HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ATCHISON COUNTY

Compiled by Raymond Leisman

Much credit for this history must go to the l882 History of Missouri, of which the main subjects were Holt and Atchison Counties! It was not only a biography of the early settlers, but contained a wealth of information of each township, and dates of incorporation of each town in the county. Also first businesses, schools, lodges, churches, etc.

There were probably Catholic Church services conducted in the great state of Missouri before any written records were kept, what with the mighty Mississippi River on the east, and the turbulent Missouri Rive thru the middle and up the west aisle, the main route of travel was by boat on these two great waterways.

The earliest written record of the Catholic Church in Missouri that I could find was that Father Watrin performed ministerial services in St. Genevieve in l760, and in St. Louis in l766. In l710 Father Meurin erected a small log church in St. Louis. In l8l8, which was three years before Missouri became a state, there were in all of upper Louisiana Territory (which included Missouri) 4 chapels and seven priests.

In l869 the nearest Catholic Church to Atchison County was built in Forest City. It was the third church to be built in the town, and was a frame building costing $l500.00. The building of the church was supervised by Rev. Father Welch of St. Joseph. The dedication sermon was preached to a large congregation by Bishop Hogan of St. Joseph. Fr. Baker was the priest in l882.

The first Catholic Church in Atchison County was a frame church erected in Phelps City in l879. The priest officiating at the time of erection: was Fr. Welch from Cleveland, Ohio (probably the Same Fr. Welch who officiated at the building of the Forest City church ten years earlier in l869). Fr. Welch became their pastor. The priests succeeding Fr. Welch were: Frs. Hanley, Torney, Shew, and F.C. Baker. They were listed this way in the l8B2 history book, but were probably serving Phelps City as a mission priest of Forest City, and probably served Watson and Tarkio also.

I do feel that some corrections should be made on a mini-history of St. Paul's Church in Tarkio, a small booklet printed in 1960, on the occasion of the dedication of the new church in Tarkio. This history states that about l889 the first Mass to be celebrated in Atchison County took place in a private home, about four or five miles from Tarkio. It also states that the first Catholic Church built in the county was built northeast of Fairfax in the Wolfe district, and that it was destroyed by a tornado. I do not know where this information was obtained, but I could find no record to substantiate it. It also states that missions of the Tarkio church were established in Watson, Phelps City, Burlington Junction, and Forest City. This is also an error as I will explain later in this history.

At about the same time that the Forest City church was built, in l869, the Kansas City, St. Joseph and Council Bluffs Railroad was finished (later to become the Burlington, then Burlington Northern)

For several years at this time the old river town of Sonora had been threatened by the Missouri River, which was cutting away at the loam soil. Great chunks of this soil melted like a sugar loaf as the relentless river pounded away at it. Sonora, in its heyday, was a town of several hundred people who were looking for a place to go. It was that same year that Marion Good laid out the town of Watson (l869) on the newly finished railroad, the site being about 2 miles east of Sonora. Many of the houses in Watson Were moved from Sonora, some built new houses. Our house in Watson was constructed from two houses, which were moved from Sonora and put together and remodeled.

The foresight of the people was not in error, as the river did keep cutting away at Sonora, taking business buildings, some houses, and the entire town with the exception of one small brick house, said to be located on the north end of Main Street, which was still standing a few years ago. The river then for some unknown reason started cutting back the other way.

Your probably wonder what all this had to do with the history of the Catholic Church in Atchison County, but it is part of the growth and development of the county, which lead to the establishment of all the churches in the county.

An interesting item in the history about Watson was that, on the day in l869 that Watson was laid out, a Mr. G.T.Boston moved a small building from Sonora to Watson, and proposed locating in the town for the establishment of a saloon, which was the characteristic enterprise of his calling. However, he did not reckon on the other early settlers of the town, who would not stand for it. So Mr. Boston moved his building just outside the southern limits of the town near the railroad tracks. As the history states: "Hence originated the south end addition to the town of Watson, which may thus be said to have had its birth if not its baptism in whiskey”.

From the year l880 until about 1900 there was a large influx of German Catholic families from Dubois County in southern Indiana into the Watson community. My grandfather*s family was among them. They were mostly farmers and were thrifty hard working people. I am sure they probably held Mass in private homes at this time, until they could get a church built. There was by that time a church in Hamburg, St. Mary’s, which was built in l874. However, Hamburg was ten miles from Watson. The trip took about l, hours with a team of horses. The train made it in about l5 minutes, but it was about l, miles from the depot to the church, to be walked after arrival by train. With the advent of all these Catholic families, I am sure the pressure mounted on Bishop Hogan to build a church in Watson.

Having examined the Abstract Title, I found that the ground for the Watson Catholic church was purchased from Samuel D. Hudson, and was made out to John Joseph Hogan, Bishop of Kansas City and Administrator of St. Joseph. It was purchased for $l78.50, April l8 l89l. It is probable that the church was erected that same year, as it is on record that a Baptism was held there that year. (It would be interesting to know if the same Father Welch, who superintended the construction of the Forest City church in l869, and the Phelps City church in l879, also supervised the construction of the Watson church in l89l, as the same Bishop Hogan was head of the diocese). The Watson Church was given the name St. Boniface.

By the later part of the 1870s, branch railroads that connected with the main line of the Kansas City, St. Joseph and Council Bluffs RR and ran up a fertile river valley, such as the Tarkio river valley, where about this time the Tarkio Valley Railroad was built and completed. This branch line left the main line at Corning, ran up the valley in a north-easterly direction all the way to Clarinda.) Iowa. At about the same time that it was built, Tarkio, Fairfax, and Westboro sprang up along the railroad and they all enjoyed a rapid growth.

Tarkio was laid out in August, l880, by Charles E. Perkins.  The population increased so rapidly, and houses sprang up so numerously that the proprietor of the original town site, Mr. Perkins.) laid out the first addition to the town in l88l. The l882 history book reported: "The town has a beautiful location on the west side of the Tarkio Valley Railroad and is just ten miles south of Westboro." In l882 the history reports Tarkio had only three churches:  Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian and United Presbyterian.

I could find nothing definite on the date of the first Catholic Church built in Tarkio but it was probably about l893. It was a frame church built in the southwest part of town. The church was named St. Paul the Apostle and was used for over 60 years.

At this time Tarkio, Watson, Phelps City and probably Burlington Junction were all missions of Forest City. A mission is a church that doesn't have a resident priest. There being no automobiles at that time, the priests had to travel by passenger train. The main line of the Kansas City.) St. Joseph and Council Bluffs R.R. went thru Forest City from the south passing through Phelps City and Watson. The priest held services monthly in the churches. He would catch old #27, called the morning flyer, and would arrive in Watson about 9:30am. After saying Mass he would catch southbound #20, known as the noon train, which went thru about ll:30 a.m., arriving in Forest City in time for lunch. The same trains were available for the Sundays at Phelps City, where the morning train arrived about l5 minutes sooner than at Watson. This same arrangement would have worked for Tarkio. He would change trains at Corning to the Tarkio Valley train and arrive in Tarkio about 10:00 a.m., have services while the train traveled on to Clarinda, then catch the same train back in the afternoon. The same might have been used in serving the church in Burlington Junction, as the Nodaway Valley Railroad had been built by this time. It branched off the main line at Bigelow and traveled northeast up the Nodaway River valley to Skidmore and Burlington Junction, then on to Clarinda, Iowa. Thus the priest could have left Forest City, changed trains at Bigelow, then on to Burlington Junction, where he could say Mass, then journey back on the train when it returned from Clarinda.

I could find no record when the Phelps City Catholic Church was closed or what became of it. There was a very interesting item in the Atchison County Mail, August 24, 1979, from an old gentleman in Florida who was born in Phelps City in l894. His name was Willard Parker, and he was commenting about Phelps City, a village of 65 persons, voting 6 million dollars in revenue bonds to build an addition to the MBPXL Beef plant. It contained a very interesting account of his life. He lived in Phelps City until 1904 and could remember the names of people in the area at that time, also several things that happened. There was one thing he mentioned which pertained to this history. "There was one couple of the Catholic Faith and a touring priest came thru Phelps City once a month and set up his altar in the living room of their home and said Mass for them. They lived on the east side of the tracks down towards the south part of town." This pretty well proves that the Catholic Church in Phelps City was closed and sold sometime in the early l800s.

I did talk with a man who was just a little older than Mr. Parker, who said that he could not remember when there was a Catholic Church in Phelps City. And he was born and raised there.

Shortly after the turn of the century, about 19l0, the Catholics who came to the Watson area from Indiana started moving away, migrating west, mostly to Nebraska and Colorado; a few to Kansas.

I am sure that the main reason was that they wanted to get into larger parishes where there were parochial schools. Thus as the families moved away, the support of the church dwindled until there wasn’t enough money coming in to meet expenses. This, plus hard times spelled the downfall of the church. My father, Michael Leisman, kept the books and collected the money. He sometimes had a hard time getting the dollar a month that some families gave. Times were just that tough.

I tried to find out the date of the closing of the Watson church from the diocese of Kansas City, but I could get no response. Bishop LeBlonde was head of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese at the time, and Rev. Father Cody (sic) (later Cardinal Cody of Chicago was coadjutor at the time). It must have been about 1926 or 1927 that the notice came from the diocese of the closing of the church. All the records, vestments, etc., were taken to Tarkio and placed in the rectory there and it was decreed that all Catholics living in Atchison County were now members of St. Paul*s Parish in Tarkio. As mentioned above, St. Mary's in Hamburg, Iowa, was quite a large parish, and a good many who lived between Watson and Hamburg started going there, even though they lived in Atchison County, and quite a few still do.

In 1926 I left Watson and the home of my parents and went to work in Kansas City. However, on a visit to a lady several years older than myself, I learned that after the church was closed, a priest came to Watson on Saturday mornings and said Mass in the living room of my parent's home. She said she had gone there many a Saturday morning.

It must be remembered that in the l920s every road was a dirt road. Some were loam soil, some were gumbo, some clay, some were sandy, but regardless of what they were, when it rained they were muddy. It was 20 miles from Watson to Tarkio, up and down steep hills, and sometimes through water on the level. In fact, sometimes the roads were just impassable. Finally they started graveling some of them, then to black topping them. Now many are paved.

So as you know, with the advancement of the automobile, which replaced Old Dobbin, the horse and buggy, the 20 miles to Tarkio dwindled down in the time it took that no one objected to belonging there.

It must have been about 1930 that the diocese decided that the church should be sold, and forthwith it was put up for sale. It was purchased by a prosperous Watson farmer, who gave it to the Watson School District to be used as an elementary building for the lower grades. The district was badly in need of more room as the building they were using was greatly overcrowded. It was a large square two story brick building, which was built in 19l3. There just wasn't enough room in it. After receiving the gift of the old church, they put a partition across the middle of it, making two rooms of it. They put two teachers in it with, I believe, the first six grades. It was a great relief on the old building to gain the extra room.

In the meantime as I was working in Kansas City and got back to Watson on weekends about once a month, I did lose track somewhat of the events at home. In December, 1929, Lillie and I were married at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Kansas City.  (It was really right at the start of the great depression, and little did realize what a great impact it would have on our lives.)

As the depression got worse, I had work only three or four days a week, then down to one and two, finally none. My wife Lillie worked when she could get work. However, our daughter Jean was born in the summer of 1931, and I got a day's work whenever possible. In February, 1932, we moved to Watson where we had scraped together a couple of hundred dollars and obtained a small line of credit. (Money was tight and scarce, and most banks just didn't have any to loan). With these resources I purchased the remaining stock of the McNeal Grocery Store. It was touch and go for some time, but finally we got our heads above water and started adding to the stock.

I realize this has nothing to do with the history of the church, except that we were now living in the parish of St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Tarkio. The old Watson church was doing duty as elementary school in the Watson School District.

The road condition was much improved by this time. Route A was blacktopped from Watson out to Lone Cedar, where it met highway 275, which for a time was half paved an half gravel, until there was enough state money to pave the other side. This was a great improvement for us as we could now drive to Tarkio to church in our Model A Ford in about 30 minutes.

As stated before, I was unable to find out when Tarkio first had a resident priest, but it must have been in the 1920s. We moved to Watson in 1932 and I think there had been one there for some time. If memory serves me right, I believe Father Fidelis Goetz was the priest at the time, and he served Tarkio and Burlington Junction for years until his retirement.

Getting back to the old Watson church. In 1936 our son Bob came along and daughter Jean started the first grade in the church. In 1948, when the large new brick school building was finished, all twelve grades were moved into it and the old church became vacant. After a time the building reverted back to the farmer who had given it to the school. In 1954 his grandson started building a new house, and his grandfather gave him the church to tear down and use the lumber in his new house. My mother always said that the church bell was one that was recovered from a steamboat on the Missouri River that had wrecked and sank back in the old steamboat days.

In 1950 we purchased the Rock Port Market and our family moved there (with the exception of Jean who had married Robert Ladd). This put us much nearer to Tarkio and St. Paul's Catholic Church. It was only nine miles of good paved road. I believe that Father Yehli was the priest at that time. It was about this time that a building fund was started for a new church. Father Hoppe soon became our next pastor and the building fund continued to grow. Subsequently Bishop LaBlonde retired and Bishop Cody became head of the diocese.

As the building account grew, and the 1950s advanced, Bishop Cody had the diocesan architect draw up plans for the new church and rectory. Father Hoppe, after looking the over, decided they were too elegant for our parish and sent them back. The next set was felt to be too rich for our parish. We did finally accept the third set of plans, although we couldn't figure out why we needed a rectory with 4 bedrooms and 4 baths. The present church was the result of these last plans. The cost was still quite a bit more than we had amassed in the building fund. It took us a few years to pay off the balance.

In May of 1960, Father Waterman became our Pastor.  The dedication of the new church was held.  Bishop Cody officiated at the dedication.

REMINISCING BY RAYMOND LEISMAN

I can remember back to about 19l0 when I was a lad of five, Church was held monthly at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Watson. On the Sunday that we were to have church, I would have to dress up in my Sunday best, which was short pants, knicker style, and oh, how I longed for the time to come when I was a big boy and could wear long trousers. Occasionally, for some reason or other, the priest would not be on the train when it arrived. I would be watching from the sidewalk on main street "Oh BOY! No church today!" Away I would go for home to get those uncomfortable clothes off and into my everyday overalls. The priest would usually write someone why he didn't come and when he would, probably the next Sunday. I would be watching as old #27, the morning flyer, came puffing black smoke as it came into and out of town. There he would be, at the north crossing sidewalk, waiting for the train to puff out of town so he could walk the two blocks west from the depot to the church, which was located in the west part of town. As we lived in town, it just became our duty to unlock the church on the Sundays that the priest came to Watson and make things ready for the service.

When I became a little older, I was made an altar boy, who is supposed to help the priest with the service. Since we had church only once a month, I could hardly remember what I was supposed to do. When I became old enough, it became my lot in cold weather to build the fires in the stoves. There were two stoves in the church, one on each side. They were wood stoves, which I started with a bucket of corn cobs, then the wood and a little kerosene. In a couple of hours it would be as warm as toast.

I can well remember the old hitching rack in  back where the farm families would tie up their horses when they arrived in a buggy or carriage. A hitching rack was a log chain between several posts set solidly in the ground. With the advent of the automobile, unless the roads ware muddy, they came chugging into town.

This history is as nearly correct as possible. As stated at the start, much credit for accuracy must be given to the l882 "History of Missouri", a copy of which is in the Atchison County Library in Rock Port. This volume not only contained information on when the different churches were built in the towns in the county, but it also had information about when the towns were laid out, and when the various railroads were built.

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