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 jealously 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 goingto
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 unforseen
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 beatiful 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 emigrats, 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 dirrect 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
is 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 necessay
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.
