An apostle of the wilderness, James Lloyd Breck, D.D., his missions and his schools

Preface

THE writer has long felt that the time would come when in a good conscience he ought to publish his contribution to the life history of James Lloyd Breck, D. D.

Dr. Breck has already found a chronicler in the person of his brother, who survived him, the Rev. Charles Breck, D. D., whose book was published some twenty years ago, but is now almost out of print. I wish to express here my sense of obligation to this life of Dr. Breck for information and assistance in the preparation of this book.

My reason for these personal reminiscences is found in the fact that I am the only person now living who can speak for that particular time; from 1849 to 1852: which covered the period when the mission at St. Paul and the Indian field were founded.

With these explanations and acknowledgments this imperfect volume is committed to that generous but discriminating public from whose verdict there is no appeal.

THE AUTHOR.

Introductory

WHEN the world needs a man, the man appears. Extraordinary occasions require unusual men. This is so evident in history, that all men recognize the man when he appears. I think I am safe in saying that the American Catholic Church has furnished no man of the type of James Lloyd Breck since its foundation. When, after Dr. Breck’s death, the Bishop of Pittsburg said in his convention address, “That it was hard to think of the Church without James Lloyd Breck in it,” he expressed a fact which all men at the time realized. Here was a man who had captured the attention of all churchmen of the time in which he lived. He was known from the Atlantic to the Pacitic, from the Lakes to the Gulf. His name was everywhere familiar, a household word, “a burning and a shining light,” that never grew dim or obscure for thirty-five long years. He was twenty-two years of age when he left New York for Wisconsin, and fiftyseven when he died in Benicia, California, in 1877; and all that time he never took what we call a vacation, nor let up in the ardor of his strenuous life. In the true sense of the word he was

vil vill Introduction a missionary—one sent to accomplish a definite work who could always say with the Master, Christ, “‘ How am I straitened until it be accomplished.” With St. Paul his motto was, “ This one thing I do,” and all he did he did with his might. Dr. Breck early realized that money was essential to his work, and to the securing of this necessity he devoted himself with the same zeal and perseverance that characterized all his work of a more spiritual character. How he endured the strain of it no one can tell. There are men of the clergy to-day who will say, “ you cannot get money by writing.” Dr. Breck had no such teacher in his time to whom he gave heed, or he had never accomplished his purposes, and so it was that “he found the pen mightier than the sword.” Before him there was none like him and since his day none have arisen to fill his place. Men who have a mission are inspired men. We do well to reverence their ~ memories. They are examples of heroic endeavor to their fellows in the battle of life, raised up for this very thing. They stand for a new awakening. They set in motion new agencies. They open up new paths for others to follow. They create a new epoch. They are _ apostles of a new era, and therefore we do them reverence, recognizing in them the “ divine gift” men call genius. These men care not for wealth, nor fame, nor honors. They are God’s men, who work for Him and with Him, and whether they

Introduction 1x understand it all like St. Paul, or work for selfish ends like Nebuchadnezzar in their ignorance, yet are they fulfilling a necessary work in the all encompassing plans of God, who maketh even the wrath of man to praise him. James Lloyd Breck created a new era in giving for missions. He smote the rock, and since that day the waters have continued to flow without abatement to irrigate the thirsty fields, that they should bring forth fruit to the glory of God and the upbuilding of His kingdom throughout the world. The General Convention of 1835 resolved “ that every man by his baptism is a missionary,” and it was ordained that in the life of James Lloyd Breck should be given to the world an illustra-

tion of what a missionary life could be. Sucha | life no one had yet seen on this continent. In the divine purpose he was to set out for the west to establish associate missions, to found universities, to plant schools for young women, to _ convert the Indians from their idolatries, and all this he was to do in faith, for all things were possible to him that believed. Such a man was James Lloyd Breck, unknown yet well known, silent of speech yet eloquent of works, alert, watchful, patient, uncomplaining, strenuous, courageous, prayerful and all things to all men that he might win some. He fought the good fight and kept the faith. He gave all he had until he gave his life an offering on the altar of duty. As he came into the world empty handed, x Introduction so he left it, but better and brighter for his presence and richer in his example and his work. This life sketch is an humble tribute from one who knew and loved him for a space of thirty years.

Dy TE

Contents

Eary LiFe : , i h

WISCONSIN .

NasHoTaH .

Chapter II Wisconsin

THE difficulty of securing a priest of suitable age and experience to take the headship of the Associate Mission it was proposed to inaugurate in Wisconsin, was finally settled by Bishop Kemper himself. After an interview with the Rev. Mr. Cadle, chaplain at Ft. Crawford, Wisconsin, who was then in the East, he was persuaded to take the position for one year; and so it was arranged that he should meet the young men, Breck, Adams and Hobart at Buffalo, and that they should sail around the lakes to Milwaukee, together. Some rough weather was encountered on Lake Ontario and Lake Huron, but with this exception the journey was without incident and they finally landed on the shores of the new territory, at Milwaukee, where they were met by the good Bishop Kemper, and entertained by him for a season.

Shortly after reaching Milwaukee one of their number, Hobart, started on an exploring expedition to a place called Prairieville, aow Wauskeka, twelve miles out from the city. Thesecond Sunday after landing, Mr. Breck had an appointment for services at Elkhorn, forty miles out, where he

7 ¢ found a family by the name of Brainerd, of which he gives quite a long account, and as these people were afterwards connected with my own family by marriage, I here take the liberty of repeating the incident in the language of Mr. Breck himself :

“Friday night being Christmas eve, we had services in the schoolhouse, and it was well filled with the settlers of the wilderness. In the afternoon of Christmas day I baptized Mr. Brainerd and nine children of his family. Could you have witnessed this scene your heart would have rejoiced. No church, no altar, no chancel. We assembled in this plain western schoolhouse, which had in its centre a long table that served as our altar. Around this we stood in order, as follows: myself at the back of it, having it before me, and placed on it a rude vessel, serving as a font. The father stood opposite me on the other side, with two adult children on the one side and a third on the other. The witnesses of these were the grandfather and his daughter, Mrs. Brainerd, both communicants. The grandmother was too infirm to stand. She was confirmed by Bishop Seabury. At either end of this long table stood the younger children, four sons at one end and a son and daughter at the other. We occupied the centre of the schoolroom, while the congregation sat all around us with fixed attention, when all were duly baptized. How powerfully did this whole scene strike me as resem-

Wisconsin 8)

bling, in some of its features, the accounts contained in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles. ‘Stephanas and his household’ were baptized there—Brainerd and his household were baptized here.”

From statistics furnished to the Domestic Committee, from the first of October to the first of January they had walked 786 miles, and ridden 1,851 miles on horseback, which is at the rate of 10,000 miles a year. They had one student at this time. Prior Cadle had nearly perished from cold, having lost his way on his return from Green Bay. He seemed never to have really identified himself with the mission or its work, and so his loss was little felt when he resigned his position as head of the mission in the spring of 1842. This year found the mission located on the Nashotah Lakes, a choice and beautiful spot, for an institution of its kind. This year, also, witnessed the ordination to the priesthood of Breck and Adams by Bishop Kemper, at Oneida Mission, near Green Bay, a hundred and twenty-five miles to the north of Nashotah. Itis seldom a deacon has to walk such a distance—250 miles going and returning—for this object, but it was only a moderate journey for Breck and Adams after they had become accustomed to similar tramps every week to fill their missionary appointments.

This year Mr. Breck was elected by Hobart and Adams to the Deanship of the mission to his great surprise and wonderment, as evidenced by a letter to his sister written at this time. This year was noted for the return of Hobart to the East for reasons which I have never had explained, but which were doubtless satisfactory to himself. Perhaps he was not pleased with the disciplinary side of the Institution, which applied to all from the Dean down to the youngest soul of the brotherhood. A log house of considerable size had been erected near the future site of the seminary. I say considerable size, because it must have been such to house seventeen persons in all, as we are informed it did. I have always thought it remarkable that so many young men could have been gathered together in so short a time. They came from the neighborhood and from distant points as well. Some were picked up by the missionaries as they traveled and others came from the East and South. It was an incongruous gathering of every class and kind and age and grade of men and boys out of which the master made his bricks for the building of his “Religious House,” for that was the idea which Mr. Breck had in mind even at this early day, and it was this ambition of his that after the experience of a year or two, disgusted and drove Mr. Adams to resign and return to the East, thus leaving Mr. Breck absolutely alone in the wilderness, with some fourteen mission stations on his hands, and no one to counsel with but the good and wise Bishop Kemper. The

Wisconsin 11 desertion of Adams was a great blow to Mr. Breck, it was an ad-hominum, which soon called a halt in his proceedings and led to concessions which the good Bishop advised and a practical abandonment of the “ Religious House” idea. It was the only condition on which Mr. Adams would return to the West, and, without Adams, Nashotah had been a failure from the first, although the associate mission part of it might still have done its work under Breck with other assistance.

One after another, small houses were built as actual necessity required, until we have them all as in the picture in 1847, when the writer first came into personal contact with Mr. Breck as shall be related in a future chapter.

Chapter III Nashotah

Ir certainly adds very much to our interest in Dr. Breck’s romantic career that a good part of his work was undertaken and achieved in his early manhood. He could not have been above twenty-seven years of age when I first saw him. When we remember that he had no experience in frontier life; and that two years afterwards he had assumed the leadership of the Associate Mission, with all its financial responsibilities, we must appreciate the fact that he was a youth of uncommon courage and faith, and also that he was a man self-reliant and resourceful.

Wisconsin was then a wilderness, Milwaukee but a village, and Chicago counted not more than 5,000 inhabitants, if somany. There were but two clergymen in all Wisconsin, beside Bishop Kemper, in 1841: the Rev. Mr. Cadle, far north at Green Bay, and the Rev. Mr. Hull, rector of St. James’ church, Milwaukee.

The three young men who made this venture of an associate mission in the then Far West, had but just entered the diaconate. It was to be an associate mission on monastic lines; an ideal of rather an impractical character in our Church at

Nashotah 13 that early day, but it took the fancy of these young deacons, and for several years, first at Nashotah and then at St. Paul, Dr. Breck did his best to carry it into effect. As self-denial is the corner-stone of the monastic idea, perhaps it was this that enabled Mr. Breck to achieve a success which, under other conditions and with other motives, might have been impossible.

The articles of the Associate Mission required a celibate clergy and a religious garb of coarse or plain material. Within a year after the arrival of the three young deacons at Prairieville, Wisconsin, one of them, Mr. Hobart, decided to quit the field and return to New York, thus reducing the force by one-third, and leaving Dr. Breck and Adams to solve the problem of work and support by themselves. It seems to have been an essential part of the Associate Mission that there should be at once started a school of the prophets, to educate and prepare men who were on the ground for the work of the Church in the rapidly growing West. In speaking thus far of the Associate Mission, I would not seem to overlook the work of Bishop Kemper, for it was chiefly to this noble and saintly man that Nashotah owed its first impulse. The Rev. Jackson Kemper was consecrated as Bishop of the Northwest and parts adjacent in 1835, and at once set out to visit and explore his rather undefined jurisdiction. To this end he traveled over Wisconsin, Indiana, Lllinois, Missouri, and down the

Mississippi to the Gulf, and then through the Southern States, and back again to Wisconsin. After five years’ absence, Bishop Kemper returned to New York, and told his story in the ears of the young men who were ready to be ordained to the work of the ministry. This, ina word, was how it came about that the souls of one and another of these young students became enthused for the great enterprise they were about to engage in.

Bishop Kemper was a gentleman of the old school, dignified, courteous, scrupulous in his attire, and exacting in the respect due to his office and himself. This was the character of the man who spent eleven months of each year riding in stage coaches and steamers over his illimitable diocese of the northwest. One month in the year he took as a vacation and remained at home to get even with his correspondence and straighten up his household affairs. It is quite remarkable that in all his travels by stage and steamer, about 4,000 miles a year, he never met with an accident, but on his first journey by rail, he had the misfortune to break an arm.

Shortly after the mission had been located at Nashotah, Bishop Kemper took up his residence near by, in a modest frame house, and there remained until his death, in 1870. The Bishop’s family consisted at that time of himself, two maiden sisters, and one daughter, Mrs. Wm. Adams, and his two sons, Samuel and Lewis.

RIGHT REVEREND JACKSON KEMPER, D.D.

Nashotah 15

The latter afterwards became a professor at Nashotah, and died, lamented by all who knew him, in 1886. It will be readily seen from his long absences from home that the Bishop could not interest himself practically in Nashotah’s affairs, so that from the very first the chief responsibilities of the mission and school fell upon the shoulders of Dr. Breck. Of course, in this statement I do not overlook the staunch support which Dr. Breck received from his fellow-worker, Dr. William Adams, honored in his retirement from active work, and greatly beloved in his old age. (Since this was written Dr. Adams has died.) Both Breck and Adams were equally qualified for the work which God had given them to do, and each in his work was the complement of the other. Dr. Breck was enthusiastic, enterprising, aggressive, and ready to take advantage of opportunities. He was also the financial head of the institution. Dr. Adams was essentially a student and a professor, a man better capable than any one I have known of impressing upon younger minds his own character and stamp of Churchmanship. The Church owes an immeasurable debt to such men as Seabury, White, Hobart, De Lancy, Kip, Otey, Doane, Odenheimer, and Kemper, but to none more than to William Adams, D. D., of Nashotah, for the most wholesome, consistent, and best tempered Churchmanship now prevailing in the American Catholic Church.

When first I knew Nashotah, in 1847, there were thirty-four students resident in the institution; twelve of these were in the theological department. In the preparatory course there were boys of thirteen and men of thirty years of age. Some were from the immediate neighborhood, others from the East and South. From New York City there were two nephews of Dr. Frank Vinton, also James Henry Williams, James Rogers, Edmond D. Cooper, William Jarvis, etc. This will indicate the reputation which Nashotah enjoyed in those early days. Prior to 1847, all the labor was performed by the students. Nashotah at this time was rich in its four hundred and sixty acres of real estate, but as only a small portion was under cultivation, it yielded but a little part of the support for such a large and expensive family. At one time the students did four hours’ work in term time and eight hours’ in vacation. There was no call for athletics and gymnasiums in those days at Nashotah, but the students excelled in swimming and skating. The culinary department passed away with the eight hours of vacation labor, but the washing committee remained until 1850, when it, too, disappeared with the advent of Dr. Cole as president, succeeding Dr. Breck. The students, however, continued the four hours’ work in term time until the new order of things under Dr. Cole, when two hours’ only were required. The labor doubtless was a part of the monastic idea, and belonged

Nashotah 17 to the disciplinary side of the institution, although it was really a necessity at first to help out the straightened income. There was no Woman’s Auxiliary in those days, yet friends in the East supplied many boxes of clothing every year, the money value of which must have been up in the thousands.

The washing committee was certainly a great saving to Nashotah, probably not less than $10 a week or about $500 a year. This estimate would be the minimum, and perhaps equal to the money value of all the other work done by the students on the four hour, or term-time basis. I should suppose the expenses of Nashotah could not have been less than from ten to twelve thousand dollars a year at that period of its history. To provide this large income was the work to which Dr. Breck diligently applied himself. As there is no effect without an adequate cause, we must find the cause in the pen of the president. With this mighty wand he smote the rock, and the waters flowed in a steady and continuous stream. The daily mail brought many letters, and the larger number contained the offerings of churches and Sunday-schools, and of individual men and women whose hearts were moved with earnest sympathy for this great venture of faith, and for the man who, to them, was its interesting representative. The occasion and the man were both unique. There had been nothing like such a mission in the history of the American Church before; all eyes were centred upon it; all hearts were responsive to its appeals for assistance; and most singular of all was the fact that even when Dr. Breck left Nashotah for St. Paul, in 1850, although the same interest followed him to his new mission, still Nashotah’s friends did not desert her, as some feared they might do, and even to this day the “barrel of meal has not wasted, nor the cruse of oil failed” to supply that school of the prophets “ with food convenient for them.”

Chapter IV Nashotah—continued

THE early days at Nashotah are of interest because they throw light upon the first work of Dr. Breck, and so assist us to get a better insight into the character of this remarkable man. They are interesting, also, as revealing an order of institutional life, which, it is quite safe to say, will never be repeated in the history of the American Church.

What are known as the early days of Nashotah cover the time from 1842 to March, 1850, a period of eight years. My own acquaintance with Nashotah dates from 1847. In the summer of that year my family moved to Wisconsin and settled within one mile of the institution. That year, also, I first attended the service of the Episcopal Church, held in Nashotah chapel, and wondered at its, to me, strange character. I confess to a frightful ignorance, as I thought they chanted because they did not know how to sing tunes, although I must have been disabused of that idea before the service ended. Altogether I was not pleased with a service where all the prayers were read out of a book. Soon after this, Dr. Breck, then a young man about twenty-seven years of age, called at our house. All I remember of the visit was that he seemed an unusually tall man who sat up very straight on the front of the chair. Soon after this visit I began my preparation for Holy Baptism, going to Dr. Breck’s study for recitations of the catechism once a week.

During this time I was given several books to read, besides forms of self-examination and private devotion—Kip’s “Double Witness of the Church” I read through twice with great satisfaction. After three months of study, Dr. Breck deemed me ready for the sacred rite, and on a Sunday following, at the afternoon service, I, with fifteen others, was baptized. At the close of the second lesson, all being in white robes, we marched from the chapel down to the lake, and upon the platform of the baptistery, from which six steps led into the water, the candidates were baptized, some kneeling on the steps, when water was poured on their heads from a silver ewer, and others went into the water and were immersed, kneeling and bowing under the water, as is the custom in our Church. Then we returned to the chapel, and the service went on to its conclusion. I recall that the font, which stood by the door of the chapel, was so large that infants were often immersed. On one occasion the ice was cut in the lake and two young ladies were submerged in the chilly waters. All this was in the line of Dr. Breck’s idea that

Nashotah— Continued 21

Christians should learn to “endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.”

By this circumstance I am reminded of an incident in the early life of Nashotah, and before my day, when a summer outing was projected for the students to Green Bay, Wis., where our Church had a mission among the Oneida Indians, the real object of this journey being the ordination of Messrs. Breck and Adams to the priesthood, Bishop Kemper having arranged to meet them there. In the way of hardening the seventeen students, Dr. Breck determined to call the 6 o’clock A. M. roll on the pier which extended into the lake some forty feet, and on the end of which was a long spring-board. As the names were called the young men were expected to answer, and casting each his garment away, one after another to plunge into the water. This was considered to be the right sort of discipline and hardening for the six weeks of camp life before them. Canute Peterson, a Swede of eighteen years of age, who was one of the expedition, penned some verses on one occasion, of which I recall but two lines, but they are very suggestive of other things that might have happened in those night encampments. “Of a morning surprise,” he says, “ we were as wet as we could be, and Halstead’s calf ate up our tea.”

When first I saw Nashotah, there was nothing attractive about it but its situation. Dr. Breck had an artistic eye for locating his missions and schools. The twin lakes (Nashotah) were ideal in their beauty and surroundings. From the plateau one could catch a glimpse of three lakes beside the one on which the mission was located and from a high elevation three miles distant, fifteen lakes are visible, but none have the quiet and serene beauty of the Nashotah Lakes. In 1848 when I entered the institution, there were thirty-four students, of whom twelve were candidates for orders, and the remainder were in the collegiate department, their ages ranging from fourteen upwards to thirty years. These students lived in thirty-four rooms. Every student must have his own room. Four were under the chapel, eight in St. Lazarus row, two in the ice-house, one in the wash-house, four in the blue house, where Dr. Breck was domiciled. It would be difficult to say where the rest found quarters.

A day at Nashotah began at 5 o’clock A. M., with the ringing of a bell which hung thirty feet up in a tree, near the blue house, and the bell was always rung by Dr. Breck himself. Five minutes after this, the second peal summoned every student to answer to his name, which was called at the door of a small central building that served as a library. With a scramble into trousers and shoes, and a blanket or quilt thrown about him, the student rushed out to within hearing and answering distance, and then returned shivering to his room to make his fire, to dress and study until six o’clock, when the bell rang

Nashotah— Continued 23 again. This time the young men ranged themselves in line in front of headquarters, answered again to their names, and marched to chapel, where the whole Morning Prayer was said. At 6:30 we had breakfast, when a good cup or bowl of coffee revived our drooping spirits. From seven to nine o’clock there was study in our rooms, and then began the recitations of the day. At 12:30 there was dinner, and at 1 Pp. M. work began and continued until five o’clock. Then at six o’clock we again assembled in front of the blue house to answer to our names, and attend chapel and then to supper, and after that we went to our rooms for study until 10 P. M., when lights were out for the night, but on occasion they were re-lit and a few chosen spirits enjoyed the forbidden smoke. I think the only thing in the way of hazing in those days was to invite the newcomer who did not smoke, and then lock the door and smudge him. On one occasion I recall, Dr. Breck appeared, but was unable to enter as the dense cloud forbade him, and he, not being a smoker himself, beat a hasty retreat, but not until he had “spotted” a few of the transgressors. There was nothing a student so much dreaded as a summons to headquarters for an interview with the president. It always meant business. From this instance it is easy to see that Dr. Breck was the present as well as the presiding, genius of Nashotah. His personal oversight extended to every detail ; nothing escaped his scrup-

24 An Aposile of the Wilderness ulous attention. He would have been a martinet in the army. Dr. Breck, however, failed to perceive that arbitrary discipline could be carried too far. He did not know that boys grew to be men even at college. He had one rule for the boy of fourteen and the man of thirty years, and this led to rebellion, and was one reason for his resignation of the presidency.

Dr. Breck did not, however, yield gracefully when he had made a mistake; he could not retreat. He could lead, but not follow, and the results were what might have been expected. In every case he was judge, jury and executioner. No one could say when his own case would be called. It was reasonably certain among the younger men that there was a growing case against them, even if they were not conscious of wrong-doing. It was only a question of time when the cloud would burst, when the dreaded summons to an interview with the president in his study would be received. This condition reached a climax in 1859, when Samuel Josiah Hayward was expelled for insubordination. Mr. Hayward said he would not be treated like a boy of fifteen, and the president answered by expelling him. It was a serious matter for Mr. Hayward, but it had an amusing side also. The question of expulsion was a matter for the faculty to act upon, and as that body was small, two members constituteda quorum. As I heard the story, Dr. Breck was chairman, and Dr. Adams, the other mem-