Letter XXXIV.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRECIS HISTORIQUES, BRUSSELS.
Missions of Kentucky.
REVEREND FATHER:
I inclose a copy of a letter to my nephew, Charles De Smet, advocate at Antwerp.
DEAR CHARLES:
I received your kind letter and read it with inexpressible pleasure and great consolation. I seize my first leisure moments to satisfy your request by giving you some ideas of America, and of Kentucky where I now am, and most of which I have seen.
The United States would be truly the wonder of the world, if the moral state of the country corresponded to the marvellous development of its material resources, to its ever-increasing population, its immense territory, and increasing commerce. Hardly seventy years since, all the country west of the Alleghany mountains, a region now so thickly settled, was but a vast wilderness, traversed here and there by a few feeble Indian tribes, decimated by war and pestilence. On the waters of those rivers which irrigate the whole bosom of the continent, where hundreds of fine large steamers now dash along, full of passengers, loaded with goods, naught was then to be seen but the solitary canoe, cut from a tree, gliding clown the stream, or laboriously stemming its current with its little band of Indian warriors, with eagle or vulture plume, armed with bows or tomahawks. Now, along these waters rise, as if by enchantment, hundreds of cities and towns. On every side cultivated fields, farm-houses, and well-stored barns; on every side, herds of cattle and horses, browsing on the hill-side and the plain, once covered with forests. Railroads and macadamized roads lead to numberless colonies in the interior. English, Irish, German, French, emigrants from every European nation, have come hither in hopes of finding those comforts which they could not hope in their own densely-peopled lands.
It might be supposed that in a country which boasts of unexampled tolerance and liberty, the Catholic Church would be, if not protected, at least spared from persecution. But it is not so. A party, whose only principle is a hostility to the Faith, has several times been formed. Now it flourishes under the name of Know-nothing, and it might be termed, "the ignorant and brutal." One of their main objects is, to annihilate, if possible, our holy religion in the United States. It is a secret society, the members of which are bound by horrible oaths. It extends its branches over all parts of the Union. As a general thing, ministers of the different Protestant sects belong to it. Their fury has already been marked by the destruction of Catholic churches in several parts; by insults to priests and religious ; by laws passed in several States to seize or control the Catholic Church property, laws which they threaten to pass wherever they attain power.
Kentucky, of which I have promised you a description, evinces a more conservative and really free spirit than most of the other States. Its material prosperity, fertile soil, beautiful sites, natural curiosities, interesting history, make it one of those most favored by nature.
The name Kentucky, given to the country by the Indians, signified, according to some, a dark and-bloody ground, and was so called because in old times it was the battle-field of various tribes in their bloody wars.
Then vast herds of bison, elk, and deer roamed over the plains and prairies, covered with rich, long grass, studded with wild roses. No tribe resided here permanently. Every year, at the hunting-seasons, they came from all the country round to lay in their winter store. Here hostile tribes met hereditary feuds, envenomed from generation to generation, by reciprocal reprisals, brought on frequent engagements.
In 1769 the celebrated Daniel Boone, whose name seems to indicate a family of Belgian origin, advanced into the dark and bloody ground. This courageous man first planted his solitary cabin amid these vast forests, with no aid against the attack of the savages but his forecast, coolness, and bravery-. His adventures, which he made known during a trip to the settled parts of the Atlantic, drew around him many families from Maryland and Virginia. They formed two principal colonies, at a distance of fifteen wiles apart, and thus became the nucleus of the flourishing State of Kentucky, which now contains over a million of inhabitants.
For several years, till 1797, the settlers were exposed to frequent attacks from the Indians, who surprised their towns, burning and pillaging all that they found in their way. There is now no trace remaining of these hardy lords of the forest : the savage form, his shrill war-whoop, which once spread dismay through every plain and forest, are now as much unknown in Kentucky as in the countries of Europe. The Indians have been exterminated or repelled into the plains beyond the Missouri.
Meanwhile Boone, seeing the numbers of the civilized inhabitants increasing around him, soon began to perceive that the country was too full, that, the population was too dense ; he needed a new wilderness, a freer country. He accordingly retired with his family and flocks of domestic animals beyond the Mississippi, in a remote region, where white settlers had not yet penetrated. Here again lie found himself struggling alone against wild and uncultivated nature; against numerous hordes of sanguinary warriors, jealous of the encroachments of white settlers.
The State of Kentucky extends on the north along the Ohio over five hundred miles; it is separated from Missouri on the west by the 'Mississippi, and terminates on the east at the base of the Cumberland Mountains, which separate it from Virginia. The soil produces in abundance wheat, maize, tobacco, hemp, and most of the fruits of your latitudes. It abounds in picturesque sites. There is nothing more agreeable than a steamboat-trip down the Ohio, in the spring, along its banks, now frowning with rocks, now Stretching out into green fields of grain, with now wooded hills, where oaks of various kinds, poplar, beech, sycamore, wild vines, chestnut, and hickory, meet, mingle, cross, and interlace their thick brandies, presenting the grand and free aspect of unbroken forests. From time to time, amid this noble scenery, which won for the Ohio the name of la Belle Rivière, given to it by the early French explorers, new cities rise, as if by enchantment, and spread before you all the fruits of the active civilization of the most commercial cities of Europe.
The eastern pert of Kentucky and the banks of the Ohio possess rich mine,,. Immense strata of white stone, fit for building or malting lime, are found some feet below the surface, in almost all parts of the north. Near Lexington, the first city founded in Kentucky, mummies were discovered, resembling, it is said, those of Egypt. North of this city, on the banks of the Blue Lick, great quantities of bones have been found, among the most remarkable being those of the ancient mastodon or mammoth, an enormous animal, of a species now extinct; of the elephant, no longer seen in America; and of a kind of bison, unknown in our days.
Near our college of St. Joseph, at Bardstown, which I visited last April, the surface of the soil is covered with different kinds of petrifactions. There are found in that locality, in abundance, trilobites, terebratula, spirifer, etc. (I use the American geological names, as well as many others. Limestone is very abundant; it belongs generally to the class known in geology as the inferior calcareous of the second formation. It is intermingled with a great quantity of ferruginous particles, and the strata are so thick and colossal that they suffice in building whole cities.
At about sixty-six miles south of the college is the famous cavern, called, from its enormous dimensions, Mammoth Cave. It attracts thousands of visitors, who come from all parts of the United States to witness its wonders. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most extraordinary curiosities in the world, or rather, in the whole subterranean world, with its mountains, its precipices, its rivers, its rugged banks, its enormous domes, which seem like temples built by the hands of nature, and defying art to equal the boldness of its high and immense vaults, suspended without columns. The cavern has many galleries, or alleys, like the catacombs of Rome. Nobody would dare venture in without a guide ; lie would probably never find the entrance, on account of the countless windings of this natural labyrinth.
A remarkable evenness of temperature prevails in this cavern; the cold of winter scarcely penetrates it, and the heat of summer leaves a mild and moderate atmosphere.
To descend to it, you enter a chamber as sombre as the Tartarus of Virgil. No ray of sunlight enters it. Each bears a torch. This pale light adds to the sublimity of the place, especially when you find a chamber incrusted with stalactites. There the reflection of the torches seems to change the vaults and sides of the cavern into a continuous mass of precious stones. The principal gallery, which is ordinarily followed, leads to a distance of eleven miles under ground. Sometimes it expands, like the corridor of a palace ; sometimes the vault descends, so that you have to creep along, and it even forms a narrow passage, called "The fat-man's misery ;" elsewhere the passage expands into immense halls, with a vaulted roof three hundred feet high; then soon, stopping before a mountain of broken rock, or opening a precipice, it plunges into new depths, threatening to take you to the very centre of the earth. In these great halls, nature seems to have assumed, for their embellishment, the most fantastic forms, resembling objects of art, fields, vines, trees, statues, pillars, altars, forming as many stalactite sculptures, produced by the action of water, which, filtering for long centuries through the rocks, has formed all these marvellous works. While traversing the great gallery, you pass, at two different times, a deep and rapid river which flows in these parts; its source and mouth are both unknown. It contains white-fish and crabs, varieties of which are found in almost all our rivers, but which are here entirely destitute of eyes, and evidently created to live only in this subterranean river. There is one place where you have to row ten minutes before r reaching the opposite shore, because the river follows the f course of the gallery and makes it its bed. There is at this point a beautiful vault, perfectly arranged for prolonging and redoubling an echo. The Magnificat, chanted by a few voices, bad an effect which the most numerous chow and all the music of a cathedral could not produce, so much does the echo augment the volume and sweeten the harmony of sounds. The sublime silence of this spot, the torches reflected in the subterranean waters, the measured beat of the oars, the idea of a world suspended over your head, and so different from that where you are, all produce an indescribable impression on the soul.
Returning to the entrance of the cavern, you experience in summer an effect like that caused by a sea-voyage when you near the port; although you have been under ground only a part of a single day, you discern the odor of the plants and the flowers at a distance. The impressions produced by these subterranean wonders are so profound, that the sight of the verdure of the fields, the brilliant rays of the sun, the varied plumage of the birds warbling in the trees, impress you with the idea that you are entering a new world.
Let us return to St. Joseph's college. Bardstown, where it is situated, was the first Episcopal See erected west of the Alleghany mountains. Thence Bishop Flaget, the first bishop, governed his immense diocese with so holy a zeal. Now that the see is transferred to Louisville, the cathedral of Bardstown is attached to the college, and has become a parish church. The college has about two hundred pupils, mostly boarders. Bishop Flaget, before his death, had placed it under the direction of the Society of Jesus. Bardstown is a kind of centre of religious houses. On one side you have the Dominican Fathers, at the convent of St. Rose, near Springfield ; on the other, the Trappists, who have been for some years at New Haven. There are also several establishments of nuns, Lorettines and Sisters of Charity.
Tile city forms about the centre of the district, in which reside the vast majority of the Catholics in the diocese of Louisville. They number about 70,000.
It was also in this neighborhood that, early in this century, the very Rev. Mr. Nerinckx, a Belgian, distinguished himself by his apostolic labors, and left among the people the impress of his zeal and virtues. He founded, it) 1812, the congregation of sisters known here under the name of Sisters, of Loretto, or Lorettines. It has already spread over different parts of the States of Kentucky and Missouri, Kansas Territory, among the Osage Indians, and to New Mexico.
I must close. Time presses. I have only a few moments to start for Chicago and Milwaukee. Farewell. Do not forget me, dear Charles.
Your devoted uncle,
P. J. DE SMET, S. J.