USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 76
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Hon. John M. Baer was born March 29. 1885, at Black Creek, Wisconsin, a son of Capt. John M. Baer, Sr., who served four years in the Civil War, being wounded twice. He was a member of the 114th and 120th Ohio Volunteer Infantry ; his mother's maiden name was Libbie C. Riley, an author. The Con- gressman was educated in the public schools and Lawrence University, at Apple- ton, Wisconsin, receiving the degree of B. A. from that institution. He married Estella G. Kennedy, daughter of the North Dakota flax king, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the family home, Dec. 29, 1910. They have two children. He was Postmaster at Beach, North Dakota, 1913-1915, resigning to take up the work of a farmer cartoonist, at Fargo, North Dakota, on the Non-Partisan Leader and other North Dakota papers, Sept. I. 1915. He was engaged in civil engineering and farming from 1909 to 1915.
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Mr. Baer has always been actively interested in journalistic work, and has spoken on the platform of the National Editorial Association, of which he is a member. He is also a member of other newspaper organizations.
He has made a specialty of cartooning and chalk talking. Several of his cartoons appeared in the Hearst line of newspapers during the summer of 1917. He is the only professional cartoonist who has held a seat in Congress.
NON-PARTISAN LEGISLATION, 1917
Thirty-three beneficial laws enacted, as follows :
Filing fees for bonds of township officers cut out .- To compel railways to furnish cars to all shippers alike .- To compel railways to furnish sites for elevators and warehouses on right of way .- Compels railways to furnish side tracks at coal mines .- Makes railways pay employees twice each month .- Passed a splendid warehouse license law .- Prohibited the sale of promissory notes taken in payment of insurance premiums .- Combined the Clerk of the County Court's office with that of the District Court and saves the salary of one officer .- Requires county commissioners to personally supervise road work .- Repealed the law allow- ing expenses to Supreme Court .- Passed co-operative corporation law .- A law taxing a 60-horse power car $26 and a 20-horse power car $6. All the fees to be spent on the roads -Provided for the issuance of writs of error by the Supreme Court .- Prohibiting dis- crimination between localities in the price of cream .- Provided for a Dairy Commission .- Established a license system for creameries. Prevents unfair dealing .- Prohibiting the sale of dangerous drugs .- Guarantee of Bank Deposits law, in which the banks are all assessed to raise the money to guarantee the depositors .- Establishing weighing and grading law for the state .- Taxing money and credits that have heretofore escaped .- Providing for compensation for convicts who have served time and are afterwards proven innocent .- Provided for and established model Highway Commission, urged for many years in other states, but not put into law which cheapens and standardizes road construction, and secures federal aid .- Provided for publication of information for dairymen at state expense- established a Welfare Commission, recognized as real reform in the direction of justice- to the workers in dangerous callings .- Passed laws for the standardization of rural schools .-- Levied a 15 per cent Inheritance Tax on large fortunes .- Established evening schools for young men and women above school age .- Established County Agricultural and Training Schools .- Laws taxing foreign corporations that have escaped taxation in the past .- Estab- lished township dipping tanks for stock .- Gave the vote to women on everything but the state officers .- Appropriated money for experiments at Agricultural College with wheat which Dr. Ladd showed was being sold at 70 cents per bushel was worth for making flour just as much as No. I Northern that was being sold at the same time at $1.70 per bushel .- Passed laws classifying property for taxation, which provides that improvements upon farm lands are to be valued at 5 per cent of their actual value, while railroad property, express and telegraph, and banks, together with land are to be valued for taxation at 30 per cent of their true value.
Vol. 1-39
CHAPTER XXXIX
FOUNDING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORTH DAKOTA
ITS EARLY HISTORY AND WORK-THE MISSION AT PEMBINA AND ST. JOSEPH AND THEIR RELATION TO ST. BONIFACE-BISHOP PROVENCHER, FATHER DUMOULIN, FATHER BELCOURT AND OTHER EARLY PRIESTS-THE DIOCESE OF NORTH DAKOTA DEATH OF BISHOP SHANLEY.
"Religion does not censure or exclude Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued ; To study culture, and with artful toil, To meliorate, and tame the stubborn soil. To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands." -William Cowper. Retirement.
From an article by the late Bishop John Shanley, to be found in Volume 2, North Dakota Historical Collections, 1908, the following facts are condensed and others added.
The earlier trading posts, of which an account is given elsewhere, having been abandoned after the cession of Canada by the French to England in 1763, the activities of the North West Company were commenced in 1783-4, and in 1806 this company had 1,200 employees in the Red River region, some of whom inter- married with Indian women, giving the origin of the half-blood families in the Red River country.
In 1818, at the request of Lord Selkirk, a Protestant, Bishop J. O. Plessis, of Quebec, assigned Rev. Joseph Norbert Provencher and Rev. Joseph Severe Nor- bert Dumoulin to St. Boniface, Selkirk, by a due and sufficient deed giving a tract of 25 acres for the church and a block of land five miles long and four miles wide for the mission.
Provencher took the title of vicar-general and Dumoulin of missionary priest. They left Quebec for the Red River, May 19, 1818, and arrived at St. Boniface, which then took its name, July 16, 1818.
There being the greater population at Pembina, and better means of support because of the buffalo and game in that locality, Father Dumoulin, in September, 1818, was assigned to Pembina, being accompanied by William Edge, a catechist, and they established a mission and school at Pembina, Dumoulin becoming the first missionary on North Dakota soil, and Edge the first teacher.
The instructions of Bishop Plessis were full and explicit, reminding Pro- vencher of their duty to the Indians, to the bad Christians living among them, to the church, to themselves, to God and their country.
Dumoulin was sent to Pembina with instructions to pass the winter there. Father Provencher, coming to Pembina in January, 1819, also remained that winter. The school was then prospering and Father Dumoulin had baptized
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fifty-two persons; 300 people were in his congregation, their residences being grouped around the site of the new chapel, while the number then at St. Boniface did not exceed fifty.
August 16, 1820, Father Provencher left St. Boniface for Quebec. On the 7th of the same month Rev. Thomas Destroismaisons, acompanied by a catechist. Mr. Sauve, arrived at St. Boniface and took up the work there.
On his arrival at Quebec Father Provencher found he had been appointed by a bull of the Holy See, Feb. 1, 1820, Coadjutor Bishop of Quebec, with the title of Bishop of Juliopolis. He was consecrated May 12, 1822. During his absence he secured the services of a young priest, John Harper, ordained at St. Boniface, Nov. 21, 1824, who conducted the mission school at St. Boniface for a number of years. Bishop Provencher returned to St. Boniface Aug. 7, 1822, and in obedience to an edict of the Hudson Bay Company, took the necessary steps to close the mission at Pembina, which was not fully accomplished until August, 1823, when Father Dumoulin, broken hearted, returned to Quebec, and died in 1853. He was born at Montreal Dec. 5, 1793, ordained Feb. 23, 1817, serving over five years among the people of the Red River county, within the limits of North Dakota. September, 1818, therefore, marks the beginning of the life of the Catholic Church in North Dakota.
For three successive seasons the crops, which the colonists had attempted to raise in the Red River Valley, had been destroyed by grasshoppers and many settlers left the valley completely disheartened.
Some of the Pembina congregation of Father Dumoulin remained at Pembina, some established the parish of St. Xavier on the Canadian side of the line, others went to St. Boniface and some to St. Paul, Minnesota.
Beltrami, writing from Pembina in 1823, speaking of Bishop Provencher, said: "His merits and virtues are the theme of general praise and it is said that his zeal is not the offspring of ambition; that his piety is pure, his heart simple and generous. He does not give ostentatious bounties at the expense of his creditors ; he is hospitable to strangers ; and dissimulation never sullies his mind or his holy and paternal ministry."
When notified of his appointment as bishop he was stricken with grief, but he finally wrote: "Trembling I accept the burden imposed on me in punishment of my sins."
In 1825 the Hudson's Bay Company passed a resolution commending the work of Bishop Provencher and in appreciation of his influence for good recom- mended the payment of fifty pounds per annum toward his support. That year a flood occurred in the Red River Valley, requiring all of the resources of the good bishop in caring for the suffering colonists and others.
Father Destroismaisons returned to Canada in 1827, after seven years' labor in the Red River country, succeeding Father Dumoulin in his work. He in turn was succeeded by Rev. John Harper.
Bishop Provencher opened a school for girls at St. Boniface in 1819, placing the school in charge of two sisters of the name of Nolen from Pembina, whose father had spent many years as a trader residing at Pembina, North Dakota, thus giving to Manitoba its first lady teachers.
Bishop Provencher went to Canada in 1830, leaving Rev. John Harper in charge. On his return he was accompanied by Rev. George Anthony Belcourt, who arrived at St. Boniface June 17, 1831, and soon thereafter became the second
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resident priest in North Dakota. Father Harper then returned to Quebec. In 1833 Rev. Charles Poire and Rev. John Baptiste Thibault were ordained at St. Boniface.
Father Belcourt had studied the Algonquin language and to him was assigned the Indian missions. He soon acquired a perfect knowledge of the Chippewa tongue, later composing a grammar and dictionary of that language, published after his death by Father Albert Lacombe. For many years the language was taught to young missionaries.
In 1838, Rev. Arsene Mayrand was added to the missionary band and in 1841, Rev. Jean Darveau was added. He was drowned in 1844. All of these priests attended to Catholics at Pembina at times and accompanied the hunters whenever they could from 1831 to 1848, when Father Belcourt became the resi- dent pastor at Pembina. For him the town of Belcourt in the Turtle Mountains now the site of an important Indian school, was named.
In 1837, Rev. Modeste Demers, first bishop of Vancouver, labored in the Red River missions. In 1848, Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet, first bishop of Oregon City, spent some weeks on the Red River, leaving with Bishop Demers. They were the first priests to celebrate mass on the Saskatchewan, but they do not appear to have officiated in North Dakota.
In 1844, Bishop Provencher secured Rev. J. F. Lafleche and Father Joseph Bourassa. Accompanied by a small party of gray nuns, they arrived at St. Boniface June 21, 1844. Lafleche, in February, 1847, was consecrated coadjutor bishop of Three Rivers. He became bishop in 1870 and died July 14, 1898.
June 24, 1845, Revs. Aubert, an Oblate father, and Alexandre Tache, later archbishop of St. Boniface, came. He became coadjutor bishop of St. Boniface Sept. 22, 1870, dying June 22, 1894. He was a distant relative of Verendrye, who explored the Red River in 1734. Father Tache labored in North Dakota and was for many years vicar-general of the American bishops, Grace, Seiden- busche, Marty and Shanley, who exercised jurisdiction from 1859. Another name not mentioned above is that of Fr. Boucher, from 1827 to 1833.
Bishop Provencher crossed the plains with a caravan of Red River carts in 1843 from Pembina to St. Paul. These carts increased from six in 1843 to 162 in 1851 and 600 in 1858. In going or coming they were generally accompanied. by a priest, who said mass nearly every morning.
In 1842, Father Augustine Revoux had began a mission among the Sioux at Lake Traverse. It was he who instructed, baptized and assisted thirty-three of thirty-eight Sioux executed at Mankato, Dec. 26, 1862, for complicity in the Sioux massacre. Bishop Lafleche often claimed he was the pastor at Wild Rice, near Fargo, as he had so often officiated there for the Canadian half-bloods and the few Indians in that vicinity. Before 1856, mass had been said in every camping place from Lake Traverse to Pembina.
In 1847, Rev. Henry Faraud accompanied the hunters on the plains of North Dakota. The population, often to the number of three or four hundred, camped on the plains three or four months on their annual hunts, a priest usually accom- panying the party. In November,. 1864, Father Faraud was appointed vicarate- apostolic of Athabasca-McKenzie.
In 1848, a lay brother (Dube) went with the hunters twice to the prairies in the absence of a priest who could accompany them. In 1849, this work was con- fined to Fathers Maisoneuve and Tissot.
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Father Belcourt took up his residence at Pembina by permission of Bishop Provencher. He came to the Red River in 1831, and remained twenty-eight years. His last ministerial act in the Red River country, March 15, 1859, was the baptism of Gabriel Grant, for several years chief of police at Fargo. The church records show that Father Belcourt was at Pembina from Aug. 14, 1848, to March 15, 1859, and this record affords the oldest record of marriage, births and deaths in North Dakota. Father Belcourt's residence was moved to St. Joseph (now Walhalla) in 1853, where his work closed in 1859.
On the hunt, the priest, in addition to his spiritual work, was the magistrate, the doctor, and the one who decided all cases without appeal. Father Albert Lacombe spent two years at Pembina with Father Belcourt. The church there was known as the church of the Assumption, and in 1850 the settlement was com- posed of 500 half bloods. In 1854 the church directory claimed over 1,500 Catholics, mostly half breeds, for the mission at Pembina. In 1855 Rev. John Fayola is mentioned as being with Father Belcourt. In 1856 a Sisters' School is mentioned, with 100 pupils. At Walhalla, then known as the Mission of St. Joseph, Father Belcourt built a church, Sisters' School and flouring mill. Here were seven Sisters at one time. He visited all points in that region and not only planted the cross at St. Pauls, the highest peak in the Turtle Mountains, six miles east of Bottineau, but evangelized that region.
The fact that the Chippewas did not join the Sioux in their war of 1862-3 against the whites is attributed largely to the influence of Father Belcourt, Father Andre of North Dakota and Father Pierce of Crow Wing, Minnesota. Father Belcourt returned to Canada in 1859 and died in New Brunswick in 1874. In 1859, Father Mestre went on the annual hunt and was instrumental in concluding a treaty of peace between the Red River half-bloods and the Sioux.
In 1859, Rev. Joseph Griffin took charge of the missions at Pembina and St. Joseph. He was assisted by Father Revoux, from St. Paul, and Fathers Thibault, Simonet, Oram and Andre, from St. Boniface. Father Griffin was caught in a blizzard near what is now Neche, and remained on the prairie five days, losing one leg and part of the other foot from freezing.
During Father Griffin's administration seventy-four were baptized and eight marriages were performed in Pembina, and 118 baptisms and fourteen marriages at St. Joseph.
Bishop Thomas L. Grace of St. Paul visited Pembina in 1861 and placed the missions at Pembina and St. Joseph in charge of the Oblate Fathers across the line. The priests thereafter in charge until 1887 were at St. Joseph, Reverends J. N. Simonet, 1861 ; A. Andre, Oct., 1861, to 1864; H. Germain, 1862 to 1865 : I. B. E. Richer, 1864 to 1869; N. Vergeville, 1865; H. Le Due, 1865; L. Lehsoff, 1866; A. Laity, 1868; J. M. J. LeFlock, 1868 to 1877; Ignatius Tomagin, 1878; J. D. Fillion, 1878, and Louis Bonin, 1877 to 1887; Michael Charbonneau visited the church there in 1877 and 1878.
Substantially the same priests were on duty at Pembina during the same period, Louis Bonin remaining until 1889, when he was succeeded by Rev. John Considine.
From 1818 to 1880, thirty-three Catholic priests and four bishops had been on duty in North Dakota and their work preceded that of any other Christian denomination. In 1873 Father LeFlock transferred the St. Joseph mission from Walhalla to Leroy.
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Father DeSmet visited North Dakota in 1840, visiting the Mandan villages and Fort Berthold, where he baptized, among others, Martin Good Bear, Joseph Packeneau, and a number of children.
Father Revoux won the love and sympathy of the Sioux through his minis- tration to their condemned brothers at Mankato, and they were ripe for the work of Major Forbes, Indian agent at Devil's Lake (1871-1875), through whom the first Catholic mission in North Dakota was founded at Fort Totten. Before 1874 no real missionary work had been done by Catholic priests in North Dakota. With the advent of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railroads, churches and schools were builded in North Dakota.
Father Genin appears to have been located at Fort Abercrombie in 1868, engaged from 1868 to 1874 in mission work between Fort Abercrombie, Mc- Cauleyville and Duluth, taking up his residence in Duluth in 1873. He built the Catholic church edifices at Moorhead, Minn., and Bismarck; he visited the Indian country in 1876, and became pastor at Michigan City in 1889, and later at Bath- gate.
Father Keller built the first Catholic church in Brainerd, Minn., in 1873. Father Spitzelberger built the first in Perham, and paid for the church in Moor- head; he also built the church in Casselton. Father Maddock built in Valley City ; Father Flannigan in Jamestown; Father Quilliam at Buffalo, and Father Schmitz at Sanborn.
The old church at Bismarck was paid for by Bishop Martin Marty in 1876, and the Sisters' school was established through his aid ; Father Chrysostom becom- ing the pastor there for several years.
When the territory of Dakota was divided the jurisdiction of Bishop Marty was ended by the creation of the See of North Dakota, and John Shanley, Dec. 27, 1889, was consecrated bishop at Jamestown, Fargo later becoming his head- quarters, the church and cathedral occupying a building erected by the Methodists, until the present fine cathedral was built in 1891. In 1890 he established St. John's Academy at Jamestown, under the charge of the Sisters of St. Joseph. There were then sixty churches and thirty-three priests, fourteen church schools and one hospital in North Dakota. Mass was said in eighty-one places other than churches. In the twenty years of his work the diocese had increased . to 106 priests, 225 churches, and 38 other places where mass was said, six academies, thirty-four parochial schools and four hospitals.
Bishop John Shanley was born January 5, 1852, at Albion, N. Y. At five years of age the family moved to Faribault, Minnesota, and soon afterward to St. Paul, where he received his early education, much of it from association with frontier priests who visited St. Paul during his service as sanctuary boy at the St. Paul Cathedral, from 1858 to 1867. He was graduated at St. John's College, Minn., in 1869, and through Bishop Grace at St. Paul was able to enter the College of Propaganda at Rome, making the journey to Rome in company with Archbishop John Ireland. He remained in this college where he was ordained, May 30, 1874, by special dispensation on account of failing health. When 22 years of age, he became an assistant pastor to Father Ireland, whom he succeeded as pastor when the latter became archbishop. He died at Fargo, July 16, 1909.
Bishop Shanley took great interest in the development of the material interests of Fargo and the state, making large subscriptions to whatever contributed to the advancement of the state or of its people.
CHAPTER XL
EARLY PRESBYTERIANISM IN NORTH DAKOTA
BEGINNING AND PROGRESS OF DEVELOPMENT-FIRST PROTESTANT SERVICE AT PEM- BINA-THE MISSION AND MARTYRS OF ST. JOE-PIONEER WORK AT FARGO- FIRST CHURCH ORGANIZATION AT BISMARCK-EIGHTEEN YEARS' DEVELOPMENT.
"And they who stray in perilous wastes by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right." -William C. Bryant. Hymn to the North Star.
The first missionary on the Red River was a Scotch Presbyterian catechist, James Sutherland, who came with the fourth group of Selkirk colonists in 1815. Presumably he visited the colonists at Pembina, but no record has been found to show it. The late Dr. Black visited Pembina in company with Governor Ramsey, on his way to Winnipeg in 1851, and assisted Rev. Alonzo Barnard and Rev. James Tanner in the first Presbyterian service on North Dakota soil of which there is record.
Rev. Oscar H. Elmer began pioneer work at Moorhead and Fargo in October, 1871, and Grand Forks in February, 1872.
THE ORGANIZATION AT BISMARCK
Rev. David C. Lyon, missionary from St. Paul, Minn., visited the Red River Valley in June, 1872, accompanied by Rev. Isaac Oliver Sloan, a chaplain in the Civil War, assisted by Rev. Oscar H. Elmer, then stationed at Moorhead. They held divine service at what is now Crookston, Minnesota.
June 12, 1873, Mr. Lyon visited Bismarck, accompanied by Rev. Isaac Oliver Sloan, and June 15th organized the first religious society in what is now the State of North Dakota, the first service being held in a tent erected for gambling, but not yet used for that purpose. The score or more of saloons and gambling places then doing business at Bismarck closed and the Sunday ball game was declared off. The members of the Presbyterian Church then organized were Col. Clement A. Lounsberry, Henry F. Douglas, John W. Fisher, I. C. Adams and Mrs. W. C. Boswell.
Mrs. Linda W. Slaughter organized a Union Sunday School of which Colonel Lounsberry was secretary.
Colonel Lounsberry came with the missionary party, to establish the Bismarck Tribune, for which he had arranged on a previous visit, May IIth, when he made settlement on his homestead.
Rev. I. O. Sloan addressed the audience in the morning and Rev. D. C. Lyon in the evening. During the afternoon they conducted services at Fort Abraham Lincoln, and while at service the Indians attempted to run off the beef herd grazing
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on the flats south of Fort A. Lincoln. One Indian was killed and the beef herd recovered by a cavalry dash from the fort by General Custer. Colonel Louns- berry and Prof. William F. Phelps of Winona, Minn., accompanied Mr. Lyon on this occasion.
Rev. H. N. Gates, representing the Congregationalists, came a few days later, bringing lumber for a Congregational Church, the citizens contributing freely to its erection, and when Mr. Sloan returned to commence his work and the erection of the Presbyterian Church, he found it difficult to raise money, many having contributed to the other who had intended to help him in his work.
The Gates proposition had been under the lead of Mrs. Linda W. Slaughter, who had organized the Sunday school and established a week-day school. The Gates building was turned over to her when an understanding was reached for the Congregationalists to retire from the field, the Presbyterians having already occupied it.
Rev. Isaac O. Sloan was able to secure the erection of the Presbyterian church during the summer, but the failure of Jay Cooke and the N. P. Railroad Company that fall, so completely paralyzed all business that he was obliged to pay 10 per cent per month for the money necessary to make it ready for winter.
This was the first Protestant church building erected in North Dakota. He had received $500 aid from friends in St. Paul.
The church was occupied about the middle of December, and a bazaar was given on Christmas which netted $400. Among the contributions sent in was a stocking filled with silver dollars from the Magdalens. Mr. Sloan had the love of all good people of the town and the respect and good will of all others. He was affectionately called Father Sloan, and in cases of serious illness was sometimes called to the bedside of Catholics. The following tribute is from the pen of an army comrade :
Washington, D. C., Sept. 1, 1917.
Col. C. A. Lounsberry.
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