which was to stand on Washington Avenue. This ad-
dition was made ready by the summer of 1835 ; the first
story was used as a public chapel till the completion of
St. Xavier church, in 1843; and after that time, service
was still held in this chapel, for the benefit of the Ger-
man Catholics, till St. Joseph's Church, on Biddle
and Eleventh streets, was finished, in 1845.
The trustees of the university, at a meeting held on
September I, 1835, resolved to petition the United
States government, through the Hon. Thomas H.
Benton, for a grant of land towards establishing the in-
stitution on a solid and permanent basis. Their request
was not acceded to at Washington City ; and indeed,
this establishment never received any public aid, nor
has it an endowment derived from any source, but it is
entirely dependent for its support on the regular fees of
its students.
At the same meeting of the trustees, held September
I, 1835, it was also resolved that the rector of the uni-
versity should confer with some gentlemen eminent in
the medical profession, concerning the feasibility of
forming a medical faculty and attaching the same to
the St. Louis University. This project of having a
medical faculty attached to the university was approved
by the most eminent physicians of St. Louis, and by
friends of all avocations in life. There were several pre-
liminary consultations between the Medical Society of
$2 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
St. Louis, represented by B. G. Farrar, H. Lane, and
B. B. Brown on the one side, and the rector of the uni-
versity, Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, on the other. It was not
till October 5, 1836, that they finally came to a mutual
agreement that there should be a medical faculty of the
university. A constitution was drawn up in writing and
sanctioned by both parties, after which the Medical Soci-
ety selected the following eminent physicians as its first
faculty: C. J. Carpenter, M.D., J. Johnson, M.D., Wm.
Beaumont, M.D., E. H. McCabe, M.D., H. Lane, M.D.,
and H. King, M.D. But, though the medical faculty was
appointed, and the prospectus of their lectures was pub-
lished annually, with that of the university for the lit-
erary department, the design was not actually carried
into execution till the autumn of 1842, when the medi-
cal department inaugurated its first course of lectures
in a building erected for its use on Washington Ave-
nue, west of Tenth Street.
CHAPTER V.
18361843.
ON March 24, 1836 Rev. P. J. Verhaegen was made
superior of the Jesuit mission in Missouri. From this
time forth, the superior of the mission no longer resided
at the mother house, near Florissant ; but he made the
university his home henceforth, as being more central
and more easy of access. This arrangement continued
after the mission was erected into a vice-province and a
province ; and it is adhered to at this day. Besides the
communities and residences to which the mother house
at Florissant had already given origin, at St. Charles, in
the village of Florissant, Portage des Sioux, and St.
Louis, during this year 1836, the Rev. Charles Van
Quickenborne established a residence and small com-
munity among the Kickapoo Indians, on the Missouri
River, at a point eight miles north of the spot on which
Leavenworth City is built. The number of members
attached to the Missouri mission at that time was
thirty-seven. Several young men of ability and supe-
rior education joined during the years 1835 and 1836,
giving increased strength and efficiency to the corps
of teachers in the university.
Rev. P. J. Verhaegen having been appointed superior
of the mission, the vacancy thereby caused in the office
of president or rector of the university was filled by
Rev. J. A. Elet, who became president at the opening
(53)
54 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
of the next session, or in September, 1836. The scho-
lastic year then beginning proved to be fully as pros-
perous as any preceding one, the number of students
being one hundred and forty-six.
The board of trustees, at a meeting convened on
May 3, 1836, resolved that Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, Rev. J.
A. Elet, and Rev. Theodore De Theux should be con-
stituted a committee to select and agree upon a suitable
site outside of St. Louis, on which to erect buildings
required for transferring the university thereto. The
reason assigned by them for taking this step was, that
the necessary quiet of the institution was about to be
interfered with, since some houses had been put up
recently in the very neighborhood of the university,
and additional ones were likely to be erected in the
near future. The locality chosen for this purpose by
the committee was a farm, containing three hundred
acres, on the Bellefontaine Road, three and a half miles
from St. Louis, which had been purchased a short
time previous by the university. They prepared the
plan of their proposed buildings, and let out to a mason
the contract for constructing the basement. When the
foundation had been dug, this mason died, whereby the
work stopped, and the contract with him became null.
The execution of their undertaking was postponed to
a future year, and at a later time the project was aban-
doned altogether. The purchase of the land proved a
fortunate investment of their money, however, for it
became valuable in subsequent years, enabling the
university to make many costly improvements on its
premises in the city, to purchase valuable additions to
its library, philosophical apparatus, and museum of
natural history. The spot on which it was then decided
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 55
to build a new institution is now within the city limits,
and is by no means a situation which possesses the
advantages of that retirement or complete seclusion for
the sake of which they at that time determined to move
away from St. Louis. The excavation then made for
a basement is still to be seen at a conspicuous point on
" College Hill," in North St. Louis
It was at the opening of the session in September,
1836, that the Rev. George A. Carrell became a member
of the faculty, and was made professor of English
literature. While each one among the first founders
and professors of the university deserved a meed of
praise, and of gratitude from friends of the institution,
yet the Rev. James Van de Velde and the Rev. George
Carrell were preeminent among them for superior
literary attainments, and for their influence in giving a
more elevated and learned tone to the college. Among
the surviving students at the university in their day
they are still remembered and honorably named, for
the refined taste and polished scholarship manifested in
all their lectures before the higher classes in the college
halls, and in all their speeches to the general public.
Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, to whom, above all
others, is due the credit of establishing the Jesuit mis-
sion in Missouri, returned, in 1837, from the Kickapoo
mission started by him the preceding year, near the
grounds of the present Fort Leavenworth, and he went,
to recuperate his strength, to Portage des Sioux, where
Father Verreydt then resided. 1 But the hardships of
1 Father Verreydt built a brick church at Portage des Sioux in 1834 ;
this church was burned down on January 9, 1879. The Jesuit fathers
had charge of this church from the first part of June, 1823, till Septem-
ber, 1875, when it was made over to the archbishop of St. Louis.
56 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
several years spent by him in border-life among the
Indians had so shattered his constitution that no medi-
cine and no kind attention could revive him, and he died
at Portage des Sioux, on Thursday, August 17, 1837.
His remains are interred on a little mound in the garden
at St. Stanislaus novitiate, and they are now surrounded
by those of nearly all his early companions in Missouri.
A plain slab for a headstone, with a Latin inscription
on it, serves both to mark his last resting-place and to
record the main events of his very commendable life.
The trustees of the university, at a meeting which
was held on May 6, 1837, appointed a committee, of
which Rev. James Van de Velde was made chairman,
which was instructed to take time, and considerately
" to specify what studies and acquirements shall hence-
forth be deemed necessary for finishing the classical
course, and being found qualified for taking the degree
of A.B. in the St. Louis University." The committee
offered their report on the 8th of the following Decem-
ber; but it was amended and recommitted, with
instructions to report also on the conditions to be
prescribed for obtaining the higher degree of A.M., or
Master of Arts. The report, as finally adopted by the
board of trustees, on July 28, 1838, was as follows:
"First, that the classical course shall comprehend a
competent knowledge of the Greek, Latin, and English
languages; of geography, use of globes, ancient and
modern history, logic and principles of moral phi-
losophy, including ethics and metaphysics ; of rhetoric
and mathematics, including arithmetic, algebra, plane
and solid geometry, trigonometry, surveying, mensura-
tion, conic sections, and the principles of natural phi-
losophy." It had been determined in a preceding year,
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 5/
and it was published in the prospectus of the institu-
tion, that "the degree of A.M. is given to the alumni
who, after having received the degree of A.B., shall
have devoted two years to some literary pursuit." It
was now further provided, "as to graduates of other
colleges or universities that shall apply for the degree
of A.M., it shall be required that they produce the
diploma of A.B., and testimonials that, after their
graduation, they have devoted at least two years to
some literary pursuit."
A knowledge of the branches specified in this
schedule of studies was generally regarded, at that day,
as essential for a liberal education ; and, therefore, they
were then taught in all institutions professing to impart
superior learning. But from what cause soever the
change may have proceeded, it is an obvious and
generally recognized fact that the present generation is
far from esteeming so highly a knowledge of the Greek
and Latin classics in the original tongues; whereas
much more value is now set on the thorough study of
applied mathematics, the physical sciences, the useful
arts, and all the branches of positive and practical
knowledge which contribute to the material progress of
human society.
In the year 1832, it had become necessary for Rev.
P. J. De Smet, on account of protracted ill-health, to
withdraw from the Jesuit mission of Missouri and return
to his native land, Belgium, for change of air. After
reaching his friends and the scenes of his youth in
Brabant and East Flanders, he was mindful of his
former companions in America ; he procured many
valuable instruments for the department of physics in
the St. Louis University, as also many volumes for the
58 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
library, and sent them as a donation: they were
received on March 7, 1835. Although it was not his
expectation, when leaving for Europe, ever to see the
United States again, yet, his health having been com-
pletely restored, he returned to Missouri in 1837, and,
as is well known, made St. Louis his home during the
entire remainder of his extraordinary life. Whilst he
was absent in Europe, and after his donations were
received, the trustees of the university entered on their
records the following honorable tribute to him as a
benefactor:
" Whereas the board and faculty of the St. Louis Uni-
versity are highly indebted to the liberality and exertions
of the Rev. P. J. De Smet, for the splendid apparatus
of physical and chymicai instruments received at the
university on the 7th of March, 1834;
" Resolved, That besides the special thanks already
tendered by the board and faculty of the St. Louis
University to said Rev. P. J. De Smet on receipt of the
above-mentioned apparatus of physical and chymicai
instruments, the register of the contributions to the
Museum of St. Louis University be opened with a copy
of this resolution, and his name be placed at the head
of the list of contributors to the museum.
" P. J. VERH^GEN.
" JAMES VAN DE VELDE, Secretary.
" ST. Louis UNIVERSITY, Sept. 5, 1836."
Father De Smet's donation included, also, " a collec-
tion of minerals, classified according to the system of
Dr. Hauy," as mentioned in the " list of contribu-
tors." The date of their arrival at St. Louis was not
1834, but 1835, and they were brought over to America
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. $9
along with the above-mentioned instruments, by Messrs.
M. Oakley and P. Verheyden, who arrived in 1835.
The register of the students for the years 1837 and
1838 shows that more than half of the entire number
then at the institution were from the State of Louisiana ;
and during the first ten years, dating from the begin-
ning, in 1829, there were twelve graduates. The num-
ber of members in the Jesuit mission of Missouri at the
beginning of the year 1838 had increased to sixty-one,
twenty-six of whom were at the mother house near
Florissant, and nineteen at the St. Louis University.
It was during this year, 1838, that Father De Smet
began his remarkable career as a missionary among the
Indians, his first work being to establish a residence
among the Pottawatomies ' dwelling in the vicinity of
Council Bluffs, which is in Iowa, and directly opposite
the city of Omaha. The line of bluffs in Iowa, which
are there distant about four miles from those in Ne-
braska, on the opposite side of the river, was washed
by the Missouri at that period.
In the autumn of this year, several priests and scho-
lastics were sent from the Missouri mission to Louisi-
ana, to conduct St. Charles College, at Grand Coteau. 2
That institution remained attached to Missouri till the
year 1848, when, such assistance being no longer neces-
sary for the mission of New Orleans, the members who
1 They were a division of the Pottawatomie tribe, known as " Prairie
Indians ;" they had hitherto been nomadic, and they had acquired no
habits of civilized life.
2 The Ladies of the Sacred Heart had established a school near that
place in 1821, on a spot donated for the purpose by Mrs. Charles Smith,
in accordance with her husband's will. He was a Catholic, who had
come from Maryland in 1803, and settled in this portion of Louisiana.
6O HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
had been sent thither returned to the Western
mission.
In January, 1839, Rev. Christian Hoecken and a com-
panion took spiritual charge of the Pottawatomie In-
dians, who had the previous year been transferred by
the United States government from Michigan to Sugar
Creek, about fifteen miles west of the Missouri border,
in what is now the State of Kansas. Rev. Mr. Petit, a
secular priest from Vincennes, Indiana, had accompa-
nied the tribe from Michigan to their new home, in
1838, but he took sick, got as far as St. Louis on his
return to Indiana, and died at the university, about the
beginning of January, 1839.
A suite of class-rooms was erected on Christy Avenue
during the year 1 839, to accommodate the increased num-
ber of students; the building was made one and a half
stories, the attic being used temporarily as a dormitory.
On December 3, 1839, the mission of Missouri was
raised to the rank of a vice-province, and the official
title of the superior was thereby changed to that of
vice-provincial.
During the year 1839, and the two or three years
next succeeding it, the number of members in the vice-
province increased rapidly, reaching one hundred and
thirteen at the end of 1841. They were able, therefore,
greatly to enlarge the field of their usefulness. It was
in the year 1840 that Father De Smet made his first
journey to the Rocky Mountains, and through Oregon,
where he prepared the way for the numerous mission-
aries who, in succeeding years, did so much for the wild
tribes wandering over those regions.
In the year 1840 the vice-provincial of Missouri
agreed to accept from Bishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, the
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 6l
Athenaeum, a college which had been established by
Bishop Fenwick, and first opened for classes October
17, 1831. It having been made over to the vice-
province of Missouri by Bishop Purcell, in 1840, Rev. J.
A. Elet was installed its first president under its new
organization. Accompanied by a body of professors, he
had gone to Cincinnati and gotten all things in readi-
ness to begin classes at the Athenaeum about the first
of October. The name of the institution was changed
to that of St. Xavier College ; it has retained this name
to the present day, and under that name it was rechar-
tered by the General Assembly of Ohio in 1869.
In the spring of 1840 the corner-stone of St. Xavier
Church, St. Louis, or, as it is better known to the pub-
lic, " The College Church," was laid with solemn cere-
mony, Rev. George A. Carrell addressing the people
from the eastern balcony of the college. The church
was dedicated and first opened for public service on
Palm Sunday, 1843.
When Rev. J. A. Elet was removed to Cincinnati, in
1840, Rev. James Van de Velde succeeded him as
president of the St. Louis University. He remained in
this office till the year 1843, when he was made vice-
provincial of the Jesuit Society in Missouri. The
literary culture of the superior classes in the university
had never risen to so high a standard as it did during
his term in office. Besides being thoroughly master of
the Greek and Latin classics, he was able to speak and
write several modern languages with elegance. But
the best efforts of his life as a student had been spent
in acquiring the English language, by the aid of its
recognized models of taste and style, an undertaking
which he accomplished with great success. His few
62 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
published essays and lectures might be proposed as
samples of purity and accuracy of language, as well as
of good taste, beauty, and refinement in the art of
composition.
Schools for the education of the Indian children at
the mission on Sugar Creek, near the head-waters of
Osage River, were established in 1841. The school
for the Indian boys was taught by members of the
Jesuit Society. In order to provide for the proper
training of the girls, Father Verhaegen, who was the
vice-provincial, applied to the Ladies of the Sacred
Heart Society to delegate some of their members for
this work, promising them, as inducements, much hard-
ship and little human comfort. These were decisive
motives for the zealous ladies, and in July, 1841, four
of them, with Madame Lucille Mathevon as superior,
went to the Pottawatomie mission, at Sugar Creek,
and began a school for the Indian girls. Instead of
teaching courtly manners to the children of the rich
and great, as they could have done had they preferred
it, these self-sacrificing religious women there spent
many years of their lives, training sulky and indocile
young savages in the first elements of human thought.
During the year 1842, there occurred one of those
financial crises which, in the United States, periodically
disturb commercial employments, destroy general con-
fidence, and produce that stagnation of all trades which
often results in so much misery to the mass of the
people. In order to accommodate themselves to the
altered circumstances, the board of trustees, with the
advice of Father Verhaegen, vice-provincial, reduced
the fee for board and tuition at the university to $130
per session often months. Despite the stress of "hard
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 63
times," the classes were all full, the institution losing
none of its wonted prosperity.
The first lecture to the medical department of the St.
Louis University was given to the students and a numer-
ous audience of the public on March 28, 1842, by Pro-
fessor Hall. The medical faculty was composed of
able men ; but it was, perhaps, mainly through the influ-
ence of the gifted and learned Dr. Moses L. Linton,
and the eminent surgeon, Dr. Charles Pope, that the
medical college became so successful, attracting numer-
ous students from all the Western States.
The following list of professors composed the medi-
cal faculty for the session 1842-43: Daniel Brainard,
M.D.; Joseph W. Hall, M.D. ; H. Augustus Prout,
M.D. ; James V. Prather, M.D. ; Moses L. Linton,
M.D. ; Joseph J. Norwood, M.D. ; Alvin Litton, M.D.
The completion of St. Xavier Church, and its final
dedication on Palm Sunday, 1843, st iM further aug-
mented the moral power of the university in St. Louis
and vicinity, where that influence was already great ;
thus additional ties were formed, more closely binding
to the establishment the affection of the older families
in the city and county.
It is worthy of mention that Father Van de Velde
had insisted, when it was first decided to build St.
Xavier Church, that it should front on Washington
Avenue, foreseeing that, although Washington Avenue
was then but a road leading out of the town, it
would, in future time, become a principal street of the
city; as all subsequent improvements made by the
college would naturally have their front on this street,
the entire property could be sold to better advantage,
should it ever become necessary to move the institution
64 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
to another locality, further away from the stir and noise
of business. The event proves that his counsel was
sagacious, though it did not prevail.
In 1843, St. Vincent's school for girls was estab-
lished, on the corner of Tenth and St. Charles Streets ;
it was started as a parochial school, but it became neces-
sary, in order to subsist, to raise the school to a higher
grade ; it was long known as " Sister Olympia's School."
The property on which the school stood was given for
the purpose by Mrs. Ann L. Hunt. On July 14, 1843,
Rev. Dr. Martin J. Spalding, of Louisville, Kentucky,
afterwards Archbishop of Baltimore, gave an eloquent
lecture in the new church of St. Francis Xavier, St.
Louis, for the benefit of its parochial schools.
CHAPTER VI.
18431854.
REV. JAMES VAN DE VELDE was appointed vice-provin-
cial of Missouri on September 17, 1843, and he was
succeeded in the office of president by the Rev. George
A. Carrell. Father Carrell had been professor of mental
and moral philosophy during several years next preced-
ing his elevation to the chair of rector, and for some
sessions he had also been professor of rhetoric and
English literature. In both these positions he had been
eminently successful. He was peculiarly happy in his
language, and in imparting his own ideas to others
with force and clearness, whether in the pulpit or
in the class-room. As president of the university, he
was austere even unto severity. During the first two
years of his rectorship there was a marked decline
in the number of students, there being less than eighty
for the scholastic year ending in the summer of 1845,
including both the boarders and the externs ; a result
which was attributed by his friends, but, no doubt,
erroneously, to the stern notions of rule and authority
with which he governed. It was found necessary, in
order to improve this condition of things, really brought
about by the unprosperous times, for one of the pro-
fessors to be sent to the Southern States to canvass
for students ; and accordingly, Rev. John Gleizal was
despatched to New Orleans, early in the spring of 1846,
5 (65)
66 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
to accomplish this work. His visit to the South proved
highly beneficial, realizing the most sanguine expecta-
tions from it ; for a large number of students came up
from the South, some accompanying him, others follow-
ing him after his return, in the early autumn of that
year. 1
An occurrence which caused some increase of number
for the session beginning in September, 1846, was the
closing of St. Mary's College, in Marion County, Ken-
tucky. It was during the summer of that year that the
Jesuits who founded the present mission of New York
and Canada left Kentucky, to take charge of St. John's
College, at Fordham; and a number of the students
who were with them at St. Mary's College, in Kentucky,
came to St. Louis University after the fathers had
abandoned that place. Thus it happened that the
ending of the session 1845-46, was fully as auspicious
as that of any preceding one.