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— Griffin's Dournal.
VOL. XXII.
GRIPES POPRIEAR
MARTIN I. J. GRIFFIN,
711 Sansom STREET,
PHILADELPHIA,
Devoted to
Church and Country.
TERMS:
$0Ceuts a Yoar in advance.
TRUTH AND PURIIY.
In his ‘* Apologia” the late Cardinal
Newman made a remark that is full of
suggestion for those who have the train-
ing of the young in Catholic schools.
Speaking of the different attitudes of
mind respectively of Catholic and Pro-
testants in regard to morality he ex-
pressed it as his opinion that Catholics
lay more stress on purity than Protest-
ants, and that, on the other hand, Pro-
testants seem ti 8
necessity of being truthful than do Cath-
olics, Of course he is discussing the two
in the average, without paying attention
to exceptional manifestations on either
side.— Catholic Review.
The Journal, you know, has often
pointed out thesame ‘attitude of mind”
_ of Catholics towards Truth,
Observe every day life. Take the
Protestant and Catholics you deal with
or come in association with. Don’t you
find the Protestant business man gener-
ally more exact in his ianguage and
oftener to be relied on as to strictness to
Truth ? Don’t you find that same man
less exacting as to what is against purity
though pure himself ? Haven't you ?
_ PAY THE PRICE.
Do you ever think about paying your
subscription to this JOURNAL ?
I know some don’t pay, but I’d like to
know if they ever thiuk about doing it.
JouRNAL space is too valuable, It
can be used to better advantage than in
asking subscribers to pay.
Don’t you think that if you supplied
the ammunition that I[ could fig .t for
Right more resolutely ? Then you
would have a hand in the battling. Do
you stand by and let me get the knocks ?
Don’t do that ? Pay your score and
see the fun go on with your money,
Send in the stamps —even postage stamps,
ee
THE WORST FORM OF WRONG.
In view of the enormous waste of pro-
tracvable to the liquor traffic, the apclog-
ist tor this curse of alcoholic poison
represents the concentrated essence and
embodiment of wicaedness, To assist in
or offer any excuse for the continuance
of this vile business is rank treachery to
our families, an injury to the industries
of the nation, destruction to virtue and
religion, and
oppression ; but, further, the legal sanc-
tion of an alluring, intoxicating, poisou-
ous beverage furnishes the basic elements
of all criminality, aud is the most heinous,
dastardly lustration of buman_ selish-
ness that is posslbJe to have inilicted on
the community for certainly uc means
nor method tocheat and mislead the
people into dangerous, vicious habits is
So #ffective as making it easy to obtain
alluring, intoxicating beverages. And,
worst of all, the license is given with a
hypocritical pretense of restriction, to
mislead the unwary !—brom * License
the culmination of Wrong and Injury,”
in Denorest’s Magazine for Februury.
——_—_—_- — .
The great question of the future is
money against legislation. My friends,
you and I shall be in our graves long be-
tore that battle is ended ; and unless our
Rich men
die, but banks ate immortal, and sail-
road corporations never bave aby disease,
In the long run, with legislatures they
ale sure
1871.
win.”— Wendell Phillips
PHILADELPHIA APRIL, 1895.
THE LAST OF THE BARONS.
: BY
Ricnarp R. ELuorr.
The city of Detroit stands unique in American history, side by side
with New Orleans for its dynastic changes, and for its varied national
control, - .
First, it was founded by Frenchmen and ruled by France through her
colonial representatives in Canada,
econd, it passed under the rule of England after the Conquest of
Canada, Third, it became an out post of the United States. Fourth, it
was again taken possession of by the British,
Fifth, in the order of its political control, it was restored to the
American Republic, whose flag has since dominated its territory.
During these governmental changes the French régime lasted about
sixty years ; the Eoglish occupation during the first period about forty
years, the American about fifteen years, until the war of 1812, when the
English were again in possession for a year or more, until the English
soldiers, with their tory and Indiaa allies, were finally relegated to the south
side of the strait, within the dominion of Canada.
~The soil now covered by Detroit, and above and below its present
limits, had been wostly occupied by French colonists, dating from 1701,
These settlers were the pick and choice of the Frenchmen who came
during the seigneurial jurisdiction of la Mothe Cadillac and subsequently,
They found the land so fertile,the climate so congenial, and the market
for their products so good, that they founded families anfl homes and thrived
aad increased.—
This was prior to 1740,
The Colonial Government of New France, under instructions from its
home government, which had learned the importance of Detroit as a post,
and its value as a colony, encouraged the immigration of agriculturists and
artisans by substantial inducements, and consequently a large number of
indigenous Canadians came from the vicinity of the St. Lawrence and es-
tablished new homes on the banks of the Detroit, and this immigration
continued until the cession by France of her vast empire in the New World
to England, subsequent to the fall of Montcalm. .
When the British flag finally replaced the lilied standard of France,
there were about fourteen hundred souls in Detroit, exclusive of soldiers,
government officials, coureurs de bois, and transients. Tbe French officials,
those who had been acting under the authority of the Colonial Government
at Quebec, together with the resident factors of some {wealthy Canadian
merchants, returned to Canada with their families,
Those who thus returned had been congenial in religion, they spoke the
same language, they were accustomed to the ways and usages cf the oc-
cupants of the soil, and they had lived in harmony with them, .
Far different were their new political rulers destined to -be.
But no Frenchman without courage and endurance would have braved
the perils surrounding the expeditionary settlement of Detroit, nor could
any of the Canadians who subsequently came as Colonists, be induced to
leave their friends and homes in Canada, and with their wives and children
make the long and tedious journey from the St. Lawrence to the Detroit,
so far from their parental homes, and settle down into new homes on its
‘+ forest lined shores,’’ unless they were endowea with the same courage
and with the same determined perseverance which bad characterized the
original colonists.
Toe French settlers remained and the tenure of their holdings was not
disturbed, > . .
It_was the second generation of the original colonists, and the hardy
pioneers of the last decade of the French régime, wno had to face the foes
of their religion, the conquerors of New France, and the enemies of the'r
Fatherland.
: . The British were rough in manner, they were alien in language, un-
familiar with the amenities of social intercourse which existed at the time
with all the bonhomie of a Gallic heritage, as well as with the usages and
customs of the people ; while in their owa country, the Catholic religion.
which was professed by all the residents of the vost and dependencies, was
roscribed, and its practice interdicted by outrageous laws, with penalties
of the gibbet, ** hanging and quartering,’’—enforced, be it said to the shame
of the English name. with inbuman barbarity.
_ _ But the British ruled just the same a3 at the same period they ruled
in Ireland, in India. and other countries which had unfortunately fallen
under thei political control, with but stight consequences for the worse to
the conquered race on the Detroit.
‘heir rule wes endured patiently ; but there wag no law nor any sem-
blance of legal government ; the dictum of the commanding officer uf the
post, during 40 years, whether he was lieutenant, captain, major, or colonel,
answered for courts, judges, or legal tribunals, and was supreme, *
This system of government, however, had become a necessity on the
lake frontier ; 1t was not the French inhabitants who required to be govern-
ed by a military power such a system was absolutely necessary at the time
to contro! the English and Scotch Indian tradeis, who swarmed on this
frontier, and whose dishonest und indecent treatment of the Indian people,
domiciled in the vicinity of the post of Detroit, had become a menace to the
peace existing between the Indians and the British, and a scandal almost
snd rpally, after the American revolution, b
Finally, al a ion, i
elapsed, the British surrenuered their claim'to the dow aice renal years had
shore of the Strait, and their military rule came to an end.
But their successors who came under the authority of the Federal Gov-
ernment at Washing.ou, were as opposite in their religious beliefs as had
ms of the people, and cectainly more prejudiced against them than
their British predecessors ; tiey were, however, clothed with judicial fune-
tions and they :e-established civil goverament. which had been Suspended
under British rule for nearly half a century. [t¢ is dificult to understand
how so intelligent, so liberal, and so democratiea statesman as was Thomas
Jefferson, could have committed the political bluuder he did, in sending to
Detroit the alien, the anti-Catholic, the men ignerant of the French Japgu-
age, »nd the incompeteuts he sent to govern the patriotic and anti Bricish
French race domiciled in Detroit and vicinity, when so many more able
and jntelligent men weve available in Detroit at the time. It is au incident
in American history—repeated after the war of the Southecn Rebellion, by
ihe ** carpet baggers,”’ sent to pester the people of the Southern States, .
In the meantime the greater part of the eighteenth century had
away. For nearly one bundred years the French race had occupied the soil
where the cily of Detroit bas since been built,
ow about their religiou, their language, their education, and the
peculiar manners and customs of their forefathers ?
All these attribates of their race differing so essentially from those of
the British and American races, they had retained, Especially haa they
cherished their religion, the practice of which they had unmolested enjoyed
by virtue of treaty stipulations since the Conquest of Canada ; and during
nearly the entire century they had been blessed with the priestly winistra-
tions of the Recollect Fathers of the Franciscan Order, whose place was in
later years filled by eminent. ecclesiastics from Quebec, whose venerable
bishops were accustomed t» extend their diocesan visitations to this far dis-
tant portion of their spiritual charge, at the time comprising the parochial
organizations of Sie. Anne, the Mother Church of the northwest, and her
sister establishment on the south side of the strait, the Assumption Parish
at Sandwich.
So that during all the eighteenth century, the Angelus bell had greeted
the ears of the Christian people domiciled on both shores of the Detroit.
Detroit continued to wear more or less of the appearance of a Gallic
town, notwithstanding the entire destruction of the original town by fire in
805, until 1830, when the first ripple of the tide of immigration from New
York and the New England States, and from Europe, bubbled upon its
sbores ; waves soon succeeded ripples in this tide, increasing in extent
rapidly,
At that time, generally speaking, outside most of the eastern cities,
“mills and factories were operated by water power, obtained from streams
or waterways near by ; Detroit had no water power advantages to attract
capitalists, but it was the metropolis of Michigan, which possesssd within
r borders all the natural advantages enjoyed by the older States, and with
asoil which ooly awaited the labor of the bhusbindman to yield unusually
rich harvests, The products of the interiorsvon reached Detroit and were
disposed of or forwazded to eastern markets ; while nearly all the principal
portion of the commodities necessary for ti use of the people of the in-
terior of Michigan were supplied from the metropolitan city.
aring the initial years of the immigration period, there remained in
Detroit, a considerable number of the moving elements composing the
tide ; these communicating with their friends in the east or abroad in
Europe, attracted the latter to Detroit, where they made their homes.
me in suck considerable numbers,thatthe population increased
rapidly and apparently with a more intelligent and a more superiur class
of men and of women than those who had extended their wanderings fur-
tber west. It was thus that the foundation of American Detroit was
formed, a fine city whose population in 1395 exceeds 250,000 souls—forty
per cent, of whom are of the Catholic faith, planted by a Recollect monk
in 1701,
But how about the original white occupants of the soil ? What in the
meantime had become of the French race
It has been already stated that during the eighteenth century the most
prominent attribute of this race of hardy pioneers, their religioa, had been
cared for by the episcopal authorities of Quebec. When the fiual cession of
the north shore of the Detroit by the British brought the territory under
the political rule of-the Federal Government. the religious rule of the
Catholic inhabitants was assumed by the American hierarchy, represented
by Archbishop Carroll, subsequently, but at the time bishop over al! the
territory comprising the Federal Union ; priests under tie jarisdiction of
Baltimore replaced those subject to the Bishop of Qiebec in 1795.
The first Catholic Church in Detroit was dedicated to Ste. Anne in
1701 ; its first pastor, the saintly father Delballe, was killed by an [ndian’s
bullet in 1706; the original church was destroyed for strategic reasons dur-
ing Indian hostilities, and its fourth successor was consecrated by the
Bisbop of Quebec in 1755, which, after half a century’s use, was destroyed
in the great fire of 1805.
e Ste. Anne’s of nearly all the nineteenth century, was built by
Father Gabriel Richard, and Divine service was first held in its basement
in 1820. Its eminent pastor and builder fell a victim to his devotion to
his flock, ducing the scourge of Asiatic cholera in 1832. His success or was
the pious, venerable and accomplished, Father Francis Vincent Badin, who
had been Father Richard’s assistant, and who assumed vicarial contro}.
In 1833—sixty two years ago, Detroit was created a Catholic diocese,
Dr. Frederic Résé was appointed i:s first bishop, and from the epoch of the
advent of this distinguished prelate, commenced the growth and expansion
of a Catholic population, d.fferent in race, in language, and in
from the indigenous French race, but bound
cities in the West.
Detroit, in the meantime, having for more than half a century been a
suffragan of Cincinnati, has acquired probably greater religious importance
than the titular cities of the Archiepiscopal Sees of Cincinnati and of Mil-
waukee ; but it is probable that during the present year it will be relewsed
from the control of Cincinnati, and created an arch-diocese—which its
geographical position, its population, and its religious importance ought to
have secured for it when Milwaukee was elevated to archiepiscopal rank.
At the accession of Bishop Rési among the Franco-American community,
when this event occurred, were the direct heirs in the male line, rnheriting
the Iands held by their ancestors during the French régime and confirmed
to their representatives by the American Government.
se ‘* grants”? were invariably located on the shores of the Detroit,
on both sides ; and on the American side from the River Raisin, the River
uge, and from the site of the present city along the shores of the Ste.
Claire, lake and river. .
‘Lhe farms were not wide, but as a rule they extended back about three
miles from the shore. *
It is of the inheritors of these ‘‘ French grants,” as they were called,
who ut the epoch around which were cluste: the events and circum.
stances of Father Ri hard's times and of the initial years of Detroiv’s first
Bishop, who-e ancestral domains were located along the strait between the
Rouge and Lake Ste. Claire, that 1 am about to write, They were the
haut monde of the Catholic community.
No city in the United States at the time, not even Baltimore excepted,
pos ed so remarkable a group of Catholic gentlemen, indigenous to the
soil of tue city in which and near which they lived, and presenting as this
group did, such an unbroken record of faithful adberance to the faith their
ancestors had professed.
It is due to their memory, linked as it is in the historic cbain of the
romantic, the tragic, and the dramatic events which distinguished the com-
ing of their ancestors, and which marked the history of Detroit and vicinity
during the lifetime of their immediate predecessors, that the names of these
gentlemen be placed on record to illustrate the local Catholic history of
Detroit, which is so remarkable for eventful happenings from the advent of
the martyr Recollect, Delhallein 1701,to the death of the martyr Sulpitian,
Father Gabriel Richard, in 1832,
I shall take the liberty to call these gentlemen ** The Last of the
Barons” ; not one of them, to my personal knowledge, however, ever laid
claim to such a title, plain and unassuming as they were; but it baronial
dignity and right follow baronial domain in some n nations, and
were such admissible under Federal law, these gentlemen were entitled to
Continued on the Fourth page,
NO. 395