One Township's Yesterdays Chapter XI  

THE JESUIT. BRINGS THE CROSS

"From the farthest realms of morning Came the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet He the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face, With his guides and his companions." ...Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"WITH THE CROSS UPON HIS BOSOM," came the Jesuit missionary into the wilderness. With the first explorers he came, by the waterways, from the land of civilized peoples, a long journey distant, toward the rising sun. He remained, to convert the Indian to Christianity in the faith of the Catholics.

Far across the ocean, that journey began. And it ended in the wilds of the land of our story. So it was that, after weeks and months and even years of journeying, the black-robed Jesuit, pioneer missionary, at length reached his destination, which was this then remote and hitherto unexplored region. He came seeking that he might save the souls of the "savages." The French priest came to these parts simultaneously not only with the explorer but also with the adventurer bent on conquest, just as the Spanish padre came into the deserts and mountains of the Southwest simultaneously with the Conquistador. Like the adventurers of the Great Lakes region, those bold Spaniards of the Southwest were drawn on and on by the lure of "the loot of conquest!" While the friars were "covetous of souls!"

In our own little tract of wilderness, the Jesuits worked among the Indians with great zeal and patience. It was said by JOHN LORD, in 1869, that "at no period and in no country were Jesuit missionaries more untiring laborers than a -mid the forests of North America." And they "by unparalleled. labors of charity and benevolence, sought to convert the savages to the Christianity of Rome." As early as 1635, they were at work among the red men. They Were in Montreal in 1641. "Before ELIOT had preached to the Indians around Boston, the intrepid missionaries of the Jesuits had explored the shores of Lake Superior, had penetrated to the Falls of St. Mary's, and had visited the Chippeways, the Hurons, the Iroquois, and the Mohawks."

The French led the way in opening up the Mid-West. LASALLE was the father of western colonization. In 1684, Louisiana was colonized Frenchmen. Thus, through the daring of such bold spirits as these, were the North American interior settlements effected.

First Chapel.

Somewhat over one hundred years ago, or in indiana_map_1827, it has been said, the Rev. STEPHEN BADIN, the first Roman Catholic priest ordained in America, built a chapel near Twin Lakes village. The Indians called this little edifice of hewn logs, covered with clapboards, the church of Chi-chi-pe Ou-te-pe. As soon as the word had been circulated widely that the chapel had been erected, on the north bank of one of the lakes, and there were, already gatherings of people there, the different bands of Indians began to come from far and near, until at length they were sufficiently numerous to fill the building to overflowing.

Services were held in the Twin Lakes chapel until the Indians were driven away in 1838, then it was closed, never afterwards to be used for the purpose of worship. It was a curiosity to passers-by for many years, but finally fell to ruin and was torn down. No traces of it remain today.

The Rev. STEPHEN BADIN left his Twin Lakes chapel in 1832, and returned to Notre Dame, where he was buried in 1853. His successor at the Twin Lakes chapel was Father DE SEILLE, who ministered to the Indians, and who was held in great esteem by them. They loved him as a true friend and father. Father DE SEILLE was a grave man, reserved, a person of deep melancholy, borrowed it seems from the Indians. His face bore marks of suffering, though youthful.

Bishop SIMON BRUTE DE REMUR, of Vincennes, visited the Menominee village and the mission of DE SEILLE. He describes that visit, made in 1836, about the time the first settlers were arriving at Lake Maxinkuckee, and gives a picture of a chapel of "logs with the bark on, with a cross erected behind and rising above it, and filled with rudely made benches." The chapel was primitive and simple in all its appointments.

Loved Indians.

Father BENJAMIN MARIE PETIT succeeded DE SEILLE in about the year 1837, and was in charge of the chapel at the time of the removal of the Indians from Twin Lakes the following year. Born in France, Father PETIT was only about twenty-five years old when he began his ministrations at Twin Lakes, probably in the summer of 1837. It was a brief charge, lasting until September, 1838. Father Petit was a man of ardent, youthful spirit. His enthusiasm in his work among the Indians was intense. "How I love these children of mine," he once exclaimed, fervently, "and what pleasure it is for me to find myself amongst them!" At another time, he said, "When I am traveling in the woods, if I perceive an Indian hut, or even an abandoned encampment, I find my heart beat with joy. If I discover any Indians on my road, all my fatigue is forgotten, and when their smiles greet me at a distance I feel as if I were in the midst of my own family."

"In the first three weeks of my pastorate," Father PETIT said, "I baptized eighteen adults and blessed nine marriages." ANTHONY NI-GO, an Indian well known to the early settlers of this region, said he was married at the chapel at Menominee village in the year 1828, in accordance with the rites of the Catholic church by a missionary then in charge. His wife was a half-breed, French and Indian. Her name was ASH-NIC, or ANGELINE, in plain English. NI-GO was baptized in this chapel as a Catholic at about the same time. He died in Plymouth in 1878.

Were Catholics.

In his recollections of early days in this section, the Rev. WARREN TAYLOR, an itinerant Wesleyan Methodist preacher, says that the great mass of the Potawatomi nation had embraced the Catholic religion long perhaps before the settlement of northern Indiana by the whites. "French missionaries," he adds, "had been among them and among many other tribes of the Mississippi valley. In some of the villages in this region, the Sabbath was observed as a day of worship. Many of our old citizens can recollect the time when they attended Indian meetings at the chapel on the Menominee reserve ... Generally these meetings were conducted by ministers of their own nation, but occasionally French clergymen were present and took the lead."

So came the Cross to this section. And such were the beginnings of Christianity in this vicinity, brought first to the Indians in the wilderness by the Jesuit missionaries from afar.