Francis Xavier Pierz ( or Franc Pirec; ) (November 20, 1785 – January 22, 1880) was a Slovenian-American Catholic priest and missionary to the Ottawa and Ojibwe Indians in present-day Michigan, Wisconsin, Ontario, and Minnesota. Because his letters convinced numerous Catholic German Americans to settle in Central Minnesota after the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux in 1851,We are all ‘living stones,’ descendants of immigrants, by Marilyn Salzl Brinkman, Sartell, St. Stephen, and St. Joseph Newsleaders, 21 September 2017. Fr. Pierz is referred to as the "Father of the Diocese of Saint Cloud."Furlan (1952), page 3.
Early life
Father Pierz was born into an ethnic Slovene peasant family in Godič, near the town of Kamnik in the Hapsburg-ruled Duchy of Carniola within the Austrian Empire (now Slovenia). On November 20, 1785, he was baptized as Franz Xav. Pierz. Despite the coercive Germanisation campaign by Emperor Joseph II, Francis Pierz was raised and educated bilingually. He became literate and fluent enough in both the vernacular Slovene language and in Standard Austro-German to later compose Christian poetry in both languages. He entered the major seminary of Ljubljana in the fall of 1810 and was ordained at Ljubljana Cathedral on March 13, 1813, by Bishop Anton Kavčič.Grace McDonald, "Father Francis Pierz Missionary," Minnesota History, vol. 10, 107–125. Two of his brothers also became priests.
After seven years as assistant pastor for the Catholic Church in Slovenia of the mountain parishes of Kranjska Gora and Fusine in Valromana (Bela Peč, in Slovene),Drnovšek, Marjan. 1998. Usodna privlačnost Amerike: pričevanja izseljencev o prvih stikih z novim svetom. Ljubljana: Nova revija, p. 54. he was appointed parish priest of the villages of Peče and Podbrezje. In later years, all of his former parishes would become sources of Slovene immigrants and pioneer settlers of Central Minnesota.
After years of attempting to improve farming methods among the poor farmers of his parish, he published the book Kranjski Vertnar (The Carniolan Gardener) in 1830. His efforts led to his being awarded a medal of honor by the Carniolan Agricultural Society in 1842.
Missionary
In 1835, Pierz departed for the missions of the United States after years of being inspired by the published letters of the Slovenian missionary known as, "The Snowshoe Priest", and future Bishop of Marquette, Father Frederic Baraga, who worked in present-day Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Wisconsin.
Following a particularly difficult and terrifying Atlantic Ocean crossing that he later versified in the poem ''Pesmi od svojega popotovanja,P. Florentine Hrovat (1887), Franc Pirec: oče umme sajdere na Kranjskem in apostolski misijonar med Indijani v severni Ameriki, Družba sv. Mohora v Celovcu. Pages 10-14. Fr. Pierz arrived in the Diocese of Detroit on September 16, where he presented his credentials to Bishop Frederick Rese. As Lake Superior had already frozen over, Father Pierz was prevented from immediately joining Father Baraga in Wisconsin and was assigned to the Ottawa of L'Arbre Croche, in what is now Little Traverse Bay Reservation in Michigan.
With the assistance of a Catholic Odawa Chief known as Sharp Knife, Fr. Pierz was very successful at making converts, even though the Ottawa dialect of the Ojibwe language was a terrible struggle for him to learn.Furlan (1952), pages 73–78.
One of Fr. Pierz's particularly devout converts was a 15-year old Odawa girl who took the Baptismal name of Marie and who died soon after entering the Church, but in whose sanctity Fr. Pierz firmly believed and upon whose intercession he later strongly relied.Furlan (1952), pages 78–80. Fr. Pierz also composed a long work of narrative Slovenian poetry about Marie's life and death, which he titled Pesmi od ajdovske deklice ("The Song of the Indian Girl").P. Florentine Hrovat (1887), Franc Pirec: oče umme sajdere na Kranjskem in apostolski misijonar med Indijani v severni Ameriki, Družba sv. Mohora v Celovcu. Pages 28-30.
Fr. Pierz later wrote of Marie, "Never did I know a more pious soul; never did I witness a more beautiful death than that of this pure young lady... Her blessed death accomplished much good in my mission, confirmed the faithful in piety, and brought about the conversion of many pagans. Henceforth, her parents lived very pious lives and zealously practiced their religion, but soon followed their daughter in death. Her father always wore the rosary around his neck, visited pagan lodges, spoke amid many tears of the mercies of God regarding his own conversion and of the life of his blessed daughter, who thrice was granted the happiness of a vision of her transfigured Savior, and brought to me a number of Indians eager to learn the Christian religion."Furlan (1952), page 80.
In the summer of 1836, Bishop Rese transferred Pierz to the mission of Sault Ste. Marie, where Father Pierz fought to keep the struggling mission operating. He also sailed to other missions around the shores of Lake Superior, where he served Catholics among the Ottawa and Ojibwa, who spoke Algonquian languages.
Even though Christian hymn-singing was a new addition to Ojibwe culture, Fr. Pierz learned while travelling with Ojibwe Catholics through an 1838 Lake Superior gale that it had been enthusiastically embraced. He later wrote, "We contended with powerful waves, and we slipped up and down the storm billows as if over the roof of a long city. The ice cold water dashed above our heads in the front of our bodies from neck to heel. A European unaccustomed to such dangers would have cried with fright; my Indians sang joyous spiritual songs with good courage."Michael D. McNally (2000), Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and Native Culture in Motion, Minnesota Historical Society Press. Page 78.
On June 28, 1838, he reached Father Baraga at La Pointe, Wisconsin. After a friendly visit, Fr. Baraga persuaded Father Pierz to re-establish the mission at Grand Portage, Minnesota (now the Grand Portage Indian Reservation). The formerly great fur trading depot had declined with the removal of the North West Company's inland headquarters north to Fort William in 1803. The Ojibwa Indians living there had turned to commercial fishing on Lake Superior and selling their catches for a considerable profit to the American Fur Company. Pierre Picotte, a Métis who worked as an agent for the company, had been instructing local Ojibwe in the Catechism and preparing them to join the Catholic Church. Father Pierz's letters describe how impressed he was by the zealous Ojibwa embrace of Catholicism, particularly by teenaged boys and young men, which Fr. Pierz described as the complete opposite of what he was accustomed to as a priest in Europe. They also reveal that, unlike local Protestant missionaries, Fr. Pierz did not believe in the then commonly held idea that, "Indians must be civilized before they can be Christianized."Furlan (1852), pages 148–155.
Fr. Pierz preached and taught in the Ojibwe language and trained the Grand Portage parish choir to sing hymns in Ojibwe, almost certainly that he learned from Bishop Baraga's hymnal, as well.
According to historian Fr. Robert Voigt, "Father Pierz was also the doctor for the Indians. He had his own homeopathic methods. When a smallpox epidemic broke out, and no regular doctor was available, the missionary sent for vaccine and personally administered it to some 900 individuals, Christians and Pagans. This he broke down prejudice and prepared the way for future conversions."Robert J. Voigt, Pierzana II: The Religious and Secular History of Pierz, Minnesota, Self Published. Page 11.
Also at Grand Portage, Pierz arranged for the clearing of a plot of farmland and orchard which, in keeping with Ojibwe ways, was owned and worked in common. He helped negotiate the sale of their surplus produce to nearby mining settlements. He founded a Catholic school for the children of the mission. His letters provide a vivid glimpse into daily life on the mission. The Catholic missions at Fort William, Ontario and Isle Royale were also under his jurisdiction. In October 1839, the bishop ordered Pierz to move to take over the missions at Harbor Springs, Michigan (now Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians). He remained there for 12 years.Furlan (1952), pages 154–156.
Minnesota
In Spring 1852, after a series of disputes with his bishop, Pierz secured a release from the Diocese of Detroit. He was recruited for the newly organized Diocese of Saint Paul, where Bishop Joseph Crétin urgently needed priests to serve his vast territory.
Father Pierz was assigned a mission field, comprising the whole of Minnesota Territory north of the Twin Cities. He established his headquarters in the village of Crow Wing. Traveling on foot between his missions, Pierz carried on his back all that was necessary for saying Mass.
The first Mass in the St. Cloud area was offered by Fr. Francis de Vivaldi, a missionary to the Winnebago reservation in Long Prairie, Minnesota, in 1851. The Mass took place inside a"Early Parish History", St. Cloud Times, 10 June 1885, Page 3. log cabin, located midway between Sauk Rapids and the ghost town of Watab and 3/4 miles inland from the Mississippi River,Sauk Rapids Frontiersman, 26 October 1856, page 3. and owned by James Keough, a former merchant seaman from County Wexford, Ireland.
Keough later recalled, "The congregation present was made up of Irish and French Canadians. The altar was prepared by a half-breed (sic) lady, the wife of a Canadian Frenchman. I am the owner of the table used as an altar on that occasion. Some time after this Father Pierz came among us, and subsequently built the first Catholic church at Sauk Rapids."
During a later interview, Father Aloysius was almost certainly referring to Mrs. James Keough (née Katherine Brady of Spanish Point, County Clare), when he said, "Father Pierz changed his clothes thoroughly once a year. And that was when he reached Sauk Rapids, where an Irish lady always had a new clean clothes laid out for him which she bought or made and she would quite force him to change."Stories of Father Pierz, collected on the White Earth Reservation during the 1920s by Father Benno Watrin, OSB. Taken from the Archives of the College of Saint Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota. A photocopy is in Father Francis Pierz file in the Archive Room, Stearns County Historical Society, St. Cloud, Minnesota.
With his bishop unable to finance his work, Father Pierz had to rely on the Ludwig-Missionsverein and the Leopoldinen-Stiftung for desperately needed funds. Both European organizations had been formed to support Catholic missionaries abroad and were mainly funded by the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach and the Austro-Hungarian House of Habsburg.
Meanwhile, the Ojibwa dubbed Fr. Pierz, "Old Man, Black Gown." Viewing him as a man of great spiritual power, they occasionally stole his socks to use as a folk remedy against rheumatism. As he had previously done at Grand Portage, Fr. Pierz continued to both preach and to teach his converts hymns in the Ojibwe language.
During an interview at White Earth during the 1920s, Mrs. Isabel (née Vanoss) Belcourt, formerly of Otter Tail Lake, recalled, "They fixed him a good bed, but he always slept on the floor wrapped in a blanket. He would pray all night instead of sleeping. At Ottertail, he held school teaching the children catechism, in the Indian language. In his sermons [in] Indian, he would often break out with 'Ya! Ya! Ya!' Always spoke in a very earnest, fatherly way. Once during a famous Sioux scare, the Sioux broke into Fr. Pierz's house and took his vestments and cassock. Later a Sioux Chief was seen decked out in these vestments."