USA > Missouri > A history of Missouri from the earliest explorations and settlements until the admission of the state into the union, Volume II > Part 35
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The first church in the territory, now Missouri, was built in the old village of Ste. Genevieve. It was a large wooden structure, and in 26 71 Jesuit Relations, p. 75.
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1794, it was removed to the present town and used as a church until 1835.27 In this edifice services were held from 1760 to 1764 by Fathers Wattrin,28 Salveneuve and LaMorinie, already mentioned. They were succeeded by Father Meurin 29 until 1768, then from 1768 to 1773, Father Gibault was parish priest, being succeeded by Father François Hilaire, from 1773 to 1777, who became involved in a con- troversy with his parishioners. They complained to the Lieutenant- Governor that the good Father was demanding "the tenth of all the produce of our land," although "hithereto, we have paid no more than the twenty-sixth part."30 The matter coming before Governor-Gen- eral Unzaga, he ordered that "the custom shall not be altered" and that the "commandant shall not tolerate the introduction of any inno- vation in the matter," but he allowed the Reverend Father "50 pesos fuertes" annually for a servant as an addition to his salary. "It is to be noted," says Unzaga, "that the King has absolute control of the tithes in these Kingdoms," and that it is not right, that "while the King supports" the parish priests, "for them to try and get another fee," and this he says shall "be told to said parish priest on this occasion," so that he may "not dare to demand from his parishioners in the future more than what they are accustomed to pay."31 In 1778, Father Gibault returned and again officiated until 1784. Fath- -
27 Rozier's History of the Mississippi Valley, p. 116.
28 The first baptism performed by Father Wattrin as village priest was performed on the 24th of February 1760.
29 On the 30th of October, 1764, a religious marriage which took place at the old village was celebrated by Father Meurin, the parties married being Mark Constantino Canada and Miss Susan Henn, who had been made a prisoner about five years before by the Shawnee Indians in Pennsylvania. Canada, it seems, also lived among the Indians. The witnesses to this marriage were Jean Ganion and T. Tebriege or (LeBirge). Rozier's History of the Mississippi Valley, p. 118.
30 The names of these Ste. Genevieve parishioners who remonstrated were : LaRose, Rosier (Roussin?), Charpentier, Lalumandier, Biyas (Buyat), Luis LaCroix, Beauvais, Baptiste LaCroix, Tangelier, DeGuire, Pierrop, Lalande, Lanfenes (Lefrenay), Adelmar, Diehle, Vignon, Bouche, Robinette, Louis Frasseur, Joseph Motier, Regis (dit?) La Source, Louis La Source, Vallé, jun., Pratte, Pierre Aubouchon, Paul LaBrosse, Jean Clairnet, Hypolite Robat, Fray Chean, Aubouchon, Dudon.
31 Don Luis De Unzaga, was a colonel in the Havanna Regiment and came with O'Reilly to Louisiana. He was appointed Governor in 1770, and his admin- istration was very popular, as he did not enforce the stringent trade regulations of Spain, and consequently the Colony was very prosperous, commerce expanding very rapidly. Slaves being introduced by the English contrary to the Spanish ordinances the plantations quickly increased in number and size. Unzaga married a daughter of St. Maxent, the partner of Laclede, and was a brother- in-law of Galvez who also married a St. Maxent. In 1776 Unzaga was appointed Captain-General of Caraccas.
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er Louis Guiques was the village priest from 1786 to 1789, and Father de St. Pierre from 1789 to 1797. In 1796 Father James Maxwell was appointed Vicar-General of upper Louisiana and parish priest of Ste. Genevieve, and held that position when the United States acquired the country until he died.
Father Gibault performed the duties of parish priest at St. Gene- Gibault Mauré vieve, while residing at Kaskaskia, from 1768 to 1773, and so also at " La Salinas," by which name the settle- ment near the mouth of the Saline creek was known, and at "Old Mines" now in Washington county, and probably at St. Louis, as well, although it is not explained why the Spanish officials should have allowed Father Gibault to discharge his spiritual functions in these places, and excluded Father Meurin, when both priests belonged to the Diocese of Quebec. From an or- der in the archives of New Madrid it appears that Guy Carlton, "Lieutenant-Governor, Brigadier in command" in 1768, gave a permit to Father Gibault to go to the Illinois country with his mother, Marie Gibault, and his sister Louise Gibault, by way of Michilimack- inac with his baggage 32 and that on the 26th day of July he was allowed to pass there "unmolested," by Spiesmacher,33 the com- mandant. He must have arrived there sometime before that date, because on the 23rd of July he baptized an infant at this post, styling himself the "Vicaire General des Louisiane," evidently considering that his spiritual jurisdiction embraced all of Louisiana ,and that no conflict existed, or if he knew of this conflict, that he did not intend to recognize the claim of the Spanish Bishop of Havanna. Subsequently, however, he signed himself simply "Vicaire General des Illinois et Tamarois."34 He took his mother and sister with him to the Illinois country, con- trary to the order of the Bishop of Quebec, and for this was severely reprimanded by him.35 Arrived at Kaskaskia, he began his laborious task, and at Easter-tide in 1769 he had brought to their duties nearly
32 His baggage consisted of one bale, four kegs of brandy, four of wine, and his canoe-men were, Jacques Perrein, Pointe Claire, Jean B. Salle of Longveil, François LaMarche of Longveil, Jean B. Dubue of Montreal, Pierre La Chapelle, also of Montreal, and Michael LaVoix, of Chambley. The passengers who traveled with him in the canoe were, François Loillet of La Vallerie and François Beaugie of Beaufort, a senior (seigneur). Was this "Beaugie" the ancestor of the Bogy's of St. Genevieve ?
33 Major Frederick Christian Spiesmacher, of the 60th Royal American, a nephew of Haldimand.
34 18 Draper's Collection. (Clark MSS.)
35 Letter of the Bishop of Quebec, in New Madrid Archives.
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all the Kaskaskians, that is to say, the French folk of the town, the Indians camped near the town on the river, and all the Catholics of the 18th Royal Irish Dragoons.36 Afterward he crossed over the river to Ste. Genevieve and visited "La Salinas" and the "Old Mines." In fact all the settlements on both sides of the Mississippi, Cahokia, Prairie du Rocher, St. Philippe and Fort de Chartres were the scenes of his spiritual labors. In 1770 he visited Vincennes, and he writes the Bishop of Quebec that the people there crowded down the banks of the Wabash to receive him, that they fell on their knees unable to speak, while others could only speak in sobs, and some cried out, "Father, save us, we are almost in hell." From Vincennes, where he remained for two weeks, he returned to Kaskaskia and then visited Ste. Gene- vieve where he met the newly arrived Spanish Commandant, Lieu- tenant-Governor Don Pedro Piernas, promising him to include St. Louis in his missionary work. Thus he labored alone in this wide and boundless field, with unceasing activity, traveling through the wilderness, visiting the isolated frontier settlements and the In- dian converts. The report of his apostolic labors, the Bishop of Que- bec writes him, brought tears to his eyes, and he hopes that by his power he may "bring back to the fold some of the stray sheep." The Bishop then says, "Take good care of Father Meurin, I was a member of his company. People who speak ill of him do so only by ignorance or on account of the calumnies spread by European-French people on the religieuse of his order. In Europe it is thought to be the greatest persecution that assailed the church since the persecu- tion in the early centuries of Christianity."37 In 1775 Gibault went to Canada, visiting the Indians on his way to Detroit. On his return he made a second visit to Vincennes, and on the death of Father Meurin in 1777, for several years he was the only priest in the Illinois country on either side of the Mississippi, and Vicar-General of this vast domain. Through all this region he went on foot, or in a canoe, or on horseback, carrying with him in saddle pouches the sacred utensils of his ministry. But Father Conway pictures him as traveling with "his gun across the saddle bow, and a belt about his waist with pistols and a bowie knife," a veritable fighting cow- boy, because he thinks that "the frontier priest went armed" to de- fend himself "against the otherwise unawed Indian thieves and
36 Conway's Catholics of St. Louis, p. 25. English's Conquest of the North- west, vol. I, p. 186.
37 Letter of the Bishop of Quebec, in the New Madrid Archives, vol. 2.
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murderers, as well as against white ruffians who then infested as they do yet infest our western frontier." A perusal, however, of the letters of the early Jesuit missionaries, wherein they so graphically picture their arduous labors, leaves on our mind a different impression. Gen- erally these early missionaries went unarmed, relying on moral force alone, on their benevolent intentions, on the superiority of the trained and disciplined mind over ignorance, and above all relying on the divine Master for guidance in the hour of peril, rather than on a gun, pistol or bowie-knife, if such a thing as a bowie-knife was known to them at all at that time. It is thus we would prefer to imagine Father Gibault as moving through the wilderness in his apostolic work. Physically too, he was not calculated to inspire the savages with terror, because he was small in size.38
Father Gibault was parish priest of Kaskaskia in July 1778, when General George Rogers Clark captured the town, and, "to him next to Clark and Vigo," says Judge John Law, in his History of Vincennes, "the United States are more indebted for the accession of the states comprised in what was the Northwestern territory, than any other man." At the time Clark surprised Kaskaskia with his Virginians, Father Gibault took a deep interest in everything pertaining to the spiritual, social, educational and material prosperity of the French habitans. He was the most influential person there, and it was through his influence that the people were won over. By his individual efforts alone were the inhabitants of Vincennes induced to drive out the English garrison and raise the American flag. When he saw that Clark was greatly exercised about the situation at Vin- cennes, he told him to leave the matter to him, and that he would give the people such advice as would allay all opposition, and induce them to espouse the American cause. He absolved the people from allegiance to England, encouraged the French inhabitants to enter the American service and form military companies. Without the assistance of these French allies Clark never could have accomplished the conquest or successfully held the Illinois country. When after- ward the English made preparations to reconquer the country, and it was supposed they were approaching Kaskaskia with a large force, Father Gibault naturally was in some trepidation, and probably on the advice of Clark, crossed over to Ste. Genevieve into the Span- ish possessions. That he had good cause for apprehension is suffi- ciently clear from the vicious denunciations of Colonel Hamilton,
38 18 Draper's Collection. (Clark MSS.)
30I
GIBAULT'S MEMORIAL
the British commander in the territory north of the Ohio, who char- acterized him as "an active agent for the rebels, and whose vicious and immoral conduct was sufficient to do infinite mischief in a colony where ignorance and bigotry give full scope to the depravity of a licentious ecclesiastic. This wretch," he says, "it was who absolved the French inhabitants from their allegiance to the King of Great Britain." He further adds, "to enumerate the vices of the inhabi- tants would be to give a long catalogue, but to assert that they are not in possession of a single virtue is not more than truth and justice requires, still the most eminently vicious and scandalous was the Reverend Monsieur Gibault." Thus the English commander testi- fied his hatred for the great services rendered by this patriotic priest. Father Gibault was "the power behind the throne," he it was who enthused the French population, and induced them to join their fortunes with that of the colonies. When Clark left Kaskaskia with his combined American and French forces in February 1779, to re- capture Vincennes, of which the English, under Colonel Hamilton, had again taken possession, Father Gibault addressed the small army and bestowed on it the blessing of the church. Truly Patrick Henry said, "This country owes many things to Father Gibault for his zeal and services." These services were recognized by a Resolution of the Virginia legislature in 1780; but he received no other recompense. In May 1790, Father Gibault presented a memorial to Governor St. Clair, for a grant of land. In his petition he recites his services, saying that he was never backward in venturing his life on many occasions when his presence was useful to the United States; that he sacrificed his property; that he took American paper dollars at the value at which he could have received Spanish milled dollars, in payment of his tithes and his beasts, and thus set an example to his parishioners, who were apprehensive that this currency was intended to pillage them; that the want of money had compelled him to sell two good slaves, who could have supported him in his old age; that he rejected all offers made by the Spanish government to settle in upper Louisiana, and exerted himself to retain the people in the dominion of the United States, never doubting that he would be compensated; and that he now hopes his demand will be received favorably; that he expects that a grant of land will be made him, in full propriety in his private name and not as a missionary and priest, to pass to his successors, that otherwise he would not accept such a grant; that it is upon services he has rendered and hopes to render
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that he founds his demand. On the recommendation of St. Clair a grant of four hundred arpens in the Kaskaskia district was finally made to him, under Acts of Congress 1788 and 1791, and then he sold the land to John Rice Jones. This grant was confirmed in 18II. He also received two other tracts of land embracing about two hundred and fifty acres in the Cahokia commons, which he sold to Nicolas Jarrot. But these land grants became to him a source of trouble. Bishop Carroll of Baltimore objected to their being made to Father Gibault individually,39 and from a letter dated 1792, and preserved in the New Madrid archives, addressed to the Father, it would appear that the Bishop had been advised that he was converting church property to his individual use. In 1785 Father Gibault was parish priest of Vincennes, but in 1786 was superseded as Vicar-General, or, at least, he ceased to act in that capacity. The Reverend Huet de LaValiniere, as "pretre vicarie General miss. de la St. Familie," appointed in 1788, by the Bishop of Baltimore, claimed superior ecclesiastical dominion over the western territory of the United States, - the Illinois country. In 1789 accusations and complaints made against him apparently induced Father Gibault to request the Bishop of Quebec to recall him. Yet in 1789 Father Gibault still appears to be parish priest at Cahokia. In January 1790 the Bishop of Baltimore writes him about the complaints that had been made against him, and that "these complaints were confirmed from differ- ent sources," and he adds, that he is sorry to tell him "that the Bishop of Quebec in a letter sent" to him says, "that his predecessors did not have as much confidence in you during the last years as they had in the beginning of your apostolic career." From Cahokia Gibault re- moved to Kaskaskia and, in 1792, he crossed into the Spanish terri- tory on the west side of the Mississippi, settling in New Madrid, where in July 1793 he was appointed parish priest of the parish of St. Isidore. In 1792 he seems to have been at Arkansas Post, for he there received James Dorst, his wife and six children into the church. Father Gibault afterward was under the immediate spir- itual jurisdiction of Father Maxwell, of Ste. Genevieve, Vicar-Gen- eral of upper Louisiana. From letters addressed by him to Father Gibault it appears that he was considered by his spiritual superior as entirely too lenient in collecting the legal fees for publishing the marriage banns, and performing the marriage ceremony, to part of which fees Father Maxwell was entitled as Vicar-General. In one
30 English's History of the Conquest of the Northwest, vol. I, p. 188.
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letter, dated October, 1801, which has been preserved in the New Madrid archives, Father Maxwell severely reprimands him for per- forming a marriage ceremony between a Mr. Randall and Miss Sarah Waller, the latter being a minor, without the consent of her father and mother, both being residents of the Cape Girardeau district, a district Father Maxwell says, within his ecclesiastical juris- diction, and also with dispensing with the banns of matrimony illegally and wrongfully. Father Maxwell further advises him that heretofore he had granted him his protection and favorably reported as to his conduct to the Bishop, who he says had instructed him to keep a watchful eye upon him, but that if he persevered in his con- duct he would have to pursue a different course. From this it is evident that Father Gibault was not then in favor with the eccle- siastical authorities in New Orleans. But while he was parish priest, Father Gibault built a church in New Madrid, securing from Morales, in 1799, the necessary funds for that purpose.40 From the time he took up his residence in New Madrid until his death in 1802, he was active in all spiritual matters, and as a priest of the parish he received a regular salary from the government. During this period he also visited not only Arkansas Post but other isolated settlements of this district. Upon his death his papers and correspondence came into the possession of the Commandant of New Madrid, and on the change of government were transferred and remained in New Mad- rid, where some of them are still found in the archives, although un- doubtedly many valuable and important papers have been lost. His will, dated Ste. Genevieve, 1782, and found in the New Madrid archives, shows that he had a brother named Jacques Gibault, an uncle named Antoine St. Jean, living in St. Pierre parish, Montreal, and that his sister Louise, who came to the Illinois country with him, married one Joseph Migneau. As executors of his will he named François LeClaire and Jean Baptiste Vallé (negociants), at that time in Ste. Genevieve. 41
Of De St. Pierre, parish priest of Ste. Genevieve from 1789 to 1797, we have no further information than that he held this office at Kaskaskia in 1785, and according to Major Hamtramck, was also
40 Letter of Don Juan Ventura Morales, dated February 27th, 1799, in New Madrid Archives.
41 A copy merely of the original will is found in the New Madrid Archives, the original having been delivered to the Missouri Historical Society, according to memorandum endorsed on the copy left with the Circuit clerk in lieu of the original.
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priest at Cahokia.42 He caused Bishop Carroll, of Baltimore, some inquietude, because when he departed from that city he had not ob- tained from the Bishop the power to administer the sacrament (pouvoir pour l'administration des sacramens) nor did he satisfy the Bishop that he came to America with the consent of the superior of his order, and this inquietude was not lessened by the fact that La Valiniere reported that de St. Pierre paid no attention to his authority. 43 But St. Pierre, by crossing over the river and taking up his residence in Ste. Genevieve, abandoned the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Balti- more, and thus probably ceased to disturb his mind. We have only another notice of Father St. Pierre. When young Brackenridge arrived at Ste. Genevieve in 1792, and became a member of the Beauvais family, the fact that he had not been baptised caused Mad- ame Beauvais no little anxiety, and she felt some repugnance at "putting a little heretic in the same bed with her own children," but Brackenridge says, "that the good curate Pere St. Pierre, who made a Christian of me" soon removed this anxiety, "M. and Madame Beauvais becoming my sponsors,"44 This is all we know of this parish priest except that from Ste. Genevieve he removed to lower Louisiana.
Father de St. Pierre was succeeded by Father James Maxwell. Father Maxwell was a native of Ireland, and appointed Vicar-General over the English and American settlers of upper Louisiana, his appointment being dated at San Lorenzo, November 22, 1794. The Bishop of Salamanca had great confidence in him and brought him to the notice of the King of Spain. Lopez Armisto, Secretary of the Province of Louisiana, also relied upon him to convert the many American settlers in the Spanish dominion, to the Catholic religion, and in a proclamation issued in 1789, the Commandant of Ste. Genevieve stated that the King had permitted the Americans to settle in the province (vagabonds excepted) and that those accepting this offer might continue their religion in private, but could not exercise
42 Hamtramck's Letter to General Harmer, dated April, 1789. Draper's Collection, Harmer's Papers, vol. I.
43 In his letter to Father Gibault, Bishop Carroll says: " I feel uneasy about M. De St. Pierre. He left here without the power to administer the sacrament. I could not give him the power, because I did not know whether he came to this country with the permission of his superior. Mr. de la Valiniere has in- formed me that Mr. De St. Pierre pays no attention whatever to the first Vicar, who is his superior, appointed by me. Please inquire also whether this is true. I have not had any news from Mr. La Valiniere for some time." Letter in New Madrid Archives, vol. II.
" Brackenridge's Recollections of the West, p. 23.
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it in public, that all churches must be Catholic, "and served by priests from Ireland." 45
Father Maxwell came to Ste. Genevieve in 1796, and was a very active and enterprising man.46 From letters in the New Madrid archives addressed to Father Gi- bault, it is evident that he was Hasselt Bune a 5 Janvier vigilant in collecting the ecclesiastical fees due him as Vicar-General, and in asserting his jurisdiction and authority. He, too, was active in securing concessions of land. On November 3, 1799, he ob- tained a grant from Lieutenant-Governor DeLassus for four leagues square in the forks of Black River in the district of Ste. Genevieve. This concession was surveyed, and embraced within its limits 112,896 arpens of land. Upon this concession he agreed to establish a colony of Irish Roman Catholics, but when the concession came before the Commissioners for Spanish land grants, he explained that owing to the existing wars and subsequent prohibition of immigration from Ireland, he was not able to colonize his grant. He also secured another concession of two hundred and ninety arpens on Gabourie creek, and on the roth of September 1799, another concession of three thousand arpens on the Mississippi, at the mouth of St. Laurent creek where the little town of St. May's is now situated in Ste. Genevieve county, was made to him, and this grant was appar- ently approved by the Intendant-General, the Assessor-General, and confirmed by the Intendant Lopez Angulo, under date of New Orleans, July 8, 1800. Upon this claim Father Maxwell built a large house. As assignee of Bernard Pratte, Father Maxwell also claimed a league square near the St. François river, and as assignee of Henry Dielle another five thousand arpens near the same river, all in the Ste. Genevieve district. Altogether, Father Maxwell made claim to about 128,250 arpens of land. His claims, with the exceptions of two hunded and ninety nine arpens on Gabourie creek,
45 Ashe gives us a description of the altar of the church at Ste. Genevieve as follows :
"At the upper end there is a beautiful altar, the fronton of which is brass gilt and enriched in medio-relievo representing the religions of the world, diffusing the benefits of the gospel over the new world. In the middle of the altar there is a crucifix of brass gilt and underneath a copy of a picture by Raphael representing the Madonna and child, St. Elizabeth and St. John. In a second group there is a St. Joseph, all perfectly well drawn and colored. The beauty and grace of the Virgin are beyond description and the little Jesus and St. John are charming." 3 Ashe's Travels, p. 119.
46 Ellicott's Journal, p. 32. Ellicott who met him at New Madrid, on his way down the Mississippi to survey the southern boundary, says that he "was a well informed liberal gentleman."
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