fHE STORY OF ST. PATRICK'S PARISH SHIELDSVILLE, MINNESOTA By MARYL. HAGERTY Si. l'arricl(.c Cl1!1rcl, ,rnd 1/,c p,1.,tor. Nci-. f. / . .1/oll o)', in honor o/ ,,-!,we golden j11hilcc in //,e pri,·.ctlwud 1/1i.c hooi( i., publi.di<'d. To the Pioneers of St. Patrick's Parish, Shieldsville, who vitalized their own time, this book is fondly dedicated. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We dare not hope that this work is without mistake. A few unpleasant incidents are forgotten, so be it. Our sources of information are, Histories of Rice County by F. W. Frink and Edward D. Niel, the newspaper files from the Faribault library, Church records, family records, and Land Office Rec­ ords. Thanks are due to Father Molloy for the church records, to Miss Sarah LeCrone for her valuable assistance at the library and to Miss Thelma Olson for her help in working out the details of this book. Miss Teresa Sullivan and Miss Rose Shields, officers of the Shieldsville Rosary Society, very graciously co-operated in preparing this work for the publishers. "Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land.' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark hint well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power and self, The wretch, concentered all in self, Living shall forfeit fair renown, And doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored and unsung.'' Srn \VALTER Scon in Lay of the Last Minstrel. PREFACE This book is dedicated to the memory of those great brave men and women who builded the parish of St. Patrick. Their tombstones standing in our cemetery cannot do more than re­ mind us that once they were and died in the odor of sanctity. Their full story of good deeds has to be remembered with grati­ tude and reverence by their children. How well we know how history has often been distorted - we see how the historians give the honor of I st Admiral of the Navy to Paul Jones and not to Jack Barry. This book fills a much needed want in the history of this parish and community. A true account of the pioneers and their works, written by a granddaughter of one of them - exaggerating nothing, withholding nothing of the praise that was their due. Every parish is resurrecting the work of its pioneers so that their memory for God and Country may be perpetuated. Let not their memory be forgotten! Here is a monument to their good works more vital and enduring than cold marble, or bronze, or granite; a living monument inspiring us, their suc­ cessors to be as generous, and brave, and devout as were they. May God bless this book and rest the souls of those in whose memory it was written! "In memoria aetena erunt Justi." REV. J. J. MoLLOY Shieldsville, Minnesota. October 7, 1940. CONTENTS PAGE General Shields . 9 Irishmen Arrive . 1 o The Big Wind. 1 1 Lakes ................................................. 12 Chivalry . 1 3 Those Irish Names ...................................... 13 St. Patrick's Church. 1 5 The Early Priests of Shieldsville. 16 Captain Dodd ...... , . 2 3 The Indians . 2 5 Business 1856-1885 ..................................... 26 United States Mail. 28 Rice County . 28 Townships . 29 Schools ............................................... 30 A Walk Through Shieldsville in the Long Ago. 33 Villages Ordinances . 33 To Our Grandmas ...................................... 37 When Someone Took Sick ............................... 38 The Woman of Quiet Dignity. 39 The Monster in Lake Mazaska. 40 The Robber Gang ...................................... 41 Our Civil War Veterans. 41 Father Slevin . 42 Father Flemming . 46 Father Molloy ......................................... 47 Father Dudley ......................................... 49 Description of St. Patrick's Church. 50 Father Buckley ........................................ 55 PAGE Entertainment ...................................... • • • 55 News Items . 57 A Few Weddings You May Remember .................... 59 Blizzard of 1888 ........................................ 60 Deaths . 62 Dan Patch Airline ....................................... 63 Our Odd Ways ......................................... 63 The Rosary Society. 64 Music ................................................. 65 The Choir . 67 Drama ................................................ 67 The Fairies ............................................ 68 Do You Mind the Time?. 69 Can You Identify This Monologue ........................ 73 St. Louis Church, Wheatland. 74 Psalm of Life. 76 Biographies ............................................ 77 Det Siste Kapitel ....................................... 169 Contributors and Collectors .............................. no GENERAL SHIELDS James Shields was born in Atmore, Tyrone County, Ireland, December 12, 18w. He came to America in 1826, studied and practiced law in Kaskaskia, Illinois. In 1836 he went to the legis­ lature of Illinois. In 1843 he was judge in the Supreme Court; in 1845 he was appointed commissioner in the Land Office. He be­ gan a military career in the Florida War as a lieutenant. In the Mexican War, President Polk made him a Brigadier General. For distinguished service at Cerro Gordo, where he was dangerously wounded, he was brevetted Major General. He was again wounded at Chepultepec. In 1848 he was appointed governor of Oregon Territory. He resigned and was elected United States senator from Illinois for six years. Then he came to Minnesota. He pur­ chased an interest in the town site of Faribault, and became the agent and attorney for the Faribault Company. Some political disappointment in Faribault made him get a team of horses and a carriage, and drive out ten miles to a little settle­ ment on the Dodd road in search of a new place to invest his money. The Dodd road was a military highway, between Fort Snelling and Fort Ridgely, and promised to be the main artery of travel. The nearest railroad was at Galena, Illinois. The first rail­ road came to Faribault in 1864. General Shields bought the N. E. ¼ of section 1, township 1 w North, Range 22, W. from Moses Latourelle, a half-breed Indian, for $500 in 1855. He sold shares in the town to John Tufts, R. W. Russ, F. W. Frink, and John B. Onstine. They laid out the town, and the streets running north and south beginning with \Vater Street, west of the church are: Water Street, Church Street, Cedar Street, Chestnut Street, Broadway, Walnut Street, Onstine Street, Slocum Street, Hickory Street, Pine Street, and Oak Street. The avenues were numbered. First Avenue is the Erin township line and there are eleven avenues. General Shields then went to St. Paul, and returned with Jere­ miah Healy, James Clarkin, Syl Smith, John Burke, James Cum- ( 9 J mings, John McManus and Owen Farley, all of whom settled in Erin. He then advertised in the papers in the East, and soon the Irish crowded in, with horses, oxen and cow teams and with some on foot, taking farms until by the fall of 1856 the township was well filled and the better quality farms all taken. F. W. Frink, who owned a fifth interest in the town, claims he made and lost a fortune in Shieldsville. General Shields lived in Rice county about three years. He was elected United States senator from Minnesota for the short term which ended in 1 860. At that time he went to California. He received an appointment as Brigadier General from President Lincoln, was assigned a command, and gained a victory March 23, 1862, at Winchester, where he was severely wounded. He had the distinction of being the only man who ever whipped Stonewell Jackson. In 1865 he went to live in Missouri, and in 1877 was elected to fill a vacancy in the senate, where he served until the end of that congress. He died rather suddenly June 1, 1879, at Ottumwa, Missouri. There are statues in his honor in the capitols at Springfield, Illinois, and St. Paul, Minnesota. A senator from three states, a governor of another state, a state supreme court judge, and a brigadier general. IRISHMEN ARRIVE In the years 1855-1860 two hundred and fifteen Irishmen pre­ empted farms in St. Patrick's parish, in the four townships of Shieldsville, Erin, Wells, and Forest. This does not include the village men. Many were married and had a few small children with them; the others soon got married, and their progeny carry on on the same farms today. Too much praise cannot be given those brave people. They had a fine unbreakable moral fiber, which is still discernable in the sons of the pioneers. When they were right, they knew they were right, and kings or insects could not stop an idea once it got started. They had an unconscious faculty for making those who did not speak their language look like mist before the summer sun, and at times the language was none too elegant. They knew little or nothing about farming; they had no work­ ing capital, but they had willing hands and a great deal of pride. [ 10 J They had crop failures, droughts, high interest rates, grasshop­ pers, Indians, and plagues like the diphtheria epidemic in 1872. Whole families died with it. Tuberculosis took scores of people, but the stout-hearted Irish remained undaunted. Through the years of discouragement they kept their courage bright. They had no roads, telephones, electricity, radios, rural mail delivery, daily papers, milking machines, or permanent waves. Why, they didn't even have springs on their beds, and the mat­ tresses were made of straw or com husks. There was no such word among them as plumbing! And we talk of hard times! A good fight now and then has its virtue; like thunder and lightning, it clears the air. "Peace at any price" was no slogan in Shieldsville. There was always something to argue about.