River Mission." In the same year he published what may be called a prospectus describing the manifold advantages offered by the territory-its geographical location, the condition of the soil, the kinds of wood to be found, the water supply, climate, industries, settlements, rivers and countless lakes. Although he does not mention St. Cloud, he says : "More than fifty families have come in consequence of my invitation and
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have taken claims on both sides of the Sauk river. * * I have opened my new church (a log chapel) in Sauk Rapids for services and hope I shall be able to open a school, with sisters as teachers, next year. On the other bank of the Mississippi, on the Sauk river, a new church is in course of con- struction on St. Joseph's prairie, and a site has already been selected for a third on the left bank of the stream." The last church referred to, seems to be that on Jacobs' prairie, between Cold Spring and St. Joseph.
The first German settlers arrived in 1854. One of the earliest was J. W. Tenvoorde, who came from Evansville, Indiana, in the interest of a proposed colony of emigrants from that place, in the summer of that year. His report was evidently satisfactory, for he returned to Minnesota in the following summer with several families from Indiana. The first German Catholic who took up a permanent residence in the county was Anton Edelbrock. He came to St. Cloud in the summer of 1854 and was followed in the next year by J. W. Tenvoorde, Joseph Edelbrock, and in 1856 by John M. and Henry Rosenberger and others. Many of the immigrants went farther west than St. Cloud-to St. Joseph, St. Augusta and St. Wendel (in the western part of the township of St. Augusta).
The very first Catholic settler was, as far as has been ascertained, James Keough, a native of the county of Wexford, Ireland. He had come to Min- nesota in 1849 and after living a few years at Sauk Rapids, in 1853 removed to the west bank of the Mississippi river and "built a house on the Sauk river in the present township of St. Cloud; this probably was the first farm house built in Stearns county." (Hist. Upper Miss. Val. 456.)
Scarcely had the first settler selected their homesteads, when Father Pierz came to pay them a visit. When and where he officiated for the first time is a matter of dispute. That the first services were held in the house of Joseph Edelbrock in the summer of 1855 may be regarded as accurate when applied to the city of St. Cloud. When this very question was discussed many years ago, the first Catholic settler, James Keough, stated in the St. Cloud "Times," that after he had built a house on the western bank of the Missis- sippi about 1853, Father Pierz had celebrated mass there and came over to see the settlers once a month; and that subsequently he had officiated at the house of John Schwarz. In a biographical sketch of one of the earliest resi- dents of St. Cloud, the late Xavier Braun, who died at St. Cloud Feb. 29, 1904, we read: "Mr. Braun assisted at the first mass ever said in what is now St. Cloud, the services being performed under a large tree on what sub- sequently became a part of the grounds of St. John's Seminary (south of St. Cloud). The priest who officiated at that first mass was Rev. Father Pierce (Pierz)."-St. Cloud Times, February 29, 1904. No year is given. Mr. Braun came to Stearns county in 1854.
Father Pierz did not make his residence among the new comers; his visits were periodical; he was officially a missionary among the Chippewa Indians and his headquarters were at Crow Wing, about fifty miles north of St. Cloud. After the German settlers began to arrive, Bishop Cretin placed them under the spiritual care of this venerable missionary-he was seventy years of age at this time-until German priests could be supplied. Father Pierz had already
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spent twenty years among the Indians in the Northwest and had entered the Minnesota Mission in 1852. This was the man sent to minister to the German Catholics scattered over the prairies and in the woods of Stearns county from St. Cloud to Lake Henry. He made most of his visits on foot, with a knap- sack on his back containing all that was necessary for church services. His influence upon the settlers must have been decisive, and they looked up to him with reverence. Today a number of congregations proudly claim him as their founder-St. Cloud, St. Joseph, St. James, St. Augusta, Lake Henry, Richmond and others. His ministrations among the Germans in Stearns county covered a period of about two years (1854-56), after which he was free to devote himself exclusively to the Indians. In 1870 his sight began to fail; three years later he permanently withdrew from the mission, returned to Europe and died at the Franciscan monastery in Laybach, in the province of Krain, January 22, 1880, at the age of 95 years. On May 20, 1885, the Catholics of St. Cloud celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his first visit to St. Cloud.
Father Pierz's immediate successors in the missionary field were Bene- dictine Fathers whom Bishop Cretin invited from St. Vincent's Abbey in Pennsylvania. The Bishop of St. Paul had, perhaps at the suggestion of Father Pierz, applied to the Ludwigs Missions-Verein of Munich, Bavaria, for priests for the German settlers in Minnesota, and had been referred to the abbot of St. Vincent's Abbey, the late Archabbot Boniface Wimmer. The latter, writing to the director of that association on June 9, 1856, says: "Your letter to Bishop Cretin of St. Paul has induced him to invite the Benedictines into his diocese. He earnestly requested me to send him several Fathers." The first Benedictine Fathers sent in response to this request were Fathers Demetrius di Marogna, Bruno Riss and Cornelius Wittmann, who stepped on Minnesota soil for the first time on May 2, 1856. Bishop Cretin offered them several places in the territory, and they selected Sauk Rapids and the mis- sions on the other side of the river. They reached Sauk Rapids on May 20, and visited St. Cloud for the first time on the following day. A few weeks later they took up their abode on a lonely spot about two miles sonth of St. Cloud and from this missionary center began to visit the settlements scat- tered throughout the county. Father Demetrins organized a congregation at St. Augusta, Father Cornelius at St. Cloud, and Father Bruno at St. Joseph. The last step towards permanent organization was a series of mission services conducted early in August, 1856, by Rev. Francis Weninger, S. J. Although the settlers, none of whom were wealthy, were sorely tried by the grasshopper invasions of 1856 and 1857, they did not lose heart; they had learned content- ment and resignation. As a result, every settlement organized in those days is still on its feet, quietly prospering, and every one of them clusters about a central edifice, the church with its spire pointing heavenward, the landmark of a Catholic community.
In the development of ecclesiastical life in a Western Catholic settle- ment, we may distinguish four stages: (1) At first private houses-in almost all instances log cabins-served as churches; the missionaries would travel from one settlement on foot or on an ox-cart, carrying the necessary altar
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furniture and vestments in a valise, and shared the humble lodgings of the farmers, content with the little they had to offer; (2) when a sufficiently large number of settlers could conveniently meet at a certain place, a church was built there; that is to say, a long cabin about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, to be used exclusively for that purpose; (3) in course of time the log church made way for the frame church, usually a long building with windows with pointed arches and a modest steeple over the main door; a coat of white paint made it visible at a great distance; sometimes the sacristy was fitted up as a lodging place for the priest when he came to visit the congregation ; (4) the frame church was followed by the brick or stone church, generally flanked by a parsonage built of the same materials. Some of the congrega- tions never had log churches; v. g., St. Cloud, Cold Spring, Farming and Freeport; a few still have frame churches. The first church built of brick was St. Mary's of St. Cloud (1863-66), and the first built of stone-granite boulders-that at St. Joseph (1871).
At first the number of small settlements far exceeded the number of priests; consequently there were few places with resident pastors. St. Cloud and St. Joseph were the earliest missionary centres; from the former the priests visited the settlers in the townships of St. Augusta and Luxemburg; from the latter those in the township of Wakefield and other townships. At both these places here were resident priests, sometimes two or three, between 1856 and 1860. In 1870 there were only three places with resident priests in the county: St. Cloud, St. Joseph and Richmond, in 1880, thirteen; in 1890, eighteen ; in 1900, thirty, and at present forty.
The great majority of the Catholics of Stearns county are Germans or of German descent; the Austrians, or more specifically Krainers, are strongest in the townships of Brockway and Krain, where they have two churches; the Poles also have two churches, and the English-speaking Catholics have four churches, including the pro-cathedral at St. Cloud.
The following localities have churches at the present time: 1, St. Cloud, Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Angels; 2, St. Cloud, Church of the Immaculate Conception ; 3, St. Cloud, Church of St. John Cantius; 4, Albany, Church of the Seven Dolors; 5, Avon, Church of St. Benedict; 6, Belgrade, Church of St. Francis de Sales ; 7, Brockway, Church of St. Stephen; 8, Cold Springs, Church of St. Boniface, 9, Collegeville, Church of St. John the Baptist; 10, Farming, Church of St. Catherine; 11, Freeport, Church of the Sacred Heart; 12, Hold- ingford, Church of St. Mary; 13, Lake George, Church of SS. Peter and Paul; 14, Lake Henry, Church of St. Margaret; 15, Luxemburg, Church of St. Wen- delin; 16, Meire Grove, Church of St. John the Baptist; 17, Melrose, Church of St. Boniface; 18, Melrose, Church of St. Patrick; 19, New Munich, Church of the Immaculate Conception ; 20, Opole, Church of Our Lady of Mount Car- mel; 21, Padua, Church of St. Anthony; 22, Pearl Lake, Church of St. Law- rence; 23, Richmond, Church of SS. Peter and Paul; 24, Roscoe, Church of St. Agnes; 25, St. Ann, Church of the Immaculate Conception; 26, St. An- thony, Church of St. Anthony; 27, St. Augusta, Church of Mary Help of Christians; 28, St. James' Church in the town of Wakefield; 29, St. Joseph, Church of St. Joseph; 30, St. Martin, Church of St. Martin; 31, St. Nicholas,
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Church of St. Nicholas; 32, St. Rose, Church of St. Rose; 33, Sauk Centre, Church of St. Paul; 34, Sauk Centre, Church of Our Lady of Angels; 35, Spring Hill, Church of St. Michael; 36, Maples (mission), Church of St. Co- lumbkille; 37, Rockville (mission), Church of the Immaculate Conception; 38, Holdingford (mission), Church of St. Hedwig; 39, Brooten (mission) church ; 40, St. Joseph, Church of St. Benedict's Convent.
Beginnings are proverbially difficult. If the settlers were at times con- fronted with difficulties, the life of their pastors was not all comfort. It was a hardship for the people to be deprived of spiritual ministrations for months, but it was not less trying for a young missionary to undertake fatiguing journeys over a wild country, to lodge in spare rooms and attics and to per- form the arduous duties of a priest on a Sunday with nothing to eat before a late hour in the afternoon. The ox-cart was a very welcome conveyance in the absence of a better; the pastor's horse and buggy were a familiar sight two decades ago. The growing facilities of travel in our day have made the life of the parish priest more comfortable than that of his predecessors; but the responsibilities of the former have grown with the growth of the congre- gations.
The development of Catholicity in Stearns county is a monument to the deep faith and loyalty of the people who made these achievements possible. In the midst of their poverty they found means to rear proud church edifices and schools; many of them donated parcels of land for the church or for the cemetery, and others contributed to the furnishing and embellishment of their church with altars, pulpit, statuary, organ, bells or vestments. Did they feel the loss? Look at their contented faces, at their comfortable homes, their broad fields. Like the other children of men, they go about their tem- poral pursuits six days of the week, but when Sunday comes, they all assemble in the great house they fondly call "our church," which their fathers or themselves had built. Here they listen to the same message that gave peace and contentment to those that went before them, and here they gather new strength to live upright Christian lives and call down blessings from Him by whose kind hand all blessings are bestowed.
The churches of Stearns county are conducted by secular priests and by fathers, or priests of the Benedictine Order, belonging to St. John's Abbey at Collegeville, Minn. At present there are 47 priests in active service: 25 secular and 22 Benedictine; of this number 8 are assistants and 2 chaplains.
Wherever the settlements are well developed, parochial schools have been built at great expense. They are almost exclusively conducted by Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict.
The same body of sisters conduct St. Raphael's Hospital in St. Cloud and St. Joseph's Home for the Aged, outside of the city.
There are three religious communities in the county : St. John's Abbey at Collegeville, St. Benedict's Convent at St. Joseph, and a residence of Fran- ciscan Sisters at Collegeville.
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There are two schools for higher education: St. John's University at Collegeville, and St. Benedict's Academy at St. Joseph.
THE DIOCESE OF ST. CLOUD. The Vicariate.
In 1854, when the first settlements were made in the county, the terri- tory was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of St. Paul. The diocese of St. Paul was created July 19, 1850, and its first bishop, Right Rev. Joseph Cretin, arrived in July, 1851. As there was no Catholic congregation in Stearns county before 1855 and the bishop died February 22, 1857, it is not probable that he ever paid an official visit to the county. His successor, Right Rev. Thomas L. Grace (1859-1884, +1897) visited the county repeatedly to administer confirmation and to dedicate churches.
Northern Minnesota was cut off from the diocese by St. Paul February 12, 1875, and created a Vicariate Apostolic by Pope Pius IX. The designa- tion "Northern Minnesota" applied to all that part of the state of Minnesota lying north of the southern line of Travers, Stevens, Pope, Stearns, Sher- burne, Isanti and Chisago counties, and that part of Dakota territory lying east of the Missouri and White Earth rivers and north of the southern line of Burleigh, Logan, Lamoure and Richland counties-a district measuring about 600 miles from Grand Portage at its castern extremity to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation at its western extremity, and about 250 miles from the southern line of Stearns county to the International boundary line on the north.
At the time of the erection of the Vicariate it comprised the following churches and pastors: Minnesota-St. Cloud, Church of the Immaculate Con- ception, Rev. Alphonse Kuisle, O. S. B .; St. Joseph, Church of St. Joseph, Rev. Severin Gross, O. S. B .; Richmond, Church of SS. Peter and Paul, Rev. An schar Frauendorfer, O. S. B .; New Munich, Church of the Immaculate Con- ception, Rev. Cornelius Wittmann, O. S. B .; St Augusta, Church of Mary Help of Christians, Rev. Benedict Haindl, O. S. B .; Luxemburg, Church of St. Wendelin, Rev. Ignatius Wesseling, O. S. B. (who resided at St. Angusta) ; Cold Spring P. O., Church of St. James, Rev. Vincent Schiffrer, O. S. B., who also attended St. Nicholas; Leedston P. O., Church of St. Martin, Rev. Simplicius Wimmer, O. S. B .; Meyer's Grove, Church of St. John, Rev. Burk- hardt, O. S. B .; Rush City, Chisago county, Rev. William Wilkins, who also visited Taylor's Falls and other stations; Brainerd, Church of St. Francis, Rev. Charles Dougherty ; Millerville, Church of the Seven Dolors, Rev. E. P. Schneider; Belle Prairie, Rev. Joseph Bnh, who also visited Little Falls, Rich Prairie and other stations; St. Joseph's Church, Otter Tail county, Rev. James Hilbert; Duluth, Rev. J. B. Genin, O. M. I., who visited a number of missions, including Moorhead on the western boundary of the state; Long Prairie, Rev. John Schenk; White Earth Reservation, Rev. Ignatius Tomazin, missionary, who visited various Indian settlements, such as Red Lake, Leech Lake, Cass Lake, etc., Dakota territory; St. Joseph's church (in the northeastern corner of Dakota territory) Rev. J. B. Lafloch, O. M. I .; Pembina, Rev. F. Simonet,
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