Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/726

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PEORIA


662


PEPIN


the Counties of Adams, Brown, Cass, Menard, San- gamon, Xacon, Moultrie, Douglas, and Edgar. It was cut off from the Uiocese of Chicago in 187.5. Six years later it was enlarged by the addition of Liisalle, Bureau, Henry, Putnam, and Uock Islai\d Counties. Catholicism in this region dates from the days of Father Marquette, who rested at the Indian village of Peoria on his voyage up the Illinois River in 1673. Opposite the present site of the eijiscopal city. La Salle and Tonti in ICSO built Fort Creveca'ur, in which Mass was celebrated and the Gospel preached by the Recollect Fathers, Gabriel Ribourdi, Zcnobius Membre, and Louis Hennepin. With some breaks in the succession, the line of missionaries extends to within a short period of the founding of inodern Peoria. In 1839 Father Relio, an Italian, visited Peoria, remaining long enough to build the old stone church in Kickajjoo, a small town twelve miles dis- tant. St. Mary's, the first Catlidlic church in the city proper, was erected by Father .John A. Drew in 1846. Among his successors was the poet. Rev. Abram J. Ryan.

Many of the early Irish immigrants came to work on the Illinois and Michigan canal; owing to the failure of the contracting company, they received their pay in land scrip instead of cash, and were thus forced to settle upon hitherto unfilled farm-land. These Irish farmers, with the Germans who began to arrive a little later, were the pioneer Catholics whose descendants now constitute the strength of the Church. In more recent years Poles, .Slavonians, Slovenians, Croafians, Lithuanians, and Italians have come in considerable numbers to work in the coal mines. They are organized in parishes looked after by priests of their own nation- ality. The first appointee to the see. Rev. Michael Hurley, requested to be spared the responsibility of organizing and governing the new diocese. After many years of fruitful labour in Peoria, he died, vicar- general in 189S. and was mourned universally in the city and throughout the diocese.

Rt. Rev. John Lancaster Spalding was consecrated first Bishop of Peoria, 1 May, 1877. Born of the dis- tinguished Spalding family, in Lebanon, Kentucky, in 1840, and educated at Bardstown, Mount St. Marjs, Emmittsburg, Louvain, and Rome, his career as pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, as orator, and as author had been marked by signal successes. The promise of his earlier hfe was more than fulfilled by the long years of his episcopate. Besides creating a new spirit in the Catholic life of the diocese, which found expression in new churches, schools, and insti- tutions of education and charity, he sought fields of larger efforts for his zeal. He laboured earnestly in the cause of Catholic colonization in the West. He preached the truths of life to an ever-increasing and deeply appreciative audience of American people. He ranks high among the educators of the country. The Catholic University of America owes its origin largely to his zeal. Spakiing Institute, Peoria, a Catholic school for boys, built and equipped by his generosity, is another monument to his abiding faith in education. His writings are assured of permanent use and admira- tion by future generations. At the height of his use- fulness he was stricken with paralysis on 6 Jan., 190.5, and resigned the see, 11 Sept., 1908, residing in Peoria as Archbishop of Scitopolis, to which honour he was rai.sed in 1009.

Right Reverend Edmund M. Dunne, D.D., the second and present Bishop of Peoria, was bom at Chicago, 2 Feb., 1864. He began his classical studies at St. Ignatius's College. Chicago, and finished at the Petit Seminaire at Floreffe, Belgium. Completing his theological course at I^ouvain, he was ordained priest, 24 June, 1887. Later .studies in Rome prepared him for the doctor's degree, which was conferred by the Gregorian University in 1890. Eight years of parish work in St. Columbkill's church, Chicago, led to his


appointment as pastor of Guardian Angels' Parish. His ministrations among the poor Italians of Chicago were remarkably successful. It was with ])rofound regret that they saw him removed to the chancellor- ship of the archdiocese, after seven years of unselfish labour. He was consecrated Bishop of Peoria, 1 Sept., 1909.

Statistics: Bishops, 2; mitred abbot, 1; secular priests, 169; regular priests, 43; churches with resi- dent priests, 151; churches, mission, 69; stations, 19; ecclesiastical students, 14; colleges for boj's, 4; stu- dents, 355; academies for girls, 8; students, 1457; parishes with parochial schools, 69; pupils, 10,672; orphan asylums, 1; orphans, 75; industrial and re- form schools, 1; total young people under Catholic control, 12,559; hospitals, 12; homes for the aged, 2; marriages, 1037; baptisms, 4527; burials, 1487; Catholic poi)ulation, 96,000; number of square miles in diocese, 18,554.

Jas. J. Shannon.

Peoria Indians, a principal tribe of the confed- erated Illinois Indians (q. v.) having their chief resi- dence, in the seventeenth century, on Illinois river, upon the lake, and about the site of the modern city that bears their name. The first white man ever known to the Illinois was probably the Jesuit Claude AUouez, who met some of them as visitors at his mission on Lake Superior at La Pointe (Bayfield), Wisconsin, in 1067. Six years later Marquette passed through their country, where he soon established a temporary mission. In 1680 the French commander. La Salle, built Fort Creveca?ur on Peoria lake, near the village of the tribe, about the present Rockfort. It was abandoned, but reoccupied in 1684, when a regular mission was begun among the Peoria by Fr. AUouez. His successor in 1687 was Fr. Jacques Gravier, to whom we owe the great manuscript "Dic- tionary of the Peoria Language", now at Harvard University, the principal literary monument of the extinct Illinois. The Peoria, however, proved obsti- nate in their old beliefs, and in 1705, at the instigation of the medicine men, Gravier was attacked and dan- gerously wounded. He narrowly escaped with his life, but died from the effects on 12 Feb., 1708, near Mobile, after having vainly sought a cure in France. The mission continued under other workers, but so late as 1721 the tribe was still almost entirely heathen, although the majority of the Illinois were then Chris- tian. The Peoria shared in the vicissitudes and rapid decline of the Illinois, and infl832 the remnant of the confederated tribes, hardly 300 souls in all, sold all their claims in Illinois and Missouri and removed to a small reservation on the Osage River, Kansas. In 1854 the remnant of the Wea and Piankishaw of In- diana were consolidated with them, and in 1868 the entire body removed to a tract in north-east Okla- homa, where they now reside, being officially des- ignated as "Peoria and confederated tribes", and numbering altogether only about 200 souls, all mixed- bloods, and di\'ided between Catholic and Methodist. (See also Miami Indians.)

Thwaites (ed.). The Jesuit Relations (Illinois missions) (73 vols.. Cleveland, 1896-1901) ; Shea, Catholic Missions (New York, 18.54): Pilling, Bihliographif of the Algonquian Languages (Wash- ington, 1891): RoYCE AND Thomas, Indian Land Cessions, Eighteenth Kept. But. Am. Eth.. II (Washington, 1899).

James Mooney.

Pepin the Short, Mayor of the Palace of the whole

Frankish kingdom (both Austrasia and Neustria), and later King of the Franks; b. 714; d. at St. Denis, 24 Sept., 768. He was the son of Charles Martel. Pepin and his older brother Carloman were taught by the monksof St. Denis, and the impressions received during their monastic education had a controlling influence upon the relations of both princes to the Church. When the father died in 741 the two brothers began to