St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-01-03

u'OV uPoh pidlu near the river bank,
opposite the mouth of the Sandy river.
and at the foot of the same falls that
afterwards caused such loss and danger
to Benedict Arnold's expedition to
Quebec in 1775, the priest cleared ii
spot i'll the woods. and built chapel
of logs, with roof of bark. Some In
dians of the place had embraced Chris
tIanlty, and the priest instructed the
earlier converts in the duties and ser
vices of the church.
He labored there more than thirty
years and won the hearts of the wild
men OF the woods, until he had con-
verted many of them to the precepts of
the Catholic faith. When the tribe
wandered Oh hunting expeditions he
went with them, and endured their
filthy life and constant fighting, earnest
ly laboring to win their hearts, and.
perhaps, with deeper cunning to in
English.
OF this latter purpose he has been
accused, and probably with some truth.
Ii is certain that NOrridgewock was the
rallying place of the tribes when they
made incurSiOns upon the English set
tiers along the coast. The English
viewed his influence over the Indians
with fear, and finding that treaties
made with the natives under his in
tiuence were easily bro en-, they set a
price upon his head, and sent an expedi-
ton to destroy him. The first eXpedi-
tion left York, Me, III I705. The mis-
SiOnary escaped to the woods, but the
troops destroyed the chapel of framed
timber which WAS built in the place of
the hut which had been the first mission
church. The chapel was soon rebuilt,
IL new treaty made with the English.
and for time the missionary was free
to labor and to increase his power.
He was driven to singular expedients
to obtain The materials for performing
the services of the Catholic church in
the wilderness. He made candles from
the berries of Il species of laurel; three
bushels of the berries making but four
pounds of WAX, and it required twenty
four pounds of the wax to make an hun
dred candles for the altar. When the
tribe marched they carried with them
a cedar plank, to serve for an altar
when they stopped for the night. He
had forty young men, who were converts
and assisted in the services, clothed
in linen. They built two small chapcIs
on paths approaching the church, aud
the furniture and decorations of the
latter were made at Quebec and trans
ported 10y the Indians through the will
dernesS. The chapel WIS provided
with Il bell, and it must have been a
strange sound in the forest. The priest
found his houS full ot occupation. He
taught the men to raise vegetables and
the women to spin, and gathered them
to church twice each day.
But the end of the mission was at
hand. The English settlers of Massa-
chusetts. New Hampshire and the coast
of Maine had suffered so severely from
the Indians, that il WAS determined to
destroy the power of the tribe and take
the missionary captive. In I722 an ex-
petition piIlagcd the church aud carried
off among their plunder manuscript
dictionary of the Abnaki language,
prepared 10y Raslrs in his spare hours
ior thirty Years, and now preserved in
the IibIary of Harvard College. On the
23d of August 1924, Il party of POS men
surprised the town, and after Il battle
in which thirty of the Indians and
fourteen of the attacking party were
killed, the Indians were driven to the
woods, and the body of the priest was
found surrounded by the dead bodies
of several chiefs Nho had fallen in his
defence. The body of the priest was
fearfnlly manglcd, the church and vii
la9e burned, and the movable furniture
carried away. The bell of the mission
church is now in the cabinet of the
Maine Historical Society at Brunswick
his strong box of oak and iron with his
private papers, is in the possession of
the Massachusetts Historical Society
and can he seen at their rooms in BOs-
ton. After the attacking party had
gone, some of the natives ventured back
and buried the body of the priest among
the ashes of the church, and then the
converts deserted the region.
An Indian boy who escaped from the
burning village, died in the year 1855,
at Newbury, VT, having served as
scout in the American army.
The poet Whittier has interviewer
the story of the Mission and the death
of the priest into his poem of "Magg
Megone ;" and his memory has been
by the Catholic Church. You
will find full account of his life in |
Sparks American Biography. His name
is sometimes spelt Rale, and sometimes
Rasle, but in a letter written by him
that l have seen, it is spelt as l have
given it here.
In the year 1880, Bishop Fenwick
bought the site of the mission church,
and monument was erected to mark |
the spot. 1t is of marble, bearing a
Latin inscription, and is surmounted by |
an iron cross. The place is lonely, and