In 1846, Father Carrell erected a large building, three
stories high, on the south line of Christy Avenue ; the
first story was to be used for wardrobe and infirmary
purposes, the second for the parochial school, and the
third as a dormitory for the boarders.
The institution had at this time an imposing list of
professors and tutors, as the vice-province had steadily
and rapidly increased the number of its members since
1 The corner-stone of St. Joseph's Church, corner of Eleventh and
Biddle Streets, was laid April 14, 1844. St. Joseph's soon grew to be
one of the largest congregations among the German Catholics of St.
Louis. Work on this church was actually begun March I, 1844, and
work on St. Mary's Orphan Asylum was begun March yth of the same
year. The lot on which St. Joseph's Church is built, and also that on
which St. Mary's Asylum stands, were given by Mrs. Biddle.
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 6/
the year 1839; and from the circumstance, also, that the
scholasticate for the study of theology and philosophy
had been transferred, in 1843, fr m tne country-place
now known as College Hill to the university. That
portion of North St. Louis usually called Lowell is built
on a part of the farm then belonging to the university.
A certain number of members resided at this suburban
home from 1837 to 1847, under the superiorship of
Rev. John Schoenmakers ; he was sent, in the spring of
1847, to begin the residence at the Osage Mission, in
South-eastern Kansas, Rev. Ignatius Maes taking his
place at College Hill ; but only for a short time, as it
was closed that year.
At this period, the city of St. Louis took a new start
in growth and prosperity, so rapid and so remarkable
as to leave no doubt of its destiny soon to become a
great city ; and that such would be its future, Capt.
Marryatt had predicted, after visiting St. Louis in 1838.
Fourth Street was pretty well built up with dwellings
in 1846, from Market Street eight or ten squares north-
ward ; and dwelling-houses were going up rapidly on
Fifth and Sixth Streets, on Franklin Avenue, and on
all streets leading east and west, from Market to Locust
Street ; but there was, as yet, little improvement made
on any street west of Tenth Street. The Planters'
House, then the only great hotel of St. Louis, had been
finished in 1841 ; and the present court-house was going
up in 1846.
During the year 1846, the Rev. John Diels, having
previously spent several years among the Pottawato-
mie Indians at the Sugar Creek mission, prepared with
much care, and completed, a grammar and dictionary
of their language ; and the Pottawatomie language was
68 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
accounted by the missionaries one of the most beauti-
ful among the tongues of the aborigines. This compo-
sition was the groundwork of an extensive and elaborate
grammar and dictionary of that language, which Rev.
Maurice Gailland, assisted by Father Diels, subsequently
spent many years in perfecting. In 1870 this work
was offered to Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian
Institute, for publication ; but Professor Henry would
not accept it unless as an unconditional gift, to be pub-
lished or not, at his own option. Since this proposition
was not acceptable, the work was not given to the
Smithsonian Institute. It was borrowed by Father De
Smet, when he made his last trip to Europe, in 1871, to
show it to some learned friends in Belgium ; it was left
by him in Belgium. 1
At the close of the scholastic year, in July, 1847,
Rev. John B. Druyts was appointed president of the St.
Louis University. The institution had then recovered
entirely from the depression brought on it mainly by
the financial troubles of the country, beginning in 1842.
Father Carrell went to Cincinnati, where he was
appointed president of St. Xavier College, on June 29,
1851 ; he was elevated to the more exalted rank of
Bishop of Covington, Kentucky, in 1853. After filling
that important office, as first Bishop of Covington, for
fifteen years with much success, and with the complet-
est satisfaction to priests and laity, he died in 1868.
His refined manners, his grace and ease in conversation,
and his cultivated scholarship, all joined to genuine and
even tender piety, caused him to be much esteemed by
1 Father Gailland died August 12, 1877, at St. Mary's College,
Kansas.
v^V^ ^**i>^
f OF THE H X
I UNIVERSITY }
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 69
all that knew him in St. Louis, Cincinnati, in Coving-
ton, and where, er he had acquaintances.
Father Druyts had been employed, either as pro-
fessor or as disciplinarian, in the university for twelve
years next preceding his promotion to the office of
president, in 1847. The experience which he was thus
enabled to acquire, together with his natural aptitude
for such a position, made him one of the most popular,
and at the same time one of the most successful, among
all that had thus far filled the office of president in the
university. No trying or adverse event could disturb
his perfect equanimity, or lessen his complete self-pos-
session. His temper seemed never to be ruffled : yet
he could be severe or gentle ; he could be exacting, or
could blandly yield to the most lowly, according as de-
mands of duty, expediency, or the good of others might
happen to require of him. His term in office lasted till
the autumn of 1854, and he was even then relieved of
his burden with reluctance, though he had almost en-
tirely lost his hearing. His entrance into the office of
president gave a new impulse to the institution, and it
then began that career of genuine and solidly founded
prosperity which, down to the present day, has met with
no serious reverse.
On June 3, 1848, Rev. James Van de Velde retired
from the office of vice-provincial, and he was succeeded
by Rev. John A. Elet. Father Van de Velde remained
in St. Louis but a short time, when information reached
him that he was appointed Bishop of Chicago. Arch-
bishop Eccleston received the bulls appointing him to
this See on December I, 1848, and he was consecrated
on February 1 1, 1849. He was subsequently transferred
to the See of Natchez, Mississippi, first reaching that
7O HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
place on November 23, 1853; he died of yellow fever
on November 13, 1855, at his residence in Natchez.
The revolutionary troubles of Europe, which broke
out into open violence towards the end of 1847, and
culminated in 1848, made it necessary for the Jesuits,
in places where they were ejected from their colleges
and their property was seized upon, to seek for shelter
in other lands. Many of these refugees came to the
United States, seventy-six of them finding homes in the
vice-province ot Missouri. Most of these exiles had
been driven from Italy and Switzerland, and about
forty of them received hospitality at the St. Louis Uni-
versity. Some of these expatriated Jesuits never re-
turned to Europe, but remained afterwards permanently
attached to the vice-province of Missouri, where they
became useful auxiliaries to the various missions and col-
leges of the West ; the great majority of them, however,
returned to the Old World within the two years next
succeeding. Of those remaining in the United States,
some went to the Indian missions of the Rocky Moun-
tains, where they have since died under the hardships
and privations of a life among homeless, wandering
savages. Others of their number began, in 1854, under
Rev. Nicholas Congiato as superior, the present flourish-
ing mission of California, which still remains annexed
to the province of Turin, Italy.
The great addition made to the number of members
in the vice-province of Missouri during the first half of
the year 1848, by the causes above stated, was an in-
ducement for Father Elet and his consultors finally to
perfect an arrangement, which had been under con-
sideration several months, for taking charge of St.
Joseph's College, at Bardstown, Kentucky. The ven-
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. /I
erable Bishop Flaget had already invited the Jesuits of
France to accept that college, in his diocese, as long ago
as the year 1829, or nineteen years before the present
offer.' But, by some misunderstanding, the French
Jesuits did not come to the United States until two
years after the time appointed for delivering the col-
lege into their hands ; and, meanwhile, obligations had
been contracted with other parties. St. Mary's Col-
lege, in Marion County, Kentucky, was transferred to
these Jesuit fathers from France, at the death of its
founder, Rev. William Byrne, which occurred June 5,
1833. They laid the foundation of another college, in
Louisville, during the summer of 1845, but early in 1846
they made an agreement with Bishop Hughes, of New
York, to take charge of St. John's College, at Fordham,
and also to establish a college for externs in New York
City. They left the Diocese of Louisville in July, 1846,
returning St. Mary's College to the bishop, and at the
same time disposing of the property owned by them in
the city of Louisville.
St. Joseph's College, at Bardstown, after many years
of depression, had become prosperous again under the
able administration of Rev. Edward McMahon, aided by
the efficient cooperation of Rev. John B. Hutchens.
But in the year 1848, both of these reverend gentlemen
had grown tired of such employment, and they longed
to pursue a different course of life, in which their occu-
pations would be exclusively those of the priesthood ;
hence they, as well as the priests of the diocese in gen-
eral, favored the proposed plan of passing St. Joseph's
College under new control. It was under these circum-
stances that Bibhop Flaget, whose years then exceeded
72 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
four score, urged on Father Elet, vice-provincial of
Missouri, his earnest desire to welcome the Jesuits back
again into his diocese before his days were ended, in-
sisting that they would accept St. Joseph's College, at
Bardstown, with a view of retaining it permanently, and
of starting a college for externs in Louisville.
July 24, 1848, six members of the society left St.
Louis on the steamboat " Ocean Wave," for Bardstown,
by way of Louisville, to take possession of St. Joseph's
College ; Rev. P. J. Verhaegen, the first president of
the institution after it changed hands, having gone there
about the end of the preceding month. St. Joseph's
College was exceedingly prosperous under the fathers'
management, until the year 1 86 1, when it became neces-
sary to suspend all classes, in consequence of the war
between the Northern and Southern States, which then
began. The institution was never afterwards reorgan-
ized by the Jesuits, and it was finally delivered into the
hands of the bishop in December, 1868, twenty years
after it had first been accepted. A college had been
started in Louisville about the beginning of 1849, and
its success was also highly satisfactory, but it was closed
in 1857. The transfer and the acceptance of these two
institutions had been made subject to conditions by the
contracting parties, which did not subsequently prove
to be mutually satisfactory, nor were they adjusted by
mutual concessions.
In 1847, the larger and smaller students at the St.
Louis University were separated from each other, and
assigned distinct play-grounds, dining-rooms, study-
halls, etc. The purchase, made in 1849, of the building
on Washington Avenue, west of Tenth Street, previously
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 73
used by the medical department, rendered this judicious
arrangement for the welfare of the students both easy
in practice and commodious.
On October 5, 1848, the medical faculty requested
the trustees of the university to have the connection
of the medical department with the university dis-
solved, with the right of retaining the name under
which the medical college was started ; and this re-
quest was repeated on January 24, 1849. The reason
assigned by the medical faculty for desiring to take
this step was fear of injury to the medical depart-
ment, arising from religious prejudices among the
people at large against the Catholics and Catholic insti
tutions. The board of trustees did not then consent
for the separation to take place. When the " Know-
Nothing " excitement arose and began to spread over
the land, in 1854 and 1855, it was again decided by a
majority of the medical faculty that it was expedient
for the medical department to be separated from
the university, and be henceforth conducted under a
distinct charter of its own ; and this time, by mutual
consent, its connection with the St. Louis University
finally ceased, but without any unfriendly feeling or
hard thought on either side, since the peculiar circum-
stances of the times seemed to compel the medical
department to adopt that course.
It should have been stated in another place that the
law department of the St. Louis University began its
first session in November, 1843. But despite the efforts
made by Hon. Richard A. Buckner to sustain it, the
law school met with only limited success, and the or-
ganization was soon dissolved.
About the beginning of May, 1849, the Asiatic chol-
74 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
era again made its appearance in St. Louis ; and its
visitation at this time was not less disastrous than it had
proved to be in the years 1832 and 1833. Its ravages
were greatest in the narrow streets and alleys, and in
hovels and tenements crowded with the poor ; yet no
class of the people was entirely spared by this fearful
scourge, coming all the way from the sickly lowlands of
India. No case of the disease occurred in the univer-
sity, which preservation then, as had been done in 1833,
was gratefully accepted by the entire establishment as
a special favor of Divine Providence.
During the month of May, all the students having as-
sembled in their chapel for religious exercises, made a
promise, by way of pious vow, with the advice of Rev.
Isidore Boudreaux, that they would adorn the statue
of the Blessed Virgin in St. Francis Xavier's Church
with a silver crown, provided all the inmates of the
university were preserved from cholera. This vow was
faithfully performed, and the crown was placed on the
statue of the Blessed Virgin, October 8, 1849. The
following record was at the same time inscribed, in let-
ters of gold, on a marble slab attached to the south
wall of St. Xavier's Church, near the altar of the Blessed
Virgin Mary : -
s. M. o. P. N.
In memoriam insignis beneficii per Mariam accepti.
A. D. 1849, grassante hie peste, qua prope sex millia
civium, paucos intra menses, interierunt, Rector, Pro-
fessores, ac Alumni hujus Universitatis in tanto vitae
discrimine constituti, ad Mariam, Matrem Dei, Matrem
Hominum confugerunt votoque sese obstrinxerunt
decorandi imaginem ejus corona argentea, si ad unum
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. /$
omnes incolumes servarentur. Placuit Divino Filio
tanta in Divinam Matrem fiducia. Etenim exitiosa
pestis, vetante Maria, muros Universitatis invadere
non fuit ausa ; et tota mirante civitate, e ducentis et
pluribus convictoribus, ne unus quidem lue infectus fuit.
GRATI MARINE FILII.
^Translation.^
In memory of the signal favor conferred through the
intercession of Mary. A. D. 1849, while the pestilence
was raging in this city, whereby, in the space of a few
months, six thousand citizens perished, the rector, pro-
fessors, and students of this university, finding them-
selves in imminent danger of death, had recourse to
Mary, Mother of God and of men, and by vow bound
themselves to place a silver crown upon her statue, if
every member of the university were preserved from
the infection. This great confidence in the Mother of
God pleased her Divine Son ; for the devastating scourge,
through the intercession of Mary, was not allowed to
enter within the walls of the university; and to the ad-
miration of the entire city, not even one, out of two
hundred and more boarders, was infected with the
plague.
THE GRATEFUL SONS OF MARY.
Still another calamity befel St. Louis during the
same month of May, 1849, an extensive fire, by
which twenty-seven steamboats were destroyed at the
wharf; and, the flames having been communicated
to some neighboring business houses, fourteen squares,
all solidly built up, were burned to the ground before
the conflagration finally ceased.
/6 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
These public misfortunes caused no perceptible dimi-
nution of prosperity at the university, and when the ses-
sion opened, in September of that year, the number of
students in the classes was fully up to the highest aver-
age. On May 19, 1851, the Church of St. Francis Xavier,
which is on the property originally donated by Jere-
miah Conners to Bishop Dubourg for a college, was
transferred by the vice-provincial of Missouri to the
control of the St. Louis University, which assumed an
uncancelled debt on the church of thirty-eight thou-
sand seven hundred and fifty dollars ($38,750). This
church, which has always been, from its beginning, as
a centre at which numerous throngs of people collect
for divine service on Sundays, became, by this change
in the government of it, an additional and important
factor in the great moral power which " The College "
has possessed in the city of St. Louis during the half-
century of its existence. The Young Men's Sodality >
which was first instituted by Father Damen, in
1846, and the Young Ladies' Sodality, established
in 1847, attracted a large number of the youth belong-
ing to many of the principal Catholic families ; and
for them these associations proved to be an efficacious
means of solid and lasting good. The good influence
of these sodalities, especially over the Catholic youth of
the city, was still further increased after their hall,
library, and reading-rooms were completed, in I855. 1
Rev. William S. Murphy became vice-provincial of
Missouri on August 15, 1851. Father John A. Elet was
1 The hall was erected for the Young Men's Sodality, but they gen-
erously consented, in the year 1865, for the Young Ladies' Sodality to
occupy one story of their building. This building is on the south-east-
ern corner of Ninth Street and Christy Avenue.
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. //
then in a precarious state of health, and had petitioned
to be relieved of that onerous office. But Father Elet
did not recover his health, and he finally died of his
sickness, on October 2, 1851. Along with a high de-
gree of administrative ability, Father Elet possessed a
union of amiable qualities that made him loved by all
that knew him. He had a facility in rendering himself
"all to all," by which he could be learned with the
learned, and simple with the simple ; he could converse
on the high questions of philosophy or theology, or he
could explain the details of practical duties in life to
children, so as to hold their attention captivated. In
conciliating the good-will of others for their own advan-
tage, nature helped him with a voice that was bland
and winning, at the same time that it was fatherly, and
inspired reverence ; his countenance, his whole figure,
which was that of faultless manly symmetry, all spoke
to the eyes of his hearers. All the vice-province and
his friends among the laity deeply regretted his death,
as the loss of a member who, then at middle age, had
just fairly entered upon the period of his life that prom-
ised to be the most bright and useful as a Jesuit and as
a priest of God.
Father Murphy, when appointed vice-provincial, was
attached to the New York and Canada mission ; he had
originally come to the United States at the beginning
of 1836, and was at St. Mary's College from that time
till the year 1846, when the Jesuits left Kentucky and
went to New York. He Avas president of St. Mary's
College, in Kentucky, from the year 1839 till it was
given up by the Jesuits, in 1846. He was a keen ob-
server both of men and things, and he was remarkable
for his knowledge of human nature, and the correctness
/8 HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY.
with which he could read personal character. Exten-
sive and varied reading of the best authors in the
ancient classics, in French, and especially the best
writers in English, had cultivated his taste and stored
his unfailing memory with an inexhaustible fund of the
wise and beautiful thoughts and utterances which made
his conversation peculiarly instructive and interesting >
never tiresome, and always fresh, even to those who
had lived with him for many years. Father Murphy
filled the office of vice-provincial in Missouri from 1851
to 1856; he performed the duties of his position effi-
ciently, and at the same time in a manner highly accept-
able to his brethren.
In the year 1853, Rev. J. B. Druyts, president of the
university, with the concurrence of his council, decided
to begin the erection of ample and commodious build-
ings, fronting on Washington Avenue, which, when the
plan agreed upon was executed, would furnish all
necessary room, at the same time that it would possess
a becoming style of beauty and grandeur. This build-
ing was to extend from Ninth Street to a point one
hundred and thirty feet west of Tenth Street. The
erection of the east wing was commenced in 1853, an< i
it was finished in 1855. The public entrance to it is on
Ninth Street ; the building is sixty feet wide by a
length of one hundred and thirty feet on Washington
Avenue. It is three stories high, the first and second
stories being each sixteen feet in the clear, arid the third
being thirty-five feet. The first, or lowest story, contains
the students' chapel and the study-hall ; the second con-
tains the library and museum ; and the third is a public
exhibition hall, which easily seats twelve hundred per-
sons. It is, perhaps, now fortunate that the magnifi-
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 79
cent design, of which this east wing forms only a part,
was not afterwards carried out ; for the subsequent di-
rection taken by the city's growth has since resulted in
drawing the centre of business to the neighborhood of
the university, thus creating a necessity for its removal,
at no distant day, to some more quiet district of the
city.
In the year 1854, St. Xavier College, of Cincinnati,
ceased to be a boarding-school, owing to insufficiency
of room, the vicinity of nuisances, and to the narrow-
ness of the premises. It thenceforth struggled on as a
small day-school, but progressing gradually towards
better things, till the session of 1863-64, when, princi-
pally through the energy and ability of Rev. F. P. Gar-
esche, it resumed its rank as a first-class college, and
from that time to the present it has enjoyed uninter-
rupted prosperity.
The progress made by the St. Louis University in the
number of students, during the period which this narra-
tive has now reached, is clearly presented in the follow-
ing tabular statement:
Number of
Year. Students Registered.
1851 218
1852 266
1853 2 9i
1855 300
1856 321
CHAPTER VII.
18541861.
AT the beginning of the session 1854-55, Rev. J. B.
Druyts was succeeded in the office of president by Rev.
John S. Verdin; yet Father Verdin did not actually
enter upon the duties of his new position, nor was his
appointment formally announced, till October 2, 1854.
While affable and kind to all, Father Verdin was firm
in maintaining collegiate discipline ; and thus he won
the esteem and confidence both of students and of
professors. During his term in office, which lasted till
the year 1859, the institution made rapid progress, and
at the same time all things went on peacefully, and
without the occurrence of any disturbing incident.
In the autumn of 1855, there was the largest number
of boarders at the university there were ever at the same
time in the establishment, there being one hundred and
eighty-eight ; and this, despite many untoward events
in the Southern States, from which a majority of the
boarders had always been received. The yellow fever
epidemic of 1855 was, perhaps, fully as virulent as it
had been in 1853, when it assumed a malignant type
that was new to the most experienced physicians, baf-
fling the best skill in their profession. The loss of life
by its visitation during the year 1855 was very great
especially in New Orleans and adjacent cities, in
Charleston, South Carolina, and in Norfolk, Virginia.
(80)
HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 8 1