Crawford County WI Archives Church Records.....St. Gabriel's Parish ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/wi/wifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com October 27, 2007, 8:55 pm MICHIGAN TERRITORY—DIOCESE OF CINCINNATI Mission of St. John the Baptist—Prairie du Chien The priest destined to begin the work of establishing what later became St. Gabriel's parish was the Rev. Francis Vincent Badin. Though a foreign-born Frenchman, he had been ordained in this country by Bishop Fenwick arid was sent soon afterward as a missionary to the French-Canadian settlements of what was then Michigan territory. He was at Detroit when he received word of his assignment to visit the extreme western part of the Territory. May 21, 1827, marks the auspicious date of his arrival at Prairie du Chien. What Father Badin accomplished during his three short visits, in as many successive years, it must be confessed, was a mere beginning. From the start difficulties retarded the work. On his first visit, the ambassador of the Prince of Peace found himself in the thick of Indian warfare. Exactly a month after his arrival the Redbird Massacre took place. His little flock, in consternation, took refuge in the old fort, abandoned the year previously, and literally crowded Father Badin out of the hospital where he had been saying Mass. Incidentally, he had begun the construction of a log church; but, for fear of the Indians, the project for the time had to be abandoned. Later a log chapel, fifty feet long, was built on a point some two blocks north of the present crossing of St. Friole on 'Washington Street. That an abundant field stood ready for the zealous reaper, we have his own testimony. "It is now the third week since my arrival," he tells us in one of his letters. "I have much to do, and that is not surprising; for since the days of the Jesuits, that is, since time immemorial (1764), no priest, save the good Trappist Prior, made his appearance at Prairie du Chien. The aspirants to first Holy Communion, thirty-seven boys and men, and forty-six girls and women, making a total of eighty-three souls, keep me very busy. You can imagine how great is the number of invalid marriages, and how many the baptisms that have to be conferred." The record shows that Father Badin's first baptism was that of an Ottawa Indian girl, May 29, 1827; his last, that of the Renville family, June 10, 1829. Father Badin, it would appear, did not again return to Prairie du Chien; but we find that in 1833 he performed several marriages at Galena (Illinois). Galena, a settlement along the Mississippi, about seventy-five miles to the south, in Illinois territory, was—as we shall see later—invariably associated with Prairie du Chien in the early development of the Church in the Upper Mississippi regions. That Father Badin was there immediately after his first visit to Prairie du Chien, we gather from a letter, addressed "Galena Fever River, 30 Aug., 1827," in which, incidentally, he reveals his secret fear of the Indians. "They filled me with terror," he says, "more than twenty times." He is referring to the Redbird Massacre. According to the testimony of a General Atkinson, commander of the fort, if it had not been for the presence of Father Badin, the Winnebagoes would have destroyed Prairie du Chien. Because of its readier access from St. Louis than Detroit, the district of 'Fever River,' in which Galena was, had been attached to the jurisdiction of the bishop of St. Louis in 1824, shortly after the elevation of Bishop Rosati to the See of St. Louis. But up to 1830 it had as yet received no spiritual ministrations from that quarter. However, in that year, the Rev. Joseph Anthony Lutz received an appointment "to preach the word of God and administer the sacraments at Galena and Prairie du Chien." In a long letter written at Galena and dated October 8, 1830, Father Lutz details the reasons that kept him from going to Prairie du Chien at that time; but in the spring of the following year, we find, he reached the mission of St. John the Baptist at Prairie du Chien and conducted a spiritual 'round-up' among the Menomonees, encamped along the Mississippi River. A tragic incident that occurred shortly after his arrival was anything but reassuring to the new missionary. A period of tribal warfare had preceded his coming; but fortunately a peace pact had brought comparative security. Then suddenly, under cover of night, the Foxes, true to their name, stole down from the north in their canoes, following the course of the Mississippi, and almost under the eyes of the missionary, murdered in their sleep thirty Menomonees, men, women, and children. A renewal of the tribal wars now became inevitable; and, as a result, a new obstacle opposed the spread of the gospel at Prairie du Chien. As for the French Catholics of the settlement, the only record of Father Lutz's presence among them is that of a single marriage. The groom, a John Thompson, who has a descendant of the same name at Bloomington, Wisconsin, was a soldier at the new fort (Crawford). It appears that Father Lutz had confined his visit almost exclusively to missionary work among the Indians. As a matter of fact, the settlement at Prairie du Chien continued to be regarded merely as an outlying mission of the parish at Galena, or more properly, of the district known as 'Fever River.' The name is significant, inasmuch as the next two pastors at Fever River never reached their 'outlying' mission of Prairie du Chien, since both of them died of cholera within a year of assuming their pastoral duties at Galena. The first of these, a Father John McMahon, had arrived late in the Fall of 1832 at Galena. From a letter to his bishop, written soon after his arrival, we gather that he was unable to reach Prairie du Chien, as he had no means of conveyance. He had written, he said, to the Catholics there, acquainting them with his predicament. But as no assistance had come from that quarter, he sought to explain the situation by adding that he had been told that a French priest was there who had decided to remain for the winter. The 'French' priest, as we shall see later, turned out to be the Dominican missionary, Father Mazzuchelli, an Italian priest attached to the diocese of Cincinnati. A last letter to his bishop is dated March 17, 1833. A few months later, June 19, he died. Father McMahon was the first of three pastors, appointed by the Bishop of St. Louis to serve the mission of Prairie du Chien, but destined never to set foot on its soil. His immediate successor, Rev. Charles Francis Fitzmaurice, also succumbed to fever (cholera) within a year after his appointment as pastor of Galena and Prairie du Chien. Though we are certain that the latter place was included in his assignment, we have no record of his ever reaching it. A third pastor—-and the last to be sent from St. Louis—Father Matthew Condamine, received an appointment to care for the souls "in the congregation about Fever River"; but it was subsequently revoked. In his stead, the mysterious 'French' priest, Rev. Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli, was given the assignment. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Centennial History of St. Gabriel's Parish PRAIRIE DU CHIEN WISCONSIN 1836 1936 DR. P. L. SCANLAN, M. D. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wi/crawford/churches/stgabrie15gbb.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wifiles/ File size: 7.7 Kb