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L'année 1836 aura vu naître plusieurs religieux catholique
attirés par la conquête du grand ouest américain. Après
Charles-Joseph Gonant (1836-1907),
né à Frémonville, c'est Jean Adolphe Jacques (1836-1878), de
Buriville, qui rejoint le diocèse de l'Illinois.
Il nait le 11 novembre 1836 à Buriville, fils de Joseph Jacques,
maçon, et Marie Catherine Garland. La similitude de son parcours
avec celui de Charles Joseph Gonant est frappante : Grand
séminaire de Nancy, All-Hallows à Dublin, départ pour l'Amérique
avec l'évêque Henri-Damien Juncker nommé en 1857, suivi de
l'ordination.
Mais si Gonant est rentré en France en 1886, Jacques succombe en
1878, apparemment victime d'une grave insolation lors d'un long
voyage en train (170 km entre Springfield et Cahokia) sur un
wagon découvert.
Clerical bead roll of the Diocese of
Alton, Ill.
A. ZURBONSEN
(Sacerdos Altonensis)
1918
REV. ADOLPHUS JACQUES.
"Then strange words upon the silence broke,
And I listened as the Angels spoke".
Among the brave band of early missionaries whose coming hither
was more or less contemporaneous with the advent of the First
Bishop of Alton, Rt. Rev. Damian Junker, D. D., were a number of
zealous apostolic men from France. Here as everywhere else they
performed yeoman work, they were truly pathfinders and trail-blazers
who left in their wake many a grateful heart to bless their
memory.
In looking over the accounts of the pioneer work accomplished by
these heroic men we encounter such names as Gonant, Dubois,
Bedard, Laurent, Recouvreur, Zabel, Jacques and others equally
distinguished. With a single exception, these men have all
passed away from the scenes of their exploits, all have received
from the Master of the great vine yard in which indefatigably
they toiled and moiled through so many years from early till
late merited compensation.
From the above mentioned list we single out one whose tragic
ending elicited at the time universal sympathy and sorrow,
namely, Rev. Father A. Jacques. In detailing his life and
activity in the Alton diocese, we turn for information to the
columns of the "New World," where the following narrative is
thus related. It reads:
Rev. John Adolphus Jacques was born in 1836 at Buriville,
diocese of Nancy, France. He made his classical course at the
Seminary of Pona-Mousson [sic] and his philosophical and
theological studies at the Great Seminary of Nancy, leading his
class in both establishments. After spending a few months at All
Hallows' College in Ireland he came over to America with Bishop
Junker and was ordained by him on the 3rd of May, 1859.
After assisting for awhile at St. Mary's, Springfield, he was
sent successively to Shawneetown, Kaskaskia, Paris, Virginia,
Beardstown 1867-68 and then to Assumption where he did very good
work. Two years before his coming thither a general subscription
had been taken up for the building of a new church, but nothing
was accomplished until he came. In the fall of 1869 the
corner-stone of the new building was laid by Administrator P. J.
Baltes; Rev. D. S. Phelan, the late well known editor of the
Western Watchman, of St. Louis, preaching the English and Rev.
F. H. Zabel, D. D., the French sermon. Fairs and subscriptions
supplied the means. It took until the year 1872 to have the
building under roof.
In 1874, Father Jacques finding the congregation unwilling to
supply him with a becoming residence, left and went to
Shelbyville, though still attending Assumption. This move
stirred up the people who at once built a house.
When Father Jacques left Shelbyville he was sent to Cahokia, at
the same time attending Centerville Station. In the heated term
of July, 1878, he was compelled to travel from Centerville to
Cahokia in an open wagon under the mid-day broiling sun to
attend the funeral of a child. As he reached home, he felt
prostrated, had no one to help him in his sad condition, and
expired unattended, being found two days afterwards, July 17,
dead, a martyr to priestly duty. His body, swollen beyond
measure, was buried in the village graveyard by Rev. P. J.
O'Halloran and Rev. Chris Koenig, both of East St. Louis.
Father Jacques was a refined scholar, a writer of uncommon merit,
as honorable as he was eccentric. His delight was to impart
religious instruction to the rising-generation, thus planting
the seeds for future harvest. R. I. P.
Diocese of Springfield in Illinois
Diamond jubilee 1853-1928
Reverend Adolphus Jacques
Reverend John Adolphus Jacques was born in
1836 at Buriville, diocese of Nancy, France. He made his
classical course at the Seminary of Pona Mousson [sic] and his
philisophical and theological studies at the Great Seminary of
Nancy, leading his class in both establishments. After spending
a few months at All Hallows College in Ireland, he came over to
America with Bishop Juncker and was ordained by him on the 3rd
of May, 1859.
After assisting for a while at St. Mary, Springfield, he was
sent successively to Shawneetown, Kaskaskia, Paris, Virginia,
Beardstown, 1867 to 1868, and then to Assumption where he did
very good work. Two years before his coming there a general
subscription had been taken up for the building of a new church,
but nothing was accomplished until he came. In the fall of 1869
the corner stone of the new building was laid by the
Administrator, Peter Joseph Baltes; Reverend D. S. Phelan, the
late well known editor of the Western Watchman, of St. Louis,
preaching the English, and Reverend F. H. Zabel, D.D., the
French sermon. Fairs and subscriptions supplied the means. It
took until the year 1872 to have the building under roof.
In 1874 Father Jacques left and went to Shelbyville, though
still attending Assumption.
When Father Jacques left Shelbyville he was sent to Cahokia, at
the same time attending Centerville Station. In the heated term
of July, 1878, he was compelled to travel from Centerville to
Cahokia in an open wagon under the mid-day broiling sun to
attend the funeral of a child. As he reached home, he felt
prostrated, had no one to help him in his sad condition, and
expired unattended, being found two days afterwards, July 17,
1878, dead - a martyr to priestly duty. His body, swollen beyond
measure, was buried in the village graveyard by Reverend P. J.
O'Halloran and Reverend Christopher Koenig, both of East St.
Louis.
Father Jacques was a refined scholar, a writer of unusual merit,
as honorable as he was eccentric. His delight was to impart
religious instruction to the rising generation, thus planting
the seeds for future harvest.
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