Indiana Catholic History

An interesting historical note: On this day, March 7, 1835, Simon Brute became an American citizen. This is one of those things that you never think about, but from the time of his arrival in the United States in 1810, he had been a citizen of France.

Fr. Albert Ledoux, in his excellent dissertation on Brute

Brute formally embraced United States nationality almost a quarter century after first stepping foot onto a Baltimore pier. He appeared in Vincennes’ Knox County Circuit Court, 7 March 1835, and forevermore renounced “all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whatsoever, but particularly to Louis Philip, King of France.” Whatever antipathy he may have still felt toward the Orleanist monarch who had deposed the elder branch of his beloved Bourbons, Brute was far more likely motivated by considerations of United States civil law that in many states impeded a non-citizen’s right to hold substantial amounts of property. In fact, within two years, when worrying about the identity of his potential successor as bishop of Vincennes, one of Brute’s chief concerns lay in the fact that none of his principal candidates had been naturalized or had even made the first attempt at doing so.

Albert Henri Ledoux, “The Life and Thought of Simon Brute
Seminary Professor and Frontier Bishop” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 2005), 392

I think that sometimes, especially in this technologically advanced age, we forget how far back our history goes, and the important part that Indiana, and the Indiana Territory, played in the formation of this nation.

Sometimes people are surprised when they find out that, for example, the baptismal records at St. Francis Xavier go back to 1749. 261 years from the first “recorded” entry.

This week marks a few other milestones in Vincennes history. On February 24, 1779, Gen. George Rogers Clark and Governor Hamilton met in the old church at Vincennes (St. Francis Xavier), and they signed the treaty establishing the Northwest Territory as part of Virginia and later the US. Then, On the morning of February 25, 1779, Lieutenant Colonel George Rogers Clark, elder brother of explorer William Clark, accepted British Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton’s unconditional surrender of Fort Sackville at Vincennes, Indiana.

Despite a 1763 prohibition against settlement of Kentucky and points west, hundreds of colonists and their families drifted beyond the Appalachians. With the Revolutionary War under way, these pioneers were vulnerable to attack from both British and Native American forces.

Clark believed Hamilton rewarded Indians for raids on American settlements. With the support of Virginia’s Governor, Patrick Henry, Clark marshaled volunteers from among the frontiersmen and successfully attacked British outposts along the Mississippi River.

To capture Fort Sackville, Clark relied on his men’s expert marksmanship and a classic military bluff. Although he commanded a mere two hundred buckskin clad pioneers, Clark raised flags enough for a company of 600. Believing himself overwhelmed, Hamilton surrendered and was imprisoned at Williamsburg. The British never regained control of the fort.

Clark’s success was noted by Governor Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and General George Washington:

Sir: On the 4th Instant I had the Honor to receive your Letter of the 19th of June. Your Excellency will permit me to offer you my sincere congratulations upon your appointment to the Government of Virginia.

I thank you much for the accounts Your Excellency has been pleased to transmit me of the successes of Cols. Clarke and Shelby. They are important and interesting, and do great honor to the Officers and Men engaged in the Enterprises. I hope these successes will be followed by very happy consequences. If Colo Clarke could by any means gain possession of Detroit, it would in all probability effectually secure the friendship or at least the neutrality of most of the Western Indians.

Letter from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, July 10, 1779. The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress

Clark’s bold defense of the trans-Appalachian frontier during the Revolution frustrated British attempts to drive Americans out of the region and legitimized American claims to the Northwest Territory—land ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

On this day, February 23, 1901, Msgr. August Bessonies died…

Here is an article that appeared in the New York Times on that day:

Mgr. August Bessonies
INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 22.—The Right Rev. Mgr. August Bessonies died to-day at the residence of Bishop Chatard of the Catholic diocese of Indiana, where he had made his home for years. He was probably the best-known Catholic clergyman In the West. Born in France, June 17, 1815, he went to Vincennes, Ind, in 1839, at the instance of the first Bishop of Vincennes, who died the same year.
Mgr. Bessonies labored among the Indians In this State for ten years, was appointed Postmaster of Leopold, Perry County, under President Polk, and came to Indianapolis in 1857. He was Vicar General of the Diocese and in 1884 Pope Leo XIII named him Roman prelate. His diamond jubilee, or the sixtieth anniversary of his elevation to the priesthood, was celebrated here one year ago to-day by prominent clergymen from all parts of the country.
Father Bessonies was the best-loved and most widely revered man in Indiana. Ex-President Harrison said of him to-day:
“I had Known Father Bessonies for many years. He was the very earliest representative of the Catholic clergy in the meetings and work of the Benevolent Society, where I used very often to meet him. He was a man of a very sympathetic nature and of liberal ideas. The result of all this was that he had warm friends in all the churches and outside the churches among our good people.

Published: February 23, 1901
Copyright © The New York Times

You can find more about Msgr. Bessonies in Chapter-30 of Alerding’s “History of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Vincennes“. You can also read this at the always excellent “Local Catholic Church and Family History“ published by Ann Mensch. She has the complete text.

Today is the 171st anniversary of the death of Benjamin Marie Petit, Saint to the Pottawatomi Indians. I simply repeat what I wrote last year because it bears repeating…

Today marks the death of Fr. Benjamin Marie Petit, the young Breton priest who came to the United States with Bishop Brute in June of 1836 to serve the Church in the missionary territory of Indiana.

Petit had been trained in his native France as a lawyer, having graduated from the University of Rennes (Brute’s home town) in 1832. He spent three years practicing law and then entered the seminary at St. Sulpice. In April of 1836 he wrote to his mother and told her that he was going to join Bishop Brute in Indiana. His family protested, apparently because of this fragile health. However, Petit insisted, and he left France in June and arrived in New York on July 21, 1836. He was then sent on to Vincennes.

By the end of the year he had received Minor Orders and then in September of 1837 he was ordained a Deacon and on October 14, 1837 he was ordained a priest at Vincennes by Bishop Brute.

His wish had always been to serve the Indians and with the death of Father Louis DeSeille, his wish had been granted.

You can read more on Fr. Petit as well as other “Indiana Saints” by going to Indiana Saints

Finally, let me say that although his words sound, perhaps, overly pious in this day and age, Petit, in a letter to his mother, dated October 15, 1837, just one day after his ordination, said:

“I am now a priest, and the hand that is writing to you bore Jesus Christ this morning! How can I express to you all that I should like to say, and yet, how can I not wish to say something of what no tongue can express? …When I think that in two days I shall start from here all alone, going nearly three hundred miles to bestow sacraments — graces ratified in heaven — among people whom I do not know at all, but to whom God sends me–I tremble at the though of my nothingness. …How deeply to I feel myself penetrated by St. Paul’s thought, that God loves to accomplish great things by using that which is nothing…”

Certainly, this man is a Saint…

It probably means very little to most people, but being serious about “Keeping the memory alive of those who have gone before us… for me, also means “keeping track” of them as well.

I’ve written previously about Father Louis Nicholas Petit S.J. the Jesuit who was born in Haiti, served on the faculty at St. Mary’s in Kentucky, as well as at the Cathedral in Vincnennes, and the man who was Bishop Simon Bruté’s first choice to succeed him as Bishop of Vincennes.

The Superior General of the Society of Jesus stubbornly refused to allow Fr. Petit to be considered for Coadjutor of Vincennes. His reasoning had much to do with the shortages of Jesuits.

Gilbert Garraghan wrote:

Bishop Brute of Vincennes made repeated efforts to obtain a Jesuit for his coadjutor, having proposed to Rome in this connection the name of Father Nicholas Petit of St Mary’s College, Kentucky. “I give up,” he wrote to Father Roothaan, [The Jesuit Superior] “my prolonged and useless efforts to obtain a coadjutor from your Society”

That appointment was obviously never to be. Fr. Petit went to New York after the Jesuits gave up St. Mary’s in Kentucky, and eventually he ended up in St. Joseph’s Parish in Troy, New York. It was there that he died of February 1, 1855. He was buried in the church yard. That burial place was virtually unknown until now.

Here is a photo of Fr. Petit’s stone: [Thanks to Deacon Charles Wojton of St. Joseph's Parish]