The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-07-18
HEROIC FATHER JACQUET.
Jesuit Priest Undertakes to FIJI a
New and Difficult Post Mt
Cape Nome.

After 20 years in the tepees or
western Indians, Father Aloysius
Jacquet, with body racked by rheu-
matism, is now on his way to che
frozen Nome, in which wild camp he
Will be the first regular priest
Since 1882 Father Jacquet, Jesuit
priest, has travelled over the sage
brush plains and through the thick
wooded mountain valleys of eastern
Washington and Idaho, educating the
naked savages of that region to civ
iliZation and religion. He is now on
his way to build the first Catholic
chapel and the first Catholic hospi-
tai for the rough miners of the new
est and most northern placer camp
OF the world, says the New York
World.
Father Jacquet will be the first
Catholic priest to have charge of
Nome as a parish. Before him Father
Dreka made occasional trips from ST.
Michael Last February Father Dire
ka was on his winter journey from
ST. Michael to Nome. The great biz
Zard which claimed so many victims
overlook him. With the priest was a
native lad who had acted as a guide
and helper.
After "a hours constant struggling
in the face of the bitter wind the
boy became exhausted. The priest
wrapped him in a blanket and drew
the sled through the fast deepening
drifts. Two days and two nights the
blizzard ragged and the old priest
struggled on with the dying boy. On
the morning of the third day the
priest crawled into a cabin on the
outskirts of Nome. The boy on the
sled had long since died. The priest,
his face frozen and black, was, at last
reports from Nome, in a dying condi-
ton.
Father Jacquet will finish the work
Father Dreka had attempted to begin
at Nome. Twenty years as priest
in the widest country of the north
west has fitted Father Jacquet to un-
derstand the ways of the toughest
miners and of the most ignorant nv
tives. Twenty years ago he left his
studies in London to take a parish
in Washington and Idaho. Four
tribes of naked Indians and the wild
est of western miners constituted the
membership of his flock. The form
er were intractable and sullen; the
latter tolerated the black robed Wis
itor with an amused and half con-
temptuous curiosity.
Father Jacques went first to work
among the savages. Summer and
winter he lived in their tepees. The
work was difficult beyond the telling,
and the hardships were more terrible
than man is often called upon to en-
dure But Father Jacquet converted
the Indians and he awoke the lonely
whites to a realization of the reli-
gion they had forgotten. He built
chapels and later founded churches
in the small settlements. As these
later grew to towns other priests
came to take charge, but among the
old pioneers Father Jacquet was al
ways most loved of ali the clergy
Years of privation and exposure on
the frontier finally sowed the seeds
of disease in the priests constitution.
During the past two or three winters
he has sought the climate of Cai-
fornia. At the springs of Paso Del
Robes he has undergone treatment
for nervous rheumatism which has
kept him on the rack of keenest tor
ture for weeks at time. From one
of these sieges of illness he departed
a short time since for this city,
where he took steamer for the
windswept northern beach, the scene
of his future labors. Many say that
the man has sought his death. When
men have reasoned with him on the
ubject Father Jacquet has shrugged
his shoulders. Perhaps he thought at
such times of the motto of his order:
For the Greater Glory of God"