Catholic Boarding Schools on the Western Frontier

FATHER SHANNON is the newly named president of the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The present article is based on his doctoral dissertation, which he has revised for publication by the Yale University Press. Under the title "Catholic Colonization on the Western Frontier," it is scheduled to appear in the spring of 1967.

Catholic Boarding Schools on the WESTERN FRONTIER

JAMES P. SHANNON

TWELVE YEARS after Minnesota entered across the Great Plains to the boom towns the Union and five years after the Civil of the Black Hflls and toward the ports of War, the Red River trails were still the the Pacific. One great hindrance to such only major traces through western Minne expansion, however, was the scarcity of sota. At this late date, in 1870, a huge settlers in the Great Plains region. Gold in triangle of fertile farm land, bounded the Black Hills, wheat in the prairie states, roughly by imaginary lines connecting the and cattle from western grasslands might present cities of St. Paul in Minnesota, provide occasional pay loads for the rafl Fargo in North Dakota, and Sioux City in roads; but rail lines through unsettled re Iowa, remained for the most part unsettled gions could not pay their way. Nor could and uncultivated. they wait for the normal process of settle Then the trans-Mississippi railroads, de ment by gradual infiltration to reach the layed by the war, began building their lines West. Hence the more enterprising lines, especially those financed by federal land grants, undertook to subsidize the settle ^ Harold F. Peterson, "Railroads and the Settle ment of rural colonies.'^ ment of Minnesota, 1862-1880," 31; .Joseph A. Cor rigan, "The Catholic Industrial School of Minnesota," In this work the Iflinois Central and in Acta et Dicta, 7:3-25 (October, 1935); Louis M. Northern Pacific railroads led the way. Hacker and Benjamin B, Kendrick, The United States since 186i, 124 (New York, 1949). The first item is Both lines sought to promote wholesale set an unpublished master's thesis prepared in 1927; the tlement of their lands by inviting religious Minnesota Historical Society has a copy, and other groups to migrate to the West in ' Paul W. Gates, The Illinois Central, and Its Colo colonies. In Minnesota, the St. Paul and nisation Worlc, 224-252 (Cambridge, 1934); James B, Hedges, "The Colonization Work ot the Northern Pacific, the Winona and St. Peter, and the Pacific Railroad," in Mississippi Valley Historical Re St. Paul and Sioux City raflroads adopted view, 13:311 (December, 1926); Humphrey Moynihan, the same plan after 1875, naming Bishop "Archbishop Ireland's Colonies," in Acta et Dicta, 6:222 (October, 1934); Northwestern Chronicle, Jan John Ireland of St. Paul to act as their uary 22, 1876; Winona and St, Peter Railroad, Minute land agent in charge of Catholic colonies Book, p. 384, in the office of the land commissioner of along their routes.^ the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, Chicago, The Northwestern Chronicle was the official paper of Between 1875 and 1885 Ireland settled the diocese of St, Paul from 1866 to 1900. more than four thousand Catholic families

September 1956 133 on the newly opened raflroad lands and the in England, who had organized a self-sup homesteads of western Minnesota. His porting industrial school for boys in that colonists claimed and occupied more than city.* four hundred thousand acres of land in five Its course of training, in addition to the counties. Swift, Big Stone, Lyon, Murray, regular academic subjects, offered instruc and Nobles. Contrary to a popular and per tion in various industrial arts. Boys com sistent legend, Ireland's colonies were for mitted or invited to the home could choose the most part highly successful. In one to learn a trade in its shoe factory, printing respect, however, they were a great disap office, tailor shop, joiner's shop, or paper- pointment to their founder and patron. bag factory. After several of his graduates He had hoped to establish a series of Catho had emigrated, Nugent heard reports of lic boarding academies in the settlements their success in Canada and the United to educate the children of the colonists. He States, and decided to sponsor an organized quickly learned that such institutions were program of emigration for children. Times premature and that Catholic farmers on were hard in Liverpool, unemployment was the frontier had little time or sympathy widespread, and resources at the school for his elaborate educational program. were limited — so limited than on occasion As a citizen, Ireland was convinced that it was necessary to send the boys to mass the future of the nation depended on the in relays because there were not enough caliber of education given to its youth. For Sunday suits to go around.'' survival, the democratic state needed a Father Nugent made his first trip to population thoroughly educated and ca America in 1870. On August 18, accom pable of raising up a variety of public serv panied by twenty-four boys and girls, the ants trained to meet the complexities of former from his Refuge and the latter from modern government, and an electorate able his Night Shelter for girls, he safled to recognize and choose such leaders at the from Liverpool aboard the "Austria" for pofls. But as a priest he was equafly cer Montreal. He succeeded in placing each of tain that the Catholic school was the best the children in a private home or a school agency for instructing children in the duties in Canada and then spent nine months lec of rehgion and in habits of personal piety. turing in the Dominion and in the United He believed that "The Catholic school . . . States, "pleading the cause of Nobody's is the most fruitful of all institutions for Chfldren and their right to be welcomed" the preservation and perpetuation of the in America. After attending the Indian faith in this country." ^ apolis Immigration Convention in Novem ber, 1870, the English priest toured several GIVEN THESE convictions, it is not sur prairie states in the hope of estabhshing prising that as soon as his first colonies were some kind of self-supporting agricultural firmly established Ireland embarked on an school and home for children on the western ambitious program of buflding Catholic farm lands." boarding academies in western Minnesota. One of his lecture stops was St. Paul, This phase of his colonization program be where Nugent met Bishop Thomas L. Grace gan auspiciously with the aid of several religious teaching orders. The best-known 'Northwestern Chronicle, September 4, 1896, and least successful of his educational pro ' Edward K, Bennett, Father Nugent of Liverpool, 79, 100 (Liverpool, 1949), jects was the Catholic Industrial School 'Bennett, Father Nugent, 82; Rescue Notes, 16 for boys at Clontarf in Swift County. It is (Liverpool, 1905), The latter is a pamphlet issued on more than likely that the original plan for the occasion of Father Nugent's death, A copy is among the Ireland Papers in the archives of the St, this establishment came from Father James Paul Seminary. Nugent, a priest of the diocese of Liverpool "Bennett, Father Nugent, 95.

1.34 MINNESOTA History and Father Ireland for the first time. The that it would thereafter receive and edu idea of an industrial school impressed Grace, cate each year sixty Indian children from and on January 4, 1874, the Catholic In reservations in Dakota Territory. The gov dustrial School of Minnesota was estab ernment paid a hundred dollars a year lished on a farm just outside St. Paul. The for each chfld. With an average enrollment project was never a success. At no time did of a hundred and thirty, the school received its students number more than twenty enough from the subsidy to meet its mini boys. In Liverpool, Nugent's wards had mum financial obligations. supported their school, and had even shown Everyone involved in its operation, how a small profit, by printing the Liverpool ever, was aware that the school was not Catholic Times on their school presses. The fulfilling the hopes of its founder. Educa St. Paul school, lacking such regular in tion of the Indians was a commendable come, was in financial straits from its foun project, but the obstacles to its progress dation. In 1877, after Ireland had become were more numerous and more serious than a bishop and opened the western colonies, the usual hazards involved in conducting the industrial school was moved to Clontarf schools. The Indian children went back to in Swift County. Ireland reasoned, as Nu their respective reservations each summer gent had, that a school on a farm could and were absent from the school during the support itself or at least produce its own harvest season when they might have food. He purchased a tract of two thou learned the skills necessary for successful sand acres from the St. Paul and Pacific farming. Many of them stayed at the school Railway in 1879 and made it the site of only one term. Few showed any interest in the industrial school. To staff the insti learning the industrial arts, which were tution and teach its classes, he secured supposed to be the basic curriculum of the three brothers from the Brooklyn monas school. Several of the brothers became dis tery of the Order of St. Francis.'' couraged with the work, and at one time The new advantages of supervision by a Brother William Osbelt was left to admin religious order and a rural location, how ister the school alone. Furthermore, John ever, were not enough to revive the project. P. O'Connor, Bishop Ireland's secretary in Even with its own farm, the industrial charge of directing the finances of the school failed in Clontarf for the same reason school, felt that Brother William was not that simflar projects failed in other parts capable of running it properly. Hence of the West — the lack of chfldren who O'Connor took on more and more of Brother were in a position to live away from home Wflliam's duties, and finafly alienated the or who wanted to do so. For the first few Franciscan entirely.* years the brothers kept busy building their In 1890, when Richard Scannell was own residence and harvesting their crops, named bishop of Omaha, he inherited two "but there were no boys to be instructed." Catholic colonies established by his prede Hence in 1884 Ireland secured a govern cessor in Spalding and O'Connor, Nebraska. ment contract for the school and agreed In the hope of transferring their teaching and school administration to the Nebraska 'James J, Reardon, The Catholic Church in the settlements, the Franciscan brothers at Diocese of St. Paul, 657, 674 (St. Paul, 1952); North Clontarf confided in Bishop Scannefl, tefl western Chronicle, February 22, 1879. ing him that things were not going well in ' See especially O'Connor to Brother William, Au gust 16. 1887, December 29, 1888, in diocesan letter Minnesota. They complained that the win books, 1887-88, p. 24, 84, 1888-89, p, 45-48, St. Paul ters were too cold, the brothers had become Chancery Archi\'es; Reardon, Catholic Cliurch in St. discouraged, there were too few students, Paul, 675. "Brother Joseph to Father A. M. Colaneri. January and Bishop Ireland did not allow them to 23, 1895, Omaha Chancery Archives. handle their own finances.''

September 1956 135 Bishop Scannefl of course would have Murray County near the colony of Avoca. welcomed the brothers to his frontier dio On this tract he platted the village of lona, cese, but he did not wish to appear to be which he named for the sixth-century ab drawing them away from Ireland's diocese. bey of the Irish St. Columba. He also pur By indirection. Father A. M. Colaneri, chased for his school a large frame building chancellor of the diocese of Omaha, subtly originally erected by an enterprising set expressed this observation in his replies to tler for use as a combination hotel and gen the brothers. Before the Franciscans could eral store." carry out their plans for transfer, in 1892 Probably in the spring of 1879, with his Congress cut the federal appropriations two brothers and five orphan children, Mc available as tuition for Indian children at Donnell arrived in lona and opened a tending "contract schools" outside reserva boarding academy which he called the Sac tions. The school at Clontarf was such an red Heart Industrial School. His brothers, institution; hence it lost part of its means Michael and Patrick McDonnell, who took of support. At the same time, however. over the management of the farm, were Congress greatly increased the funds pro able to support the school and the orphan vided for all government-owned schools. age with the income from their crops. Un The federal government offered to use some like those who established the Clontarf of these funds to purchase the site and school, McDonnell had no religious order buildings of the Clontarf school, and Bish to help him at lona. In fact, the founda op Ireland agreed to sell. The Franciscan tion was destined to be very much a one- brothers went to other missions or back to man undertaking, limited in time and in their monastery in Brooklyn, which most effectiveness to the period of its founder's of them had missed keenly during their active years —1878 to 1910. During this years in the West, and Ireland was relieved span he served as pastor, schoolteacher, of an educational project which had never civil magistrate, postmaster, general store matched his expectations.'^" keeper, banker, and mayor of the village. The size of his farm made it unnecessary to A SECOND and more enduring industrial seek federal aid or an Indian contract to school was established in the Minnesota keep the industrial school going.^^ Catholic colonies in 1879 by Father Martin The priest and his brothers trained the McDonnell, an Irish-born priest from Ba- boys who attended their school in farm tavia. New York. In the East, he had been work, especially in the care of cattle, poul active in founding orphan asylums for try, and bees. As each boy graduated, Mc homeless and indigent Catholic children. Donnell gave him a one-acre homesite and The number of children in need of such urged him to secure a farm in the neigh charity was growing at this time, and the borhood. Many of his charges took this ad- financial resources available for helping them were so limited that in 1878 McDon " See letters from Father Colaneri to Brother nell decided to investigate the merits of Joseph, filed with items relating to "Miscellaneous Ireland's colonies in the West. Foflowing Diocesan History, 1876-90," in the Omaha Chancery Archives; Sister Mary Evangela Henthorne, The Irish the system outlined by Nugent, McDon Catholic Colonization Association of the United States, nell planned to buy enough land to support 186 (Champaign, Illinois, 1932); Commissioner of In his school by the sale of the farm crops dian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1892, p. 39. " Northwestern Chronicle, February 22,1879; Rear raised; and in the end he was one of the don, Catholic Church in St. Paul, 674; Thomas J. few school promoters who was able to make Jenkins, Six Seasons on Our Prairies, 41 (Louisville, this plan work. Through Bishop Ireland, 1884). he bought from the St. Paul and Sioux City '^The account of the lona school in this and the paragraphs that follow is based on Reardon, Catholic Raflroad Company five thousand acres in Church in St. Paul, 674.

136 MINNESOTA History A typical western Minnesota schoolhouse of the 1870s

-1 i.-* FROM ANDREAS' ATLAS, P. 171 vice, and thus a colony of Catholic farmers clearly demonstrated at Avoca in Murray grew up about lona. County after 1882. In that year he pre In addition to educating orphans, who vailed upon the Sisters of the Holy Child numbered about twenty-five each year, the Jesus to send seven nuns to open a convent school served as a parochial day school for school there. They were members of an the children living near lona. In its nearly English community whose mother house in three decades of existence, only eighty or the United States is at Sharon Hfll, Penn phan children passed through its class sylvania. It was then in its early years and rooms. And with the passage of time its several of its members were of English role as an orphanage became less important birth. Father Thomas J. Jenkins, who met and its position as the parish school grad the sisters on their arrival in Avoca, noted ually grew more significant. In 1889 the in his journal: "There is remarkable re diocese of Winona was cut off from that of finement combined with veriest industry in St. Paul, and thereafter the lona school fell these ladies of this Anglo-American Con within the jurisdiction of the Winona dio gregation. Their notable Anglicisms are cese, which in 1902 erected a new buflding pretty." The Bishop's choice of this reli for the school. Both the industrial school gious community to staff the new school and orphanage were discontinued, however, reflected his desire to introduce into the when Father McDonnell retired in 1910. western settlements some of the cultural The building has since housed a convent refinement that was so often sacrificed on a new frontier.^^ and a parochial grade and high school for the parish of St. Columba at lona. Ireland, who had high hopes for this

THAT IRELAND overestimated the eag erness of the scattered colonists in his "Jenkins, Six Seasons on Our Prairies. 51; William Gorman, "History of Saint Rose of Lima Parish," 13. diocese to procure for their children the re The latter is an unpublished manu.script in the parish finements of boarding school education was archives at Avoca.

September 1956 137 foundation, purchased a spacious resort and sacrifice, and quite prepared to con hotel near Lime Lake and converted it into tinue their work among the Indian chfl what he cafled the Academy of the Holy dren. Hence it came as a great surprise to Chfld. He intended that it should become them when Bishop Ireland announced in the novitiate for a large body of teaching 1890 that he had another mission for them sisters who would encourage religious voca and wanted the Sisters of St. Joseph to take tions and multiply Catholic schools in the over the academy in Avoca. In 1893 the West. From the very beginning, however, federal government cancelled the acad the community faced unusual hardships. emy's Indian contract. Deprived of its chief The settlers' farms were so widely scattered means of support, the school fell on difficult that it was difficult for them to send their times. From 1903 to 1905 it remained closed. children to the school each day. Even those After a costly fire on February 12, 1910, who could do so were unwilling to enroll which leveled the entire buflding, the sis their children as resident students. The ters withdrew and the school was never re bishop made frequent trips to the new built. school and offered the sisters every encour agement. After several such trips, however, ONE OTHER attempt to found a board he was distressed to find "'such a smafl ing school for girls was made in the Grace- number of chfldren attending." When he vflle colony of Big Stone County, on the finally realized that the school was nearly western border of Minnesota, in 1886. The bankrupt, in 1884 he fell back on the plan initiative for this foundation was supplied tried at Clontarf and signed a contract by the Sisters of St. Joseph. The first build with the office of Indian Affairs. Under its ings were erected with separate accommo terms the school agreed to accept annually dations for white and Indian girls — the fifty Indian girls "who would be instructed latter from the near-by Sisseton reservation in the rudiments of English and taught the in Dakota Territory. Under the terms of ordinary manners and customs of civilized another government contract, it was speci life, as well as the truths and practices of fied that the school would receive a hun the Catholic religion." The fee was to be dred and fifty dollars a year for each of eighty-five dollars a year for each girl.^* twenty-five Indian girls to be sent from the In September, 1884, thirteen bewildered reservation. In 1896 the act of Congress Sioux girls arrived at Avoca. A few months which defined "the settled policy of the later they were angered and their teachers Government to hereafter make no appro were delighted by the arrival of several priation whatever for education in any sec Chippewa girls. The nuns were not aware tarian school" terminated the government that the two tribes were on unfriendly contract with the Graceville Convent of terms and were shocked to discover that Our Lady. Two years later, fire, the scourge the girls of both groups felt in duty bound of prairie life, broke out in the school and burned it to the ground. It was rebuflt by to continue their tribal feud within the the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1900 and it has school. Old settlers still living near the continued to serve since as the parochial Avoca colony site recall occasions on which elementary and high school for the Grace- a hunt was organized to find and take back vifle parish. The best index of its influence to the school Indian girls who had decided on Catholic life in Minnesota is to be to return to their reservations. found in the fact that five of its students With the help of the government sub have been ordained priests and forty- sidy, the school was able to continue oper ating. The extant correspondence between " This account of the Avoca academy is based on the sisters and their mother house indicates that given in Gorman, "Saint Rose of Lima Parish," that they were happy in their life of prayer 14-16,

1,38 MINNESOTA History three have have become sisters in the con of education in Minnesota in the last dec gregation of St. Joseph of Carondelet.i" ades of the nineteenth century, a Minne sota historian, Wifliam W. Folwell, noted IN THE FIVE counties of western Min that legislators always "assumed that with nesota originally settled by Bishop Ire out question afl parents and guardians land's colonists there is today an extensive would appreciate the policy [of free educa system of elementary and secondary Cath tion] and would give their chfldren the full olic schools. Graceville, Currie, lona, Ad benefit of it, without exhortation, certainly rian, Marshall, and Lismore — afl original without compulsion." The same author colony settlements or offshoots from them concludes, however, with the remark that, — now have both Catholic grade and high "Experience and statistics at length showed schools. In addition, Ghent, Minneota, that assumption to be too liberal." Even Fulda, Benson, and St. Kilian have paro after the turn of the century the Minnesota chial grade schools. It is important to re superintendent of public instruction could call, however, that most of these schools report to the legislature that "large num were established after 1900." bers of rural and vfllage children were out If means of transportation in Ireland's of school more than half of the time." " day had been comparable to modern facfl Thus Ireland's difficulties in maintaining ities, he might have had some success in Catholic boarding academies were not ex establishing parochial day schools. It is clusively Catholic problems nor were they abundantly clear, however, that the west limited to the western counties. They were ern parents of his day never favored send merely one phase of the general educational ing their children to boarding schools and effort in an era that antedated by a fufl probably looked with some disfavor on generation the widely accepted regulations schools of every kind. Children above the on compulsory education to which we have age of infancy were an essential part of the since become accustomed. Even with the labor force on western farms. Many parents help of such sanctions, however, it is un doubtless were firmly convinced that edu likely that Ireland's plan for boarding cation was an unnecessary luxury for fam schools would fare any better today, con ilies engaged in the hard work of breaking sidering the expense of the undertaking prairie sod and buflding up productive and the traditional attitude of rural dwell farms. ers toward such schools. Although he did The attitude of western frontier farmers finally succeed in establishing in the St. toward education has been described by Paul diocese a system of Catholic schools, one pioneer in his memoirs as follows: "Our from the elementary to the collegiate level, parents believed that primary schools comparable to that of any other diocese in taught much that children need not learn the United States, Ireland's dream of self- until later. That we might escape this forc supporting convents and boarding acad ing process we were taught at home during emies on large tracts of western lands never our early years, and thus we lived naturally materialized. for some time before being impounded with the other children of the town." Speaking THE INDEX for volume 34 of Minnesota His '° Reardon, Catholic Church in St. Paul, 676; inter tory, covering the eight issues published in 1954 view with Sister Grace Aurelia Greene of the congre and 1955, is now ready for distribution. Copies gation of St. Joseph in St. Paul, the first girl from will be sent to members and subscribers who ask Graceville to enter a religious order.' for them as long as the supply lasts. Requests " Reardon, Catholic Church in St. Paul. 628. "Seth K. Humphrey, Following the Prairie Fron should be addressed to Mrs. Phyllis Sandstrom, tier, 55 (Minneapolis, 1931); WiUiam W, Folwell, A care of the Minnesota Historical Society, St. History of Minnesota, 4:162, 164 (St, Paul, 1930), Paul 1.

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