USA > Missouri > A history of Missouri from the earliest explorations and settlements until the admission of the state into the union, Volume II > Part 34
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The activity of the French missionaries in the 17th and 18th cen- turies, in the vast territories stretching from the mouth of the St. Lawrence across the continent, and from the Hudson Bay to the mouth of the Mississippi, was unceasing and extraordinary. To propagate the faith, they traversed the solitude of boundless forests and prairies, and with their pirogues disturbed the quietude of unexplored lakes and rivers. Surrounded by unknown and often dreadful perils, they visited barbarous tribes of savages and first planted the cross among them, and sowed the seed of a higher and better life, too often stamped out and destroyed by the immoralities, and as Father Vivier says, by the "bad example of the French, who continually mingle with those people," and by "the brandy that is sold to them."1 For this reason, he mournfully adds, the harvest did not correspond to their labors.
To propagate the faith, Father Marquette accompanied Joliet and greatly rejoiced when he found himself "in the blessed neces- sity" to expose his "life for the salvation of all these people, and 1 69 Jesuit Relations, p. 149.
287
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
especially of the Illinois;" he piously vowed that if the great river should be discovered, he would name it the river of the "Immaculate Conception," and that the first mission established among the new people he might discover, should also be named the " Mission of the Immaculate Conception."2 Accordingly on Marquette's map, the Mississippi is named the "Rivière de la Conception," and the first mission among the Kaskaskia Indians at Kaskaskia, founded by Gravier, was also named the "Mission of the Immaculate Conception" and the present church and parish of Kaskaskia still retains this name.3
Joliet and Marquette in their downward voyage must have camped at various places on the right bank of the Mississippi. It may be that the Illinois villages Marquette visited, which on his map are named the Pe-8-area or (Pe-8-ar-8-as) and Moingwena, or (M-8- ingonenas) on the west side of the river, were located in what is now Missouri, since he states that these villlages were "in parallel 41 and as low as 40 degrees, and some minutes," although it is well to re- member that the latitude given at that date, differs from ours by from one half to a whole degree. If our conjecture be correct, Marquette was the first missionary who visited Missouri.
Although we have no distinct evidence of the fact, it is certain that Fathers Allouez and Gravier, and two other Jesuit missionaries visited the Indians residing on the west bank of the river. They in- deed may have established the first settlement in the Mississippi valley at the mouth of the "Rivière des Pères," of which Austin makes mention.4 These missionaries traveled up and down the river doing missionary work among the Indians in the Illinois coun- try, then dwelling on both banks of the river, above and near the mouth of the Missouri on the west side, and above the mouth of the Ohio on the east side of the Mississippi.
Father Allouez, in 1690, was appointed Vicar-General of the Illinois country, succeeding Father Marquette who was appointed Vicar-General of this western country when he was selected to accompany Joliet. The first entries of the records of the "Church of the Immaculate Conception" of Kaskaskia were evidently made by Allouez. Father Gravier succeeded him and for a time
2 59 Jesuit Relations, p. 108.
3 Marquette did not found the "Mission among the Kaskaskias," as was so conspicuously, but erroneously, emblazoned in raised letters on the monument erected in his honor at the late "Louisiana Purchase Exposition."
4 Austin's Journal, 8 American Historical Review, p. 518.
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FATHER MAREST
resided in the village of the Kaskaskias, which was then situated on the lower Illinois river in latitude 40 degrees 41 minutes, on the edge of a prairie on one side, and a "multitude of swamps,"" on the other. While Father Gabriel Marest was in charge of the Kaskaskia mis- sion at this point, these Indians precipitately abandoned this village and moved further south, establishing a new village on the banks of a river ever since known as the Kaskaskia. The church records of 1690 were begun at the old village and when the Indians fled to the new town, they were carried there. Father Gravier greatly regretted this emigration as it separated the Kaskaskias from the Pe-8-ar-8-as and M-8-ingonenas, and he feared it would lead to hostilities be- tween them.
Father Gabriel Marest, who accompanied the Kaskaskias, leaving the Pe-8-ar-8-as without a missionary, traveled far and wide among the Illinois Indians, and was able to endure an incredi- ble amount of fatigue. He understood their language perfectly and mastered it in four or five months.6 Father Marest labored successfully in the Pe-8-ar-8-as villages which Marquette had visited, and converted a famous chief of that tribe before his death. In 1700 he was among the Tamaroas, then residing on Cahokia creek opposite where St. Louis now stands. At this time, Father Pinet was also stationed among the Tamaroas, and performed "in peace all the duties of a missionary." Father Bergier, a Seminarian priest, Grand-Vicar of the Bishop of Quebec who, however, only had charge of the French residing in this village, then lived there7, and ultimately this led to a conflict between the Seminary priests and the Jesuits. Father Bergier claimed that the Jesuits had the powers of Vicar-General merely with regard to the savages, and not over the French settlers among them, and thus he took away the French communicants from the Jesuits, informing the latter that they had no authority over them in spiritual matters.8 Bergier admitted that Gravier was Superior of the Illinois missions, and that, although the Bishop of Quebec gave the power of a Vicar-General to the Su- perior of these missions, he had been deprived of these powers by the Bishop afterward. All of this Father Gravier denied in 1708, but, he says that he does not aspire to "nominis umbram" and
6 60 Jesuit Relations, p. 161.
6 65 Jesuit Relations, p. 103.
7 Ibid., p. 103.
8 66 Jesuit Relations, p. 127.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
would gladly concede the superiority and the powers of Vicar-General to Father Mermet. Father Gravier was evidently greatly disliked by the Seminarian priests, and of course had no love for them in re- turn. They called him an "arch-plotter," and he says that Father St. Cosme "had not made a single Christian among the Natchez," that Father Davion had "abandoned his mission through fear of the English and savages," that "this flight does him no credit,"" that Father Bergier said, that "on the first alarm of the enemy, he would abandon the place (Tamarouha) and come to New Orleans," and then, he sarcastically remarks, "never-the-less these gentlemen have undertaken to provide missionaries."10
The missionaries at Tamarouha, Cahokia (Kaoukia) and Kas- kaskia, dwelling with the Indians there, also visited the west bank of the Mississippi, because these Indians crossed and recrossed the river on their hunting expeditions, and the Jesuit missionaries were in the habit of often accompanying them on such occasions. Father Gravier says that the Michigamia, who dwelt near the St. François when Joliet and Marquette went down the Mississippi,11 wintered in 1700 with the Tamarouha on a fine bay of the river, coming more than sixty leagues (180 miles) in order to do so, and that these two tribes at that time formed one village. A year before, in 1699, Fathers Davion, Montigny and St. Cosme, missionaries of the Sulpician order, went down the Missis- sippi.12 On the 6th day of December they reached the village of the Tamarouha and a week afterward leaving the Tamarouha village and descending the river, St. Cosme relates that he ascended a rock on the right hand side going down the river, and erected a cross, performing this interesting ceremony in Missouri within the limits of what is now Perry county.13
The settlement at the mouth of the Saline which Penicaut found there in 1700, was visited by the Jesuit priests Gravier and Marest. Father Jean Marest, a "Religieuse of the Company of Jesus, Mis- sionaries of the Illinios," who died at Kaskaskia in 1735, certainly came to this settlement on his spiritual errand as well as to the old village of Ste. Genevieve, on the west side of the river. The Sulpi- 4
9 66 Jesuit Relations, p. 131.
10 66 Jesuit Relations, p. 131.
11 59 Jesuit Relations, p. 151.
12 Penicaut says that D'Iberville met St. Cosme on April 17, 1700, on his trip up the Mississippi.
13 See vol. I, page 241-42.
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VISIT ST. GENEVIEVE
cians, Martigny, Davion, St. Cosme, Zebedie, Le Jeune Donne and others, we may be sure also found this oasis in the vast wilderness of woods and prairie, although no express mention is made of the fact. Father Luc, stationed at Fort de Chartres, and Father Gagnon, a secular priest of the ancient parish of St. Ann, attached to the Fort, also crossed the river in performance of their religious work.14
After the foundation of old Ste. Genevieve, the Jesuit priests of Kaskaskia came to the village. No records of these visits exist, but it is not to be thought that they omitted to cross the river to look after the spiritual welfare of the settlers there. From 1735 to 1760, Father Vivier,15 Father Tartarin,16 Father Aubert,17 Father Wattrin,18 and Father DeGuyenne19 all Jesuit priests stationed at Kaskaskia, can
14 Father Gagnon and Father Luc were both buried in the grave-yard of St. Ann parish, but when the Mississippi began to wash away the Fort and village, Father Meurin had their bodies removed and re-interred at Prairie . du Rocher in 1768.
15 Father François Louis Vivier, born at Issoudun, October 6th, 1714, in the province of France; entered the Society of Jesus September 1731; came to Canada in 1749; sent to the Illinois country in 1749; remained at Kaskaskia until 1753 or 1754, then transferred to Vincennes, where he died in 1756. His two letters preserved in the Jesuit Relations give most valuable information of the life and condition of the French and Indians in the Illinois country. From 1749 to 1750 he was stationed at Kaskaskia in charge of the Illinois missions.
16 Rene Tartarin, a Jesuit priest, born January 22nd 1695, came to Canada 1727, according to Father Jones he was stationed at Kaskaskia several years; died in Louisiana September 24, 1745.
17 François Jean Baptiste Aubert, born in the province of Lyons, March Ist, 1722; entered the Society of Jesus 1739; came to Canada in 1754; curé at Kas- kaskia until the expulsion of the Jesuits; returned to France in 1764; in 1784 was engaged in the ministry at Grenoble, France.
18 Father Philibert Wattrin, or Watrin, also spelled "Vattrin" by Vivier, born at Metz, province of Champaigne, France, April Ist, 1697; entered the Society of Jesus 1712; arrived in Canada 1732; lived at Kaskaskia and the Illi- nois country thirty years; parish priest at Kaskaskia; Superior of the Illinois missions; first parish priest at Ste. Genevieve in what is now Missouri in 1760. In 1763 went to New Orleans to defend the interests of the Jesuit Order when the future state of the order in Louisiana was "still between hope and fear." 69 Jesuit Relations, p. 213. In a pathetic letter relating the troubles of the Jesuits in the Illinois country he says that they were driven from their own houses, and that at the age of sixty-seven he departed on foot to find "a lodging a league away with a confrère of his, a missionary to the savages," Father Meurin, and that the French who met him on the way "groaned to see persecution begun with him." Embarking at New Orleans November 24, 1764, he returned to France. Wattrin's account of how the decree to banish the Jesuits was carried out in the Illinois country is highly interesting. 70 Jesuit Relations, p. 213, et seq.
19 Alexis F. X. DeGuyenne, born at New Orleans 1696; entered the Society of Jesus at Paris in 1713; arrived in Louisiana 1726, but, according to Father Jones, "in Canada in 1727," a missionary among the Alibamu (Alibamas) until 1730, then among the Arkansas Indians, then among the Miamis, then Superior of
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
be reasonably supposed to have been at Ste. Genevieve from time to time in the discharge of their sacred office. But expressly confirming this, Father Wattrin, in 1764, defending the Jesuits against the charge of neglecting their spiritual work, writes, "but here is yet an- other proof of the care that the Jesuits have taken of this parish; fifteen years ago, at a league from the old village, on the other bank of the Mississippi, there was established a new village under the name of Ste. Genevieve. Then the cure of Kaskaskia found himself obliged to go there to administer the sacraments, at least to the sick ; and when the new inhabitants saw their houses multiply, they asked to have a church built; this being granted them, the journey of the missionary became still more frequent, because he thought he ought then yield himself still more to the willingness of his new parishoners and their needs. However, in order to go to this new church he must cross the Mississippi, which in this place is three-eighths of a league wide; he sometimes had to trust himself to a slave who alone guided the canoe; it was necessary in fine, to expose himself to the danger of perishing, if in the middle of the river they had been overtaken by a violent storm. None of these inconveniences have prevented the curé of Cascakias from going to Ste. Genevieve when charity call- ed him thither, and he was always charged with this care until means . were found to place at Ste. Genevieve, a special curé, - which occured only a few years ago, when the inhabitants of the place built a house for a pastor. These two villages, that of Cascakias and that of Ste. Genevieve, made the second and third establish- ments of the Jesuits in the Illinois country."20
The church records of Ste. Genevieve begin in 1759. The parish, or church of the village was then called "St. Joachin" and Father Wattrin performed the duties of cure in that year. Father Wat- trin must have come over from Kaskaskia, where he was curé from 1746 to 1749, after he was relieved of his duties there, perhaps as early as 1750. From 1760 to 1764, Fathers Wattrin, J. B. Salveneuve 21
the Illinois missions from 1749 to 1756; died in the Illinois country in 1762; seems to have been well versed in the Indian languages, and Father Vivier says that he acted "as my master in the study of the Illinois language." Father DeGuyenne spent thirty-six years as a missionary among the Indians; was curé at Fort de Chartres before his death; suffered from partial paralysis. 70 Jesuit Relations, p. 229.
20 70 Jesuit Relations, p. 235.
21 Jean Baptiste Francois Salveneuve, born June 8, 1708; arrived in Quebec, Canada, in 1743, thirty-five years of age, was assigned to the Huron missions and remained there until 1761, then came to Illinois country and was stationed
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FATHER MEURIN
and John LaMorinie 22 the church records show, were the ministers regularly domiciled within the limits of what is now Missouri. Father Meurin succeeded these missionary priests in Ste. Gene- vieve and acted as curé of that parish from 1764 to 1768, and together with Father Luc, also parish priest of St. Ann parish at Fort de Chartres, and Father Collet, had charge of the Kaskaskia parish at the same time. The people of Kaskaskia, influenced by the domi- nant party in Louisiana, although at the time under English rule, were hostile to Father Meurin, because he was a Jesuit, and many would not recognize him, and it is said that not more than ten men came to communion in four years. Father Meurin could only visit Kaskaskia by stealth at night, but at Fort de Chartres and St. Philippe he was very popular, and the people at Prairie du Rocher offered to build him a house and give him a horse and calèche, as well as a negro servant, in order to induce him to take up his resi- dence there.
Father Meurin was the only Jesuit missionary allowed to remain in the country after the expulsion of the order from Louisiana, and he de- serves more than passing notice. He was born in 1707 in France ; enter- ed the Order of the Jesuits in 1729 and came to Canada in 1741. The following year he was sent to the Illinios country where he labored among the savages uninterruptedly until 1763. In that year he went to New Orleans with the Superior of the Illinois missions, Father Wattrin, and others, but instead of going to France, he obtained permission to return to the Illinois in order to save his savage Illinois neophytes from forgetting religion, as he felt sure would be the case if they remained long without a missionary.23 He was not a strong man and his health was never good during the many years he spent in the wilderness. All the property of the Jesuits had been sold and he could draw upon no fund for subsistence. No one was obliged to furnish him anything and all that was promised him when he returned was, that - cffort would be made at court to secure for his support
at Ste. Genevieve until 1763, when the Jesuits were expelled. He returned to France in 1764, but it is also said that he died in Louisiana in that year.
22 Father Jean Baptiste de La Morinie in charge of the Ste. Genevieve church in 1762 to 1764, was animated by a "motive and a zeal that refuses itself to nothing." 70 Jesuit Relations, 277. He was born at Puigneux, France, December 24, 1705; became a Jesuit at the age of eighteen; came to Canada in 1736; was a missionary among the Hurons at Detroit 1738; at Michilimacki- nac in 1741, then a missionary in the Miami villages, and finally at Kaskaskia until the Jesuits were expelled. He returned to France in 1764.
' 70 Jesuit Relations, p. 293.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
an annual pension of 600 livres, about $125. But nothing daunted, he returned. "Ste. Genevieve is my residence," he writes Bishop Briand, "as it was stipulated in the condition of my return to this country. From it I come every spring and visit other villages for Easter-tide, I return again in Autumn and whenever I am summoned for a sick call. This is all my infirmities and my means enable me to do; and even this displeases and prejudices the people of Ste. Genevieve." Although his visits to other settlements displeased the people there, he continued his apostolic work in the vast region which, by order of the French Government, had virtually been deprived of all spiritual laborers. He not only visited Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Prairie du Rocher, but also the camps of many Indian neophytes on both sides of the river. The statement that he was present when Laclede established his trading post where St. Louis now stands is clearly erroneous, as Father Conway has well demonstrated.24 It may be possible that Father Meurin was in St. Louis in 1766, but this even is very doubtful. It, however, seems to be supposed that because an entry in the marriage records of St. Louis shows that Toussaint Hunot and Marie Beaugenou were married by Father Meurin, that this priest must have been in St. Louis, to perform the ceremony, but this does not necessarily follow. It is far more likely that the young and vigorous hunter, with his intended wife, walked over to Cahokia to get married, than that the feeble old priest worn out by many hardships, would walk from Cahokia over to the east bank of the river at "Paincourt," and then cross in a canoe, to perform the ceremony.25 In 1769, Father Meurin was appointed Vicar-General by the Bishop of Quebec. The territorial limits of his jurisdiction seem to have been vaguely defined. In his letter of acceptance, Father Meurin says, that he feels that he is incapable "of such an office," and that he has been left to himself so long that he barely knows the duties of a simple priest, that he is weak in body and mind, and that he possesses no memory and less of firmness. In conclusion he says, "I am no longer good for anything but to be laid in the ground." However, this appointment became to him the
24 Catholic Church of St. Louis, by Rev. J. J. Conway, p. 7.
25 Scharf gives a copy of a certificate, dated 1766, in which Father Meurin states that he baptized in a tent (for want of a church) Mary, daughter of Jean B. Deschamps and Mary, his wife. Mr. Rene Tiercerot (Kiercereau) being god-father, and Mary god-mother, all in the country of Illinois, St. Louis, which may or may not mean that he was in St. Louis on the west side of the Mississippi. 2 Scharff's History of St. Louis, p. 1639.
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VICAR-GENERAL
source of trouble, because, when he obtained permission to return to the Illinois country, he entered into an agreement with the Capuchin Fathers at New Orleans, who on the expulsion of the Jesuits claimed sole spiritual jurisdiction in the Illinois country, that he would always act as their Vicar, be subject to their visits, their reprimands and cor- rections, and their jurisdiction in the whole of the country on the Mis- sissippi. Accordingly, when the Capuchins heard that the Bishop of Quebec had appointed Father Meurin as his Vicar-General in this territory, they caused a warrant of proscription to be issued against him. This would have been promptly executed if he had not escaped from Ste. Genevieve, where he then resided, to the English territory. Here he at once took the oath of allegiance as a former resident, and thus secured himself, as he says, "against Spanish persecution." But although Father Meurin was feeble physically, intellectually he was anything but feeble. He was prompt to assert the rights of his order, and when one LaGrange, who had purchased the property of the "Mission of the Holy Family among the Cahokias," attempted to sell this property to an Englishman, he took it upon himself to op- pose this sale, claiming the property as still belonging to the "Gentle- men of the Seminary." He so effectively asserted his authority to act to the commanding officer, Forbes, that for a time at least he prevented a sale of the property. Nor was he at all considerate of the feelings of the persons who had purchased the property of the Jesuits at Kas- kaskia. Thus, Sieur Jean Baptiste Beauvais, who had purchased some of it, was continually reproached by him "on that score," so that "he kept him away from the sacraments for three years," and he asked the advice of the Bishop in case he should present himself to him or to another, whither or not "he can be granted absolution and be dispensed from handing over the said articles to the parish church." All the property of the Jesuits, he claimed, was wrongfully seized and confiscated by the French government, because this seizure was made after the cession of the country to England, a contention in which he was undoubtedly clearly in the right. His life, however, was truly a life of poverty and hardship, and during the four years he administered to the English parishioners he says he "received naught but what was given me out of charity by some."
Whether Father Meurin could legally exercise the office of Vicar- General in that part of Illinois, west of the Mississippi, under an appointment of the Bishop of Quebec, the country having been ceded by France to Spain, is a subject learnedly discussed by Father Con-
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
way, who holds that under the canonical law he could do so in this territory ceded to Spain, until the boundaries of the diocese were changed by the Holy See. But it is evident that the Spanish officials were determined not to recognize the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec over the territory, and Father Meurin himself admits that he was declared a criminal because he received authority from Quebec "which is so opposed to the intentions and interests of Spain."26 The question was not considered at the time a canonical, but a political one. The Spaniards held that all the territory west of the river was within the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of San Domingo. In 1776, at the instance of Spain, the ecclesiastical juris- diction of the territory of Louisiana was transferred from the diocese of Quebec to that of Santiago de Cuba. In 1777 when the latter diocese was divided, Louisiana was attached to the new diocese of St. Christopher of Havanna, and finally in 1799, Louisiana and the Floridas were formed into the diocese of Louisiana. The Right Reverend Luis Penalver y Cardenas was appointed Bishop, and later also Archbishop of Guatamala. That the Spanish officials viewed the appointment of Father Meurin as Vicar General by the Bishop of Quebec as a political matter, is shown by the fact, that when it be- came known De Rocheblave, at the time Commandant at Ste. Gene- vieve, said to him, "I recognize no English Bishop here, and in a post where I command I wish no ecclesiastical dominion recog- nized except that of the Bishop of San Domingo."
When Father Meurin fled from Ste. Genevieve, he first went to Kaskaskia where he remained until the arrival of Father Gibault. Then he accepted the offer of the people of Prairie du Rocher, before mentioned. Father Conway says that Father Meurin returned to Cahokia, but the Reverend John Mason Peck states that he removed to Prairie du Rocher and died there in 1777. Peck, an eminent Baptist clergyman, and deeply interested in everything per- taining to the early history of the west, says that Father Meurin "was a very learned man, left a valuable library and a manuscript dictionary of the Indian and French languages in twenty volumes." It is surmised that Father Meurin, after he fled from Ste. Genevieve, visited St. Louis and exercised his spiritual functions there in 1767-68 and 1769, but this conjecture is unfounded.
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