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, 9:58 pm OUTLYING MISSIONS Throughout the hundred years of its existence, though itself for long a mere outlying mission, St. Gabriel's parish became in turn a center of missionary activity, and like a beacon shed abroad its light of faith. From the beginning, in the wide circle of its environs it brought the consolation of our holy Religion to the isolated early settlements, from Chippewa Falls on the north, to Grant and Iowa counties on the south, and from Boscobel on the east to the river counties of Iowa on the west. The earliest of these outlying settlements to share in the blessings of St. Gabriel's parish was St. John's mission at Patch Grove, Grant County. Though the church was not built till later (1850), Father Ravoux, the first resident pastor of St. Gabriel's, had said Mass on the Lawless farm, the site of St. John's original church, as early as 1841. Until 1860 old St. John's remained definitely attached to Prairie du Chien. Thereafter it became a mission of Cassville. Today, the new St. John's in the village of Patch Grove is under the care of the resident priest of Bloomington. Chippewa has the distinction of being one of the first missions attended by the scholarly Father Bonduel in 1844, though somewhat earlier (1842) Father Galtier had paid a welcome visit to forty lumbermen at the saw-mills of the settlement. In 1846, two settlements in Vernon County, Kickapoo Station (probably Reedstown) and The Bluff, were, both blessed by the presence of Father Galtier. The same zealous priest built St. Mark's chapel at Kickapoo in 1855. During his pastorate, too, LaCrosse was one of the missions of St. Gabriel's. In 1851 Father Galtier first visited the settlement, later to become the See of LaCrosse, and in 1855 erected its first log church. It remained a mission of Prairie du Chien until 1860. From 1853 to 1856, Father Galtier made a monthly visit to St. John the Baptist mission at Mifflin, Iowa County. Meanwhile (1855), at Utica, Crawford County, he was engaged in constructing a chapel. That same year, the home of a Mr. Finnegan at Rising Sun was given the privilege of being the scene of the first Mass offered in that locality. Later, a log-house served for chapel until 1870, when Father O'Connor established his residence there and built the present church of St. James. Similarly, at Seneca, in 1855, Mass was said in the home of a Robert Garvey. A frame church was built later on the site, and a cemetery— part of the present Kneeland farm—was subsequently added. The church has since been removed and the cemetery abandoned. Perhaps, as early as 1859, on Lawler Ridge, in the western part of Seneca, a log chapel, known as the 'Lost Church of Copper Creek,' was erected. The cemetery—the only relic left to indicate the site of the lost church—contains but one lone marker. The Copper Creek and Garvey settlements were united in 1872, when Father Verwyst became pastor of Seneca. Again, in 1855, Father Galtier undertook to build a log-church at Mt. Hope, Grant County, which later served as a combination church and school. During that year, on Irish Ridge, he secured a forty-acre plot for church purposes, thereafter referred to as the 'Church forty.' The property, however, was subsequently sold, and a frame church was erected in 1862 on land donated by a Michael Cull—the present site of the cemetery of St. Lawrence O'Toole's parish. In 1856 Father Galtier attended another mission station at Boyd, Crawford County, a place which at the time was being primed as a future rival of Prairie du Chien. A year later, a Mr. Gafney of Clayton donated six acres for a church, and a Mr. Garrity, two acres for a cemetery. The church eventually built there was named St. Philip's in memory of a Philip Murphy, whose grave bears the earliest marker in the cemetery. At Scott, in the Carlin settlement, in the midst of a cemetery stands the abandoned St. Patrick's, a frame church erected in 1857 or thereabout. Previously, in 1856, Father Galtier sold a forty-acre plot of ground at Eastman to a Mr. Quilligan, who in .turn donated a part of his adjoining property for church purposes. A Trappist priest, in a letter addressed to Bishop Henni in 1856, begged permission to attend one of the congregation at Eastman. That there was a very substantial Bohemian church as early as 1865 on the site where St. Wenceslaus now stands, is beyond doubt. A local poet, 'Pratocanensis,' once avowed in a poem that he had "never seen fair Boscobel," and further expressed the fervent hope that he never would, for fear of breaking the spell that the very name had cast upon him. Unlike the poet, the less aesthetic Father Galtier saw Boscobel in 1859; and not once only, but again and again during many years afterwards, when he added to the beauty of its name the charm of the presence of Christ by the Masses he offered there. Muscoda, Liberty, Bee Town, Waterloo, and Georgetown—all situated in Grant County—were visited during that same year (1859) by the indefatigable missionary-pastor of St. Gabriel's, Father Galtier. DeSoto, thirty miles up the Mississippi, came in for its share of St. Gabriel's blessings, when the church of the Immaculate Conception was established there in the late 'fifties. At Genoa, farther up-stream and near the mission of LaCrosse, Mass was said for the first time, September 12, 1862, by Father Van Droste, who later came to St. Gabriel's as assistant-pastor. Among other places nearer the home parish at Prairie du Chien, we find that Father Galtier had visited Pigeon, a settlement half-way between Lancaster and Hurricane, today the location occupied by the German chapel and cemetery. At Lancaster, a rock building, situated on the west side of the court-house square, may be seen today with the name St. Bartholomew cut in stone above its front door. Originally a church, it was intended that it should bear that name; but on the day of its dedication, because another church in the diocese had been named for St. Bartholomew, the bishop changed it to St. Clement. In 1870, the first Mass at Wauzeka was offered by Father Koke, who for a short time was pastor at St. Gabriel's parish. The Benedictines of the Priory at Prairie du Chien built a church there, and for many years the Jesuit Fathers of the local college of the Sacred Heart continued to minister to the spiritual needs of its congregation. The latest, as well as the largest, outgrowth of St. Gabriel's parish is the local church of St. John Nepomucene, built and dedicated in 1891 for the Bohemian people of Prairie du Chien. 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/stgabrie30gbb.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wifiles/ File size: 7.3 Kb