St Marys College - Dial Yearbook (St Marys, KS)

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HISTORICAL HISTORICAL SKETCH The name of St. Marys is intimately connected with the early history of Kansas and of the Middle West. The narrative fibres of the following sketch are closely woven into the warp and the woof of the state and the work accomplished at the St. Mary’s mission in the pioneer days stands out in bold relief on the completed pattern. Before California was settled, or Kansas City laid out, and seventeen years before Kansas was proclaimed a territory by the bill of Stephen A. Douglas, St. Mary’s was in existence—a thriving mission in the heart of an Indian country whose total population failed to exceed a hundred souls. In the early history of the m.ssion, which developed by slow degrees into the splendid scholastic institution of today, events arc marked by small notches, but they are deep cut and will endure. HEROIC DAYS In 1837, years previous to the passage of the initial prairie-schooner caravan across the l osom of the trackless plains, before the report of the first axe echoed in the virgin forests, a band of Pottawatomie Indians, migrating from Indiana, where they had been baptized by the Revs. Stephen Badin and Deseille, set up their wigwams on the banks of the Osage River, Linn County, Kansas. Their chief, Nesfwawke, learning of the presence of Fathers Christian Hoecken and Felix L. Verreydt among the Kickapoos, sent an invitation by a trapper to the Fathers to visit him and teach his people religion. In January, 1838, in the very heart of winter, Father Hoecken arrived among the Pottawatomies, and found them in dire straits, living in huts and subsisting on scant allowances of government corn. To this first visit of this Jesuit missionary which terminated at the end of two weeks, St. Mary’s owes its existence. In May, 1838. he again visited them, remaining y v One Hundred Seventy-Four

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 HISTORICAL Mr i three weeks. Some weeks after his return to his headquarters at the Kickapoo settlement, word was received from the Reverend Father Provincial that Father Iloecken might establish himself permanently among the Pottawatomies. Soon after his arrival, a church was constructed and temporary huts were built to house the bronze sons of the plains until a suitable site for a settlement had been found. SUGAR CREEK MISSION In March, 1838, the entire band removed to the bank of Sugar Creek and a village was established on the present site of Gentreville. The first work accomplished in the new settlement was the erection of a log church in which services were held during the remainder of Lent. This structure soon proved to be inadequate, however, for a considerable contingent of the tribe, numbering several hundred, arrived at the mission late in 1840 from Indiana. To accommodate this influx a new church was built which was blessed on Christmas day, 1840. As early as the year 1839 a school was erected for the education of the Indian boys, but it was not opened until 1840 and then only for a short time. By July 8, 1841, a school for girls had been erected and opened. Towards the close of this year a school for boys was again built and opened early in 1842. Back through an uninterrupted sequence of years to this tiny mission school can St. Mary’s trace its actual origin—less than 66 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. During the following year, 1843, Rev. F. Verreydt organized some of the Indians into an anti-liquor brigade. “They were instructed to keep watch that no liquor was brought into the village; and if any one had been observed with liquor they were to surround the place, search for liquor, break the bottles and spill the liquor.” Then follows a quaint little remark of Father Hocckcn, from whose diary this excerpt is taken, which is somewhat amusing, as is the entire incident, in the light of after events in Kansas. “This they constantly did, and the custom is kept up to the present day.” (1846.) In May of the same year the arch-confraternity, in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the conversion of sinners, was organized; in November a “Society of Jesus and Mary” set on foot, and late in the year a spiritual retreat of eight days was preached to the Indians, according to the method of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. In 1842 the United States government which had taken an active interest in the mission from its very beginning, assigned the sum of $300.00 annually for teachers and school purposes, stipulating, however, that annual school reports be forwarded to Washington. Even at this early date the influence of St. Mary’s had begun to reach out past the narrow confines of the reservation. Within the next 01= 22 DIAL ANNUAL One Hundred Seventy-Five