ADDRESS PRESENTED ME AT LONGUEUIL—I ARRIVE AT CHICAGO—I SELECT THE SPOT
FOR MY COLONY—I BUILD THE FIRST CHAPEL—JEALOUSY AND OPPOSITION OF THE
PRIESTS OF BOURBONNAIS AND CHICAGO—GREAT SUCCESS OF THE COLONY.
Though I had kept my departure from Canada as secret as possible, it had
been suspected, by many; and Mr. Brassard, unable to resist the desire
that his people should give me the expression of their kind feelings,
had let the secret slip from his lips, two days before I left. I was not
a little surprised, a few hours before my taking leave of him, to see
his whole parish gathered at the door of his parsonage, to present me
the following address.
TO THE REV. FATHER CHINIQUY.
VENERABLE SIR:—It is only three years since we presented you your
portrait, not only as an expression of our gratitude for your labors and
success in the cause of temperance in our midst, but also as a memorial,
which would tell our grandchildren the good you have done to our
country. We were, then, far from thinking that we were so near the day
when we would have the sorrow to see you separating yourself from us.
Your unforeseen exit from Canada fills us with a regret and sadness,
which is increased by the fear we have, that the reform you have
started, and so gloriously established everywhere, will suffer from your
absence. May our merciful God grant that your faithful co-laborers may
continue it, and walk in your footsteps.
While we submit to the decrees of providence, we promise that we will
never forget the great things you have done for the prosperity of our
country. Your likeness, which is in every Canadian family, will tell to
the future generations, what Father Chiniquy has done for Canada.
We console ourselves by the assurance that, wherever you go, you will
raise the glorious banners of temperance among those of our countrymen
who are scattered in the land of exile. May those brethren put on your
forehead, the crown of immortality, which you have so well deserved for
your noble work in our midst. Signed
L. M. BRASSARD,
_Priest and Curate_.
H. HICKS, _Vicar_.
AND 300 OTHERS.
I ANSWERED:
GENTLEMEN:—I thank you for the honor you do me by your address. But
allow me to tell you, that the more I look upon the incalculable good
resulting from the Temperance Reform I have established, nearly from one
end of Canada to the other, the more I would deceive myself, were I to
attribute to myself the whole merit of that blessed work.
If our God has chosen me, his so feeble servant, as the instrument of
his infinite mercies towards our dear country; it is because he wanted
us to understand that He alone could make the marvellous change we see
everywhere, and that we shall give all the glory to Him.
It is more to the fervent prayers, and to the good examples of our
venerable bishops and curates, than to my feeble efforts, that we owe
the triumph of temperance in Canada; and it is my firm conviction that
that holy cause will lose nothing by my absence.
Our merciful God has called me to another field. I have heard his voice.
Though it is a great sacrifice for me to leave my own beloved country, I
must go to work in the midst of a new people, in the distant lands of
Illinois.
From many parts of Europe and Canada, multitudes are rushing towards the
western territories of the United States, to secure to their families,
the incalculable treasures which the good providence of God has
scattered over those broad prairies.
Those emigrants are in need of priests. They are like those little ones
of whom God speaks in his Word, who wanted bread and had nobody to give
them any: “I have heard their cries, I have seen their wants.” And in
spite of the great sacrifice I am called upon to make, I must bless the
Good Master, who calls me to work in that vineyard, planted by his own
hands, in those distant lands.
If anything can diminish the sadness of my feelings, when I bid adieu to
my countrymen, it is the assurance given me by the noble people of
Longueuil, that I have in Canada many friends whose fervent prayers will
constantly ascend to the throne of grace, to bring the benedictions of
heaven upon me, wherever I go.
C. CHINIQUY.
I arrived at Chicago on the 29th of October, 1851, and spent six days
with Bishop Vandeveld, in maturing the plans of our Catholic
colonization.
He gave me the wisest advice with the most extensive powers which a
bishop can give a priest, and urged me to begin, at once, the work, by
selecting the most suitable spot for such an important and vast
prospect.
My heart was filled with uncontrollable emotions when the hour came to
leave my superior and go to the conquest of the magnificent State of
Illinois, for the benefit of my church.
I fell at his knees to ask his benediction, and requested him never to
forget me in his prayers. He was not less affected than I was, and
pressing me to his bosom, bathed my face with his tears, and blessed me.
It took me three days to cross the prairies from Chicago to Bourbonnais.
Those prairies were then a vast solitude, with almost impassable roads.
At the invitation of their priest, Mr. Courjeault, several people had
come long distances to receive and overwhelm me with the public
expressions of their joy and respect.
After a few days of rest, in the midst of their interesting young
colony, I explained to Mr. Courjeault that, having been sent by the
bishop to found a settlement of Roman Catholic emigrants, on a
sufficiently grand scale to rule the government of Illinois, it was my
duty to go further south, in order to find the most suitable place for
the first village I intended to raise. But to my unspeakable regret, I
saw that my proposition filled the heart of that unfortunate priest with
the most bitter feelings of jealousy and hatred. It had been just the
same thing with Rev. Mr. Lebel, at Chicago.
The very moment I told him the object of my coming to Illinois, I felt
the same spirit of jealousy had turned him into an implacable enemy. I
had expected very different things from those two priests, for whom I
had entertained, till then, most sincere sentiments of esteem. So long
as they were under the impression that I had left Canada to help them
increase their small congregations, by inducing the emigrants to settle
among them, they loaded me, both in public and private, with marks of
their esteem. But the moment they saw that I was going to found, in the
very heart of Illinois, settlements on such a large scale, they banded
together to paralyze and ruin my efforts. Had I suspected such
opposition from the very men on whose moral help I had relied for the
success of my colonizing schemes, I would have never left Canada, for
Illinois. But it was now too late to stop my onward march. Trusting in
God alone for success, I felt that those two men were to be put among
those unforeseen obstacles which Heaven wanted me to overcome, if I
could not avoid them. I persuaded six of the most respectable citizens
of Bourbonnais to accompany me, in three wagons, in search of the best
site for the center of my future colony. I had a compass, to guide me
through those vast prairies, which were spread before me like a
boundless ocean. I wanted to select the highest point in Illinois for my
first town, in order to secure the purest air and water for the new
emigrants.
I was fortunate enough, under the guidance of God, to succeed better
than I expected, for the government surveyors have lately acknowledged
that the village of St. Anne occupies the very highest point of that
splendid state.
To my great surprise, ten days after I had selected that spot, fifty
families from Canada had planted their tents around mine, on the
beautiful site which forms to-day the town of St. Anne.
We were at the end of November, and though the weather was still mild, I
felt I had not an hour to lose in order to secure shelter for every one
of those families, before the cold winds and chilly rains of winter
should spread sickness and death among them. The greater part were
illiterate and poor people, without any idea of the dangers and
incredible difficulties of establishing a new settlement, where
everything had to be created. There were, at first, only two small
houses, one 25 by 30, and the other 16 by 20 feet, to lodge us.
With the rest of my dear emigrants, wrapped in buffalo robes, with my
overcoat for my pillow, I slept soundly, many nights on the bare floor,
during the three months which it took to get my first house erected.
Having taken the census of the people on the first of December, I found
two hundred souls, one hundred of whom were adults. I said to them:
“There are not three of you, if left alone, able to prepare a shelter
for your families, this winter; but if, forgetting yourselves, you work
for each other, as true friends and brethren, you will increase your
strength tenfold, and in a few weeks, there will be a sufficient number
of small, but solid buildings, to protect you against the storms and
snow of the winter which is fast coming upon us. Let us go to the forest
together and cut the wood, to-day; and to-morrow we will draw that
timber to one of the lots you have selected, and you will see with what
marvellous speed the house will be raised, if your hands and hearts are
perfectly united to work for each other, under the eyes and for the love
of the merciful God who gives us this splendid country for our
inheritage. But before going to the forest, let us kneel down to ask our
Heavenly Father to bless the work of our hands, and grant us to be of
one mind and one heart, and to protect us against the too common
accidents of those forests and building works.”
We all knelt on the grass, and, as much with our tears as with our lips,
we sent to the mercy-seat a prayer, which was surely heard by the One
who said, “Ask and you will receive,” and we started for the forest.
The readers would scarcely believe me, were I to tell them with what
marvellous rapidity the first forty small, but neat houses were put up
on our beautiful prairies.
Whilst the men were cutting timber, and raising one another’s houses,
with a unity, a joy, a good-will and rapidity, which many times drew
from me tears of admiration, the women would prepare the common meals.
We obtained our flour and pork from Bourbonnais and Momence, at a very
low price; and, as I was a good shot, one or two friends and I, used to
kill, every day, enough prairie chickens, quails, ducks, wild geese,
brants and deer, to feed more people than there were in our young
colony.
Those delicious viands, which would have been welcomed on the table of
the king, and which would have satisfied the most fastidious gourmand,
caused many of my poor, dear emigrants to say:
“Our daily and most common meals here, are more sumptuous and delicate
than the richest ones in Canada, and they cost almost nothing.”
When I saw that a sufficient number of houses had been built to give
shelter to every one of the first emigrants, I called a meeting and
said:
“My dear friends, by the great mercy of God, and in almost a miraculous
way, (thanks be to the unity and charity which have bound you to each
other till now, as members of the same family,) you are in your little,
but happy homes, and you have nothing to fear from the winds and snow of
the winter, I think that my duty now is to direct your attention to the
necessity of building a two-story house. The upper part will be used as
the school-house for your children on week days, and for a chapel on
Sundays, and the lower part will be my parsonage. I will furnish the
money for the flooring, shingles, the nails and the windows, and you
will give your work gratis to cut and draw the timber and put it up. I
will also pay the architect, without asking a cent from you. It is quite
time to provide a school for your children; for in this country, as in
any other place, there is no possible prosperity or happiness for a
people, if they neglect the education of their children. Now, we are too
numerous to continue having our Sabbath worship in any private house, as
we have done till now. What do you think of this?”
They unanimously answered:
“Yes! after you have worked so hard to give a home to every one of us,
it is just that we should help you to make one for yourself. We are
happy to hear that it is your intention to secure a good education for
our children. Let us begin the work at once.”
This was the 16th of January, 1852. The sun was as warm as on a
beautiful day of May in Canada. We again fell upon our knees to implore
the help of God, and sang a beautiful French hymn.
The next day, we were seventy-two men in a neighboring forest, felling
the great oaks; and on the 17th of April, only three months later, that
fine two-story building, nearly forty feet square, was blessed by Bishop
Vandeveld.
It was surmounted by a nice steeple, thirty feet high, in which we had
put a bell, weighing 250 pounds, whose solemn sound was to tell our joys
and sorrows over the boundless prairies.
On that day, instead of being only fifty families, as at the last
census, we numbered more than one hundred, among whom more than 500 were
adults. The chapel which we thought, at first, would be too large, was
filled to its utmost capacity on the day of its consecration to God.
Not a month later, we had to speak of making an addition of forty feet
more, which when finished, six months later, was found to be still
insufficient for the accommodation of the constantly increasing flood of
immigration, which came, not only from Canada, but from Belgium and
France. It soon became necessary to make a new center, and expand the
limits of my first colony; which I did, by planting a cross at l’Erable,
about fifteen miles southwest of St. Anne, and another at a place we
call St. Mary, twelve miles southeast, in the county of Iroquois. These
settlements were soon filled; for that very spring, more than one
thousand new families came from Canada, to join us.
No words can express the joy of my heart, when I saw with what rapidity,
my (then) so dear Church of Rome was taking possession of those
magnificent lands, and how soon she would be unrivaled mistress, not
only of the State of Illinois, but of the whole valley of the
Mississippi. But the ways of men are not the ways of God. I had been
called, by the Bishops of Rome, to Illinois, to extend the power of that
church. But my God had called me there, that I might give, to that
church, the most deadly blow she has ever received on this Continent.
My task is now to tell my readers, how the God of Truth, and Light and
Life, broke, one after another, all the charmed bonds by which I was
kept a slave at the feet of the Pope; and how He opened my eyes, and
those of my people, to the unsuspected and untold abominations of
Romanism.