Ohio History Journal

EDITORIALANA.

THE VANISHED BISHOPRIC-AN INTERESTING BIT OF OHIO HISTORY. "The Catholic Historical Review," for July, contains for people of Ohio a vastly interesting paper, "A Vanished Bishopric of Ohio," dealing the rile French settlement at Scioto or Gallipolis on the Ohio River, and the proposition to establish thereat a Catholic bishopric some time about the year 1789, the year that Bishop John Carroll was appointed to the See of Baltimore, with jurisdiction over all the United States. It seems, according to the late Bishop Brute, that the See was actually established and the Abbe Boisnantier, a canon of St. Denys, Paris was chosen for the bishopric, though the appointment seems later to have been with- drawn and the projected diocese never became a reality, so that Bois- nantier never came to America. In 1790, however, the promoters of the Scioto Company, with headquarters in Paris, renewed their appeal to the Papal Nuncio at Paris, and asked for the election of a Benedictine monk of St. Maur, one Dom Didier, as Bishop of the Colony. Propa- ganda yielded to the wishes of the Scioto Company and on April 26, 1790, appointed Didier - not Bishop or Vicar-Apostolic, as he wished, but Vicar-General "in spiritualibus" for the space of seven years. A copy of the Brief appointing Didier exists in the Catholic archives at the Uni- versity of Notre Dame, Indiana, and it makes clear that Didier's juris- diction was to be confined to French settlers exclusively "on condition that the lands and place where they should found their lands and colony should not be within the diocese of any Bishop within the limits of the government and sway of the United States, which altogether lies under the jurisdiction of the Bishop (John Carroll) lately appointed in Balti- more by the Apostolic See." The territory beyond the Alleghanies was an obscure one, and in 1790 it was not altogether certain whose was the ecclesiastical jurisdic- tion of this part of the United States. But it is certain that Propaganda intended that the new French colony would depend almost immediately upon the Bishop of Baltimore. Didier had already left Havre on May 10, 1790, and was preparing to leave about the end of the month for America. Bishop Carroll, in a letter dated September 3, 1791, speaks of "the arrival last year of a Benedictine monk, with a congregation on the banks of the Ohio." (540)

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Editorialana.                       541

 

The Scioto Colony was one of those dreams of empire and of a

utopian paradise in the golden heart of America that characterized so

many adventures just after the triumph of the American Revolution.

Inspired by the example of Lafayette, Rochambeau, d'Estaing, Barnave

and many other French noblemen in the War of Independence, as well as

the alliance of the French with our Revolutionary forefathers, the atten-

tion of the French was directed to the United States as a desirable home.

Hence the formation of the Scioto Company with headquarters in Paris.

M. du Val d'Espremesnil, one of the leaders of the Company, succeeded

in obtaining from the Ohio Land Company a vast territory of about three

million acres, situated between the Ohio and Scioto rivers. Many French

noblemen became shareholders in the new company, and in Paris "noth-

ing was talked of in every social circle, but the paradise that was opened

to Frenchmen in the western wilderness; the free and happy life to be

led on the blissful banks of the Ohio."

D'Espremesnil was the heart of the company, and in his plans for

this colony at Gallipolis, the settlement of which had been begun by the

American promoters in preparation for the coming of the emigres, he

determined to resurrect the spiritual and religious life of his nation that

had been swallowed up in the chaos of the French Revolution, which was

then on the road towards its worst excesses. Hence the proposal of a

new diocese and the application to the Papal Nuncio at Paris for a

Bishop for the contemplated See of Scioto or Gallipolis.

The first emigrants for this colonial dream of empire left Havre

on May 26, 1790, numbering in all 139 persons. These were followed by

many others, and during half of the year 1790 more than a thousand

French colonists reached the United States under the guidance of the

Scioto Company. By December, 1790, most of them were gathered at

Gallipolis and Marietta, a city planned by General Farnum in July, 1788,

in honor of Marie Antoinette.

But disaster awaited the luckless colonists. When these lands were

sold to the Scioto Company, the Indians-Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis,

and Wyandottes-were still in possession of them, and the Frenchmen

soon saw that they could only keep the land they had bought by buying

it a second time from the Indians themselves. The colonists appealed to

the American Government, and General St. Clair, with 3,000 soldiers,

was sent to expel the Indians. St. Clair's expedition came to grief at

Point Pleasant, one-half of his troops being killed and scalped, so that

failure overtook the Colony of Scioto, and the colonists scattered, some

to New Orleans, some to the North, some to St. Louis. Some found ref-

uge in Virginia, and others, led by Marnesia, founded the settlement

called Asylum, near Pittsburgh. There is a tradition of some of these

Gallipolis colonists in Maine and Father de Barth, who refused the See

of Philadelphia in 1816, was the son of one of the colonists. It all reads

very much like the tragedy of Grand Pre, as told by Longfellow in his

"Evangeline," save that the Indians took the place of the English; but

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542        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

the dispersion of the colonists was much the same, and the flight from

the terrors of the wilderness and the travels of many of them down the

Ohio and Mississippi to asylum in St. Louis and New Orleans assuredly

recall the story of Gabriel and his beautiful but hapless sweetheart.

What became of Didier is not exactly known, but he seems to have

deserted the small remnant of colonists who remained at Gallipolis and

clung to their little white houses on the flat summit of the river bank

and were found there as late as 1793 by Fathers Badin and Barrieres on

their way to the Kentucky mission. It is surmised that he went to New

Orleans in 1800, and he is supposed to have officiated as priest in St.

Louis from 1793 to 1799. John Gilmary Shea says that he died in St.

Louis. Of the Colony of Scioto the same historian says: "Left without

a priest, the settlement at Gallipolis soon lost all coherence and dwindled

away. Religion gradually faded out. Children were no longer baptized;

they did not even ask Dr. Carroll to send them a priest. On Sundays

instead of prayer and Catholic instructions, meetings were held where

deism and infidelity were openly advocated. Such was the end of the

Prefecture-Apostolic of the Scioto."

What became of the remnant of the colonists? Nothing is posi-

tively known, but scattered through the southeastern counties of Ohio-

in Perry, Athens and Muskingum, for instance-are many Protestant

families with French names, now curiously metamorphosed in spelling

from the original French form but still having the unmistakable French

sound, who may be their descendants.

 

 

REVIEWS.

In "THE GREAT REVIVAL IN THE WEST, 1795-1805," Catharine C.

Cleveland has made a valuable contribution to the history of the religious

and social life of the pioneers. As a study of a marvelous psychological

phenomena it is of intensely fascinating interest. It is the first scien-

tific treatment of this great religious awakening upon which the student

of history can place reliance. The author has evidently gone to the very

source of things and made a personal examination of all the contem-

porary records. The result is the very best, and the most informing

history of this religious emotionalism that raged so furiously in the

West during the period of which she writes.

The same subject, in part, was written about by Richard M' Nemar

in his little book entitled "The Kentucky Revival, or A Short History

of the Late Extraordinary Outpouring of the Spirit of God in the West-

ern States of America," and published at Cincinnati in 1807. M' Nemar

was a participant and a firm believer in the great religious agitation, and

writes from the standpoint of one inspired. His work is of great value

as a part of the historical res gestae.  But the student of today requires

more than mere testimony; he inquires, he analyzes, he deduces. This

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