MAIN  PAGE

Belgians in the Civil War

Emigrants arrival

links

Sources

BELGIANS IN SOUTHERN OHIO :    Biographies of Belgian families 

The Catholic Missions and Perry County
 

Julian Benoît  Born in France in 1808, Julian Benoit entered the seminary at age 17. Benoit began teaching as a deacon at age 21 and within a few years he became a professor at the Grand Seminary at Lyons, France. In 1835, Benoit met Bishop Simon Brute from Vincennes, who had come to Lyons in the hopes of attracting young priests to the challenges of the American frontier. Benoit spent his first year in America studying English in Baltimore at St. Mary’s Seminary. He was ordained in 1837 and was sent by Brute via the Ohio River to minister to southern Indiana and then to canal towns near Chicago. Benoit came to Fort Wayne in 1840.  Fr. Benoit died in January 1885, after serving Fort Wayne for 44 years, and was buried in the Cathedral in the diocese that he had helped to found and grow. Auguste Bessonies 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. Joseph Kundek  Born 24 August, 1810, in Ivanich, Croatia. His father died when he was one year of age. In seminary he learned German, French and English. He was accepted into the Diocese of Vincennes by Bishop Rt. Rev. Simon Gabriel Brute. In 1838 he was sent to Jasper, Indiana, where he founded St. Joseph's Catholic Church. In 1840 he founded Ferdinand; in 1843 he founded Celestine, Ind. and 1847 he founded St. Pius in Troy, Indiana, and Fulda, Indiana, in 1848.	The Perry County which would welcome the settlers of our Semois valley, along the Ohio in southern Indiana, was organized in 1814 and was named by its first inhabitants in honor of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. Its occupation by our Belgians is linked to the Catholic missions in the United States, located in the region of French origin around Vincennes. The first Catholic Church in Vincennes was established in 1749, the church was rebuilt four times and the current church saw the beginning of its construction in 1826. But the end of French rule and the expulsion of the Jesuits in New Orleans, expelled by the King of Spain in 1763, ended the Catholic presence in the North-West territory. With American independence and the coming back of freedom of worship, Catholic missions would settle again. The establishment of Catholic missions in the west of the Alleghenies was made ​​from Bardstown, Kentucky, city created mainly by English and Irish Catholics of Maryland. The first missionaries settled  in the area in 1787 and the Diocese of Bardstown was established in 1808, along with those of Boston, New York and Philadelphia. The Diocese of Bardstown included almost the entire territory of Northwest and extended north to south from Detroit to New Orleans, and it was only inl 1841 that the episcopal seat was transferred to Louisville, which supplanted Bardstown in the region.    Father Benedict Joseph Flaget, pastor of Vincennes in 1792, was the first bishop and it was the man who established the first Catholic mission of Perry County, Rome and Derby. In 1810, the church - " St Mary of the River- " was created in Derby and the first itinerant priest, Stephen Theodore Badin, was assigned to it. For twenty years, he and other itinerant priests roamed the area, visiting the few Catholic settlers in the County and providing them them the Word of God. Among them was Charles Nerinckx, a Belgian, who visited the County from 1811 to 1818. As the population of all this territory was constantly increasing, the new diocese was separated into several parts. In 1821, Indiana and Illinois alone remained under the jurisdiction of Bardstown. In 1830, Indiana had 20,000 Catholics in 1834, the diocese of Vincennes was established, Father Simon Brute de Rémur becoming its first bishop. The Indiana priests then took over and Rev. Julian Benoit was appointed the first diocesan priest of Perry County. He established several mission at some distance from Derby: - "Troy- " 15 miles to the west, - "Cassidy- " 8.5 miles northwest, - "Mt Pleasant- " 8 miles northeast and - "The Chapel- " 6 miles northwest.   Julian Benoit was ordained priest soon after arriving in the United States and one of its first tasks was to visit the Perry County with Father Brute. They arrived in September 1837 and met there about 60 Catholic families, mostly from Kentucky, dispersed in the County. Father Benoit moved to Derby and established a circuit between its four missions, where he could more easily meet these families. It is the mission of - "the Chapel- " that would accommodate our Belgian emigrants but the first settler it is said, who moved with his wife Mary in southern Indiana, was John M. Courcier, a frenchman, veteran of the war of 1812 (served under Captain Myer's Co, Ist Maryland), who came from Kentucky and received land bounty in Perry County during demobilization. The site of - "the Chapel- " was purchased by Father Benoit with funds loaned by Father Brute, who built a wooden church. The site, owned by the Church, became the center of evangelization in the County. At - "La Chapelle- ", father Bessonies met the first French immigrants who settled there: Peter and Catherine Jubin, there since 1820, John Courcier, Hiram and Ruth Sweat since 1829, Nicolas and Anne Claudel, in Indiana since 1837. Father Bessonies cleared the ground around - "La Chapelle- ", planted some corn for himself and his horse, and visited his parishioners, fifteen families scattered in the area.   Note: John Courcier was a Private, 1st Regiment Artillery, Maryland Militia, during the 1812 War. He was born in Bordeaux, France about 1787. He married Mary Redgrave, born in Maryland, on January 16, 1813 and died June 30, 1852. John Cassidy was born in 1777 in Pennsylvania, from Irish parents; he died on January 2, 1850. The Alvey family also came from Maryland.   But - "the Chapel- " was a very isolated place and the first Catholic family was more than a mile from the church. - "The Chapel- " was a two-storey building of 20 by 30 feet with two rooms on the ground floor for the priest, the church itself being located upstairs. It is said that the staircase was so steep that one day one of the parishioners, two or three steps from the top, slipped and dragged down the stairs all those who followed him, all ending up piled at the foot of the stairs. The legend also tells that during these early years, Father Benoit visiting - "the Chapel- ", during a severe drought, noted a place that seemed more humid than the surrounding ground, he dug the earth both hands and appeared water. It seems that the well that was dug by the villagers never dries up and it was still used in the thirties, experienced as the - "Bishop Well- ". In 1840, Father Benoit moved to - "the Chapel- " and tried to attract settlers by writing to friends in France, Belgium and Germany, explaining that - "good land can be purchased for $ 1.25 the acre and the father speaks their language - " At the beginning, the cause of the emigration of the Belgians from the Semois valley, would be the fact that father Benoit, seeing himself very isolated at - "La Chapelle- " decided with another father, Father Joseph Kundek, from the neighboring county of Dubois, that the best way to protect and advance the Catholic faith in southern Indiana, was to entice Catholic immigrants in coming to their church, take root and grow so to resist other doctrines (ie the Protestant churches) already represented in Indiana. To do this he would have written to his friends and acquaintances in Europe! But that spring, father Benoit was sent to Fort Wayne and was replaced by Father Auguste Bessonies. So, the development of the colony at “La Chapelle” would be the fact of  Auguste Bessonies. To get there, Father Bessonies had been instructed to go first to Jasper, Dubois County , where he could meet Father Kundek that would give him more information on how to join - " La Chapelle - " . It would be then that Father Kundek expressed his views on the contribution of migrants to strengthen the presence of the Catholic Church. Father Kundek also told him that the father Benoit, who received his new assignment in Fort Wayne, had left the parish in the morning to reach Vincennes. In his memoirs, the Father Bessonies says that to find Father Benoit - "somewhere in the forests of Perry County , about twenty miles from Rome- " Father Kundek lent him a very devout Indian pony, probably because it often fell on the knees. Having been lost in the forest, Father Bessonies still managed to reach - " Cassidy settlement- " where the family of John Cassidy lived. The next morning, he went his way and reached the house of Jack Alvey where he was told he was a little less than 10 miles from his goal. Continuing his road riding for three hours , he arrived at the house of Thomas Alvey, where he learned that he was still about 10 km from - " La Chapelle - " and only 1 km from the house of Jack Alvey. Thomas Alvey gave him a good meal, nursed his horse and sent his son with F father Bessonies to drive him safely home.   Between 1840 and 1852, father Bessonies worked on the missions of Perry County: Leopold, Rome, Derby, Cassidy's Settlement, Cannelton, Little Oil Creek and Troy. After one year back in France, he was sent to Fort Wayne, next to Jeffersonville and finally to Indianapolis in 1857. During the Civil War, he tried to help the southern prisoners near Indianapolis and received the help of the Sisters of Providence to clean the sick quarters and nurse the sick. He is buried in the church of St. John the Evangelist in Indianapolis, Indiana. --- According to the sources consulted, the roles of Fathers Kundek, Benoit and Bessonies are quite different. It was impossible to find a clear evidence of the role of each of them. What is said here is an amalgam of the available texts. The only proven fact and recorded in local archives is , in any case , as we shall see later , the purchase of 40 acres of land at $ 1.25 per acre , by Father Bessonies all around - " The chapel - ", to build a city. The arrival of the first families moving to Leopold is dated 1842, as evidenced by the ships arrived at the port of New Orleans that year. The Courcier family, for some time in Perry County, could also be the cause of this emigration and father Benoit served as relay ... or the contrary. In the absence of more specific sources that may exist but I do not know, it is very difficult to decide.