Joseph Porthier and Victorie Mirandeau
Early Settlers to Milwaukee
JOSEPH PORTHIER
Joseph Porthier was born July 10, 1799 in Three Rivers, Canada. He died Feb. 10, 1874. Joseph came to Milwaukee in 1835 with Horace Chase. We don't know exactly when Joseph and Horace Chase met up, but in an article published in The Milwaukee Sentinel, (Milwaukee, WI) Thursday, September 02, 1886; pg. 5; col A it says the following regarding Horace Chase:
In January, 1835, he visited the country from Chicago to Rock river, going as far as Dixon's Ferry, the crossing leading to the lead mines. IN February he went to Kankakee, at the head of the Illinois river, but as he saw no location anywhere which, in his mind, equaled that of Milwaukee, he returned to Chicago, and on Feb. 27, started for this place with Joseph Porthier.
In the History of Chicago, Volume 1 page 104 By Alfred Theodore Andreas is another reference to Joseph Portier...
"Mr. McKee found but two houses on the north side of the river on his arrival--those of John Kinzie and Dr. Alexander Wolcott. The third house built near the agency-house, by Joseph Porthier, and the fourth by Mr. McKee himself."
Joseph was a member of the Old Settlers' Club. Joseph Portheir married Victoria Mirandeau in 1828. Victoria was the daughter of Jean Baptiste Mirandeau, a blacksmith. Nearly all of Mirandeau's children married Native Americans except for Victoria. Mrs. Porthier was still living in 1887.
The Mirandeau and Porthier Families
Source: History of Chicago, Volume 1; Arno Press, 1884. By Alfred Theodore Andreas page 104-106
Among the few houses built on the north side of the river prior to 1826 was one which was built and occupied by Joseph Porthier, a blacksmith and striker for Mr. McKee. The widow of Mr. Porthier is believed to be the only person, now living, who saw and remembers any circumstances which transpired in Chicago, prior to the massacre of 1812. She is the fifth child of Jean Baptiste Mirandeau, the earliest permanent white settler in Milwaukee and a sojourner in Chicago in 1811. She is now living (September, 1883) at Bay View near Milwaukee, and retains a vivid and clear recollection of very early times in Chicago, which are deemed of historic value, as they were given in two different interviews, between shidh sufficient time had elapsed to test the reliability of her recollection. Without prompting on the part of the interviewer, she corroborated all statements made at the first. She is the "good Victoire," mentioned by Mrs. Kinzie in "Waubun")p.369), and the family servant of John Kinzie and Dr. Wolcott. Genevieve and John Baptiste, with the amusing "Tomah," who accompanied John H. Kinzie and Lieutenant Hunger to Fort Winnebago in 1833 were her sister and brother. The family record kept her father was destroyed after his death, but from collateral evidence it is believe to have been in 1800 or 1801. What follows is as given by Mrs. Porthier herself in August and September, 1883:
"My mother was an Ottawa woman; my father was a Frenchman. He was a good scholar, a very handsome man, and had many books. He taught us children to speak French, and we all learned to speak Indian of the tribe and mother. We had no schools nor education. I never learned to read or write. My father had his house in Milwaukee, where he traded with the Indians and did some blacksmithing for them, and for other traders. He fixed guns and traps for them. Before the fort was burned ( August, 1812 ) my father was down to the fort—the year before —and did blacksmith work there. The family went down while he was there, and some of us lived in the Ouilmette house, across the river from the fort. My sister Madaline (afterward the wife of John K. Clark ) and I saw the fight between old John Kinzie and Lalime when he (Lalime) was killed.
"The Lalime Homicide.—It was sunset when they used to shut the gates of the fort. Kinzie and Lalime came out together and soon we heard Lieutenant Helm call out for Mr. Kinzie to look out for Lalime, as he had a pistol. Quick we saw the men come together; we heard the pistol go off, and saw the smoke. Then they fell down together. I don't know as Lalime got up at all but Kinzie got home pretty quick. Blood was running from his shoulder where Lalime had shot him. In the night he packed up some things, and my father took him to Milwaukee, where he staid till his shoulder got well and he found he wouldn't be troubled if he came back. You see Kinzie wasn't to blame at all. He didn't have any pistol nor knife—nothing. After Lalime shot him "and Kinzie got his arms around him, he (Lalime) pulled out his dirk and as they fell he was stabbed with his own knife. That is what they all said. I didn't see the knife at all. I don't remember where Lalime was buried. I don't think his grave was very near Mr. Kinzie's house. I don't remember that Mr. Kinzie ever took care of the grave. That is all I know about it. I don't know what the quarrel was about. It was an old one—business, I guess.
"After Mr. Kinzie came back (1816) he came up to Milwaukee and visited my father and took me to live with him. (We were not there when the fort was burned—we had gone back to Milwaukee.) I lived with him until he died, then I married Joseph Porthier. He was a Frenchman, and a kind of blacksmith. He worked for McKee."
Victoire Mirandeau, who has partially told her own story, above, was married at Fort Dearborn to Joseph Porthier, by Colonel J. B. Beaubien, J. P., November 5, 1828. She lived in Chicago until 1835, when Mr. Porthier, wife and three children, removed to Milwaukee, where he had bought a quarter section of land. Mr. Porthier died in 1875, and was buried in Milwaukee. His widow lives near Bay View, south of the city of Milwaukee, in a small house built for her by the old settlers of that city. Her large family of children, like her brothers and sisters, have all died of consumption—the last daughter during the late summer of 1883—and the sorrowful old lady is indeed alone. When speaking of her early friends in Chicago—the Kinzies, Wolcotts, Beaubiens and the many members of her tribe, her sad refrain is ever "dead—all gone." Her little home, though plain to poverty, is a model of neatness and order, and the garden, tended by her own hands, is bright with flowers and vines. She speaks French, English, and several Indian dialects well. It is well said of her in the "Milwaukee History :" "If she could have had the advantages of an education, Mrs. Porthier would have been a remarkable woman, as her memory is almost as accurate as a written record ; her powers of perception are wonderful, and her ideas of right and wrong rigidly and justly correct. But her closing years are dreary enough—shorn as they are of relatives and friends, pinched by poverty and burdened by sorrow." It is indeed sad that this solitary woman, forming perhaps the only living link connecting the present with the " by-gone days" of Chicago and Milwaukee, should close her days in poverty and an ever present dread of being the recipient of public charity. See more about Jean Baptiste Mirandeau
Joseph Porthier
Joseph Porthier, one of the earliest setters of Milwaukee County, member of the Old Settlers' Club, died last week and was buried near Bay View on last Saturday
Poor Porthier
Source: Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, (Milwaukee, WI) Thursday, February 26, 1874; pg. 2; Issue 48; col A
A Report that He Was Refused Burial in the Catholic Cemetery
A Sentinel Reporter Investigates the Rumor but Cannot Learn Any Foundation for It,
Interview with the Right Reverend Catholic Bishop
The venerable bard who drew anguish from many eyes, on Tuesday evening, by his funeral chant relating to the death and burial of Joseph Porthier, at Bay View, on the 21st inst., had managed to get up a tolerably fair breeze of excitement in the community. He has informed us many confidential friends have observed such inviolate secrecy, that it has got about to uttermost parts of Milwaukee and her suburbs, that the Catholic bishop has refused burial to a poor Catholic for the only reason that the poor Catholic died in a district where there is no burial ground!
It was only yesterday morning that a valued friend and correspondent of a Sentinel reporter came rushing in with the news that he had just heard of one of the most diabolical outrages that had ever
SHAKEN CRISTENDOM TO ITS CENTER;
he referred to the non-burial story. The reporter, with a sympathetic smile, handed the visitor The Wisconsin, in which the item was found, done up in verse by J.S.B., which stands according to the Milwaukee Directory, for 187304, for "Buck, James S., ins. surveyor, N.W. National Ins. Co., res 113 14th:" The friend read down to the fourth line, and, shrieking, incontinently fled-it is supposed, to cut his throat.
Other kind friends dropped in, some just to let us know, you know, of
THE LAST SENSATION
others to cuss the priests; others to swear the whole story a lie; others to demand that The Sentinel, sir, expose the whole thing, sir, and write the whole thing up and down, sir, in its most brimstone, screaming, thunder and lightening style, sir; others to stay an hour or so with the editor and dictate a few editorials on the subject; others to threaten that if the editor, or reporter, dared write a line thereon the building should be burned to the ground and the employes scalped and then flung into the fire. And there were some everlastingly hopeless fools who thought they could coax, threaten, bribe, or soft-soap The Sentinel to say nothing about it.
It was the intention, however, not to refer to the subject matter of the pockry of "J.S.B." unless it came on the authority of some one not afflicted with J.S.B.'s complaint; but several trustworthy citizens having called seriously to complain of
THE ALLEGED OUTRAGE
by the Roman Catholic priests, a Sentinel reporter took the case under his protection.
The statement, as made to the scribe and Pharisee of the Milwaukee newspaper, was to the effect that the deceased was an old settler; that, like many other old settlers, he had fought the bears of his country in the hunting grounds of real estate and other speculations, and bled freely to the extent of whatever wealth he possessed; and that he had gone down to the grave a poor man, who ought to have been a rich one; died in the midst of penury, who ought to have been surrounded with every comfort and luxury;
DIED IN A LITTLE WOOD SHANTY
who ought to have been the object of the solitude of troops of loving friends and relatives, all waiting for his money, and soothed in his declining moments by the ministrations of the most skillful gentlemen of the faculty. Also, that Porthier was a good Catholic of many years standing, a good citizen, and a good man generally; that he had become poor through no fault of his own, and had been presented with a little lot of ground, upon which he built a small cot, at Bay View, with $142, the results of a subscription among the old settlers, where he lived, probably on the very ground where he had trapped for the Juneaus something less than two or three centuries ago. (Porthier is said to have had Indian blood in his veins.) He was a quiet, easy-going old gentleman, and gave no one trouble, but many
LEARNED TO LOVE HIM
for the many good qualities with which he was blessed. This poor gentleman, who had trapped in the wild woods where the substantial streets of our magnificent business city now stand, went quietly down to the grave, and was refused Christian burial; so said the aggrieved parties-or those who thought themselves aggrieved.
To learn
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
several prominent Catholic laymen were visited, who were popularly supposed to know all about the affair. Some said J.S.B. was a pompous, meddling citizen, who was always trying to get other people into hot water, and wondered whom the initials could possibly stand for.
Others said that the Catholic Church never cast out her children, or refused them Christian burial, or let them lie and rot for want of a bit of consecrated ground to repose in; as had been charged. Others said that these complaints were always being made, but were never true. And others admitted that Catholics are sometimes refused burial, but never except for good abuse, such as being a member of a secret society, or of having lived a dissolute life, or disobeyed the commands of a priest, or refused to receive the visit and exhortations of the holy father at the dying moment. In such cases, they said, a man who had thus voluntarily put himself outside the pale of the church might be refused burial, but they could not believe such a thing happened.
Among the assertions made by an "old settler", who had it from a gentleman whose name shall be incognito until he denies it, was, that
PORTHIER'S PRIEST
having refused burial at Bay View, for the very good reason that he had no burying ground to put the corpse in, gave the friends of the deceased a letter to the Catholic authorities in Milwaukee representing the circumstances; and that, armed with this letter, they came to Milwaukee, applied for a lot in Calvery, and were brusquely refused; that they thereupon returned to Bay View, and left the body with the son of the deceased, not knowing what to do with it; that there was no question raised as to the deceased being a good Catholic; that the simple ground of refusal was that the decease did not belong to the Milwaukee district; and that if it had been a mere matter of money, the old settler would have settled it without difficulty.
The thing looked too think, on the face of it, but nevertheless had to be investigated, so the reporter called to see Father Donoghue and Father Kundig, respectively, but both were out, and
THE VENERABLE BISHOP
himself was next invaded, and found at home.
The right reverend father, venerable and placid looking, clad in a purple robe, close fitting to the body and descending to the feet with his silver hairs struggling from beneath the little skull cap placed at the back of the head, with a massive gold cross dependent from the neck by a long gold chain, was indeed an object to extract homage and respect.
The reporter commenced by stating the rumors in circulation, the different statements made by citizens who insisted upon their truth, and the excitement likely to result from the very vagueness of the charges; and then asked the Bishop whether it was true as a reporter, that there had been any difficulty as to the burial of the deceased Porthier.
The Bishop answered that he had no knowledge of anything of the kind.
The reporter referred to the letter said to have been written by the Bay View priest requesting burial for the deceased.
The Bishop said Father Purteet (?) had written no such letter, or, if heecollection of very early times in Chicago, which are deemed of historic value, as they were given in two different interviews, between shidh sufficient time had elapsed to test the reliability of her recollection. Without prompting on the part of the interviewer, she corroborated all statements made at the first. She is the "good Victoire," mentioned by Mrs. Kinzie in "Waubun")p.369), and the family servant of John Kinzie and Dr. Wolcott. Genevieve and John Baptiste, with the amusing "Tomah," who accompanied John H. Kinzie and Lieutenant Hunger to Fort Winnebago in 1833 were her sister and brother. The family record kept her father was destroyed after his death, but from collateral evidence it is believe to have been in 1800 or 1801. What follows is as given by Mrs. Porthier herself in August and September, 1883:
"My mother was an Ottawa woman; my father was a Frenchman. He was a good scholar, a very handsome man, and had many books. He taught us children to speak French, and we all learned to speak Indian of the tribe and mother. We had no schools nor education. I never learned to read or write. My father had his house in Milwaukee, where he traded with the Indians and did some blacksmithing for them, and for other traders. He fixed guns and traps for them. Before the fort was burned ( August, 1812 ) my father was down to the fort—the year before —and did blacksmith work there. The family went down while he was there, and some of us lived in the Ouilmette house, across the river from the fort. My sister Madaline (afterward the wife of John K. Clark ) and I saw the fight between old John Kinzie and Lalime when he (Lalime) was killed.
"The Lalime Homicide.—It was sunset when they used to shut the gates of the fort. Kinzie and Lalime came out together and soon we heard Lieutenant Helm call out for Mr. Kinzie to look out for Lalime, as he had a pistol. Quick we saw the men come together; we heard the pistol go off, and saw the smoke. Then they fell down together. I don't know as Lalime got up at all but Kinzie got home pretty quick. Blood was running from his shoulder where Lalime had shot him. In the night he packed up some things, and my father took him to Milwaukee, where he staid till his shoulder got well and he found he wouldn't be troubled if he came back. You see Kinzie wasn't to blame at all. He didn't have any pistol nor knife—nothing. After Lalime shot him "and Kinzie got his arms around him, he (Lalime) pulled out his dirk and as they fell he was stabbed with his own knife. That is what they all said. I didn't see the knife at all. I don't remember where Lalime was buried. I don't think his grave was very near Mr. Kinzie's house. I don't remember that Mr. Kinzie ever took care of the grave. That is all I know about it. I don't know what the quarrel was about. It was an old one—business, I guess.
"After Mr. Kinzie came back (1816) he came up to Milwaukee and visited my father and took me to live with him. (We were not there when the fort was burned—we had gone back to Milwaukee.) I lived with him until he died, then I married Joseph Porthier. He was a Frenchman, and a kind of blacksmith. He worked for McKee."
Victoire Mirandeau, who has partially told her own story, above, was married at Fort Dearborn to Joseph Porthier, by Colonel J. B. Beaubien, J. P., November 5, 1828. She lived in Chicago until 1835, when Mr. Porthier, wife and three children, removed to Milwaukee, where he had bought a quarter section of land. Mr. Porthier died in 1875, and was buried in Milwaukee. His widow lives near Bay View, south of the city of Milwaukee, in a small house built for her by the old settlers of that city. Her large family of children, like her brothers and sisters, have all died of consumption—the last daughter during the late summer of 1883—and the sorrowful old lady is indeed alone. When speaking of her early friends in Chicago—the Kinzies, Wolcotts, Beaubiens and the many members of her tribe, her sad refrain is ever "dead—all gone." Her little home, though plain to poverty, is a model of neatness and order, and the garden, tended by her own hands, is bright with flowers and vines. She speaks French, English, and several Indian dialects well. It is well said of her in the "Milwaukee History :" "If she could have had the advantages of an education, Mrs. Porthier would have been a remarkable woman, as her memory is almost as accurate as a written record ; her powers of perception are wonderful, and her ideas of right and wrong rigidly and justly correct. But her closing years are dreary enough—shorn as they are of relatives and friends, pinched by poverty and burdened by sorrow." It is indeed sad that this solitary woman, forming perhaps the only living link connecting the present with the " by-gone days" of Chicago and Milwaukee, should close her days in poverty and an ever present dread of being the recipient of public charity. See more about Jean Baptiste Mirandeau
Joseph Porthier
Joseph Porthier, one of the earliest setters of Milwaukee County, member of the Old Settlers' Club, died last week and was buried near Bay View on last Saturday
Poor Porthier
Source: Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, (Milwaukee, WI) Thursday, February 26, 1874; pg. 2; Issue 48; col A
A Report that He Was Refused Burial in the Catholic Cemetery
A Sentinel Reporter Investigates the Rumor but Cannot Learn Any Foundation for It,
Interview with the Right Reverend Catholic Bishop
The venerable bard who drew anguish from many eyes, on Tuesday evening, by his funeral chant relating to the death and burial of Joseph Porthier, at Bay View, on the 21st inst., had managed to get up a tolerably fair breeze of excitement in the community. He has informed us many confidential friends have observed such inviolate secrecy, that it has got about to uttermost parts of Milwaukee and her suburbs, that the Catholic bishop has refused burial to a poor Catholic for the only reason that the poor Catholic died in a district where there is no burial ground!
It was only yesterday morning that a valued friend and correspondent of a Sentinel reporter came rushing in with the news that he had just heard of one of the most diabolical outrages that had ever
SHAKEN CRISTENDOM TO ITS CENTER;
he referred to the non-burial story. The reporter, with a sympathetic smile, handed the visitor The Wisconsin, in which the item was found, done up in verse by J.S.B., which stands according to the Milwaukee Directory, for 187304, for "Buck, James S., ins. surveyor, N.W. National Ins. Co., res 113 14th:" The friend read down to the fourth line, and, shrieking, incontinently fled-it is supposed, to cut his throat.
Other kind friends dropped in, some just to let us know, you know, of
THE LAST SENSATION
others to cuss the priests; others to swear the whole story a lie; others to demand that The Sentinel, sir, expose the whole thing, sir, and write the whole thing up and down, sir, in its most brimstone, screaming, thunder and lightening style, sir; others to stay an hour or so with the editor and dictate a few editorials on the subject; others to threaten that if the editor, or reporter, dared write a line thereon the building should be burned to the ground and the employes scalped and then flung into the fire. And there were some everlastingly hopeless fools who thought they could coax, threaten, bribe, or soft-soap The Sentinel to say nothing about it.
It was the intention, however, not to refer to the subject matter of the pockry of "J.S.B." unless it came on the authority of some one not afflicted with J.S.B.'s complaint; but several trustworthy citizens having called seriously to complain of
THE ALLEGED OUTRAGE
by the Roman Catholic priests, a Sentinel reporter took the case under his protection.
The statement, as made to the scribe and Pharisee of the Milwaukee newspaper, was to the effect that the deceased was an old settler; that, like many other old settlers, he had fought the bears of his country in the hunting grounds of real estate and other speculations, and bled freely to the extent of whatever wealth he possessed; and that he had gone down to the grave a poor man, who ought to have been a rich one; died in the midst of penury, who ought to have been surrounded with every comfort and luxury;
DIED IN A LITTLE WOOD SHANTY
who ought to have been the object of the solitude of troops of loving friends and relatives, all waiting for his money, and soothed in his declining moments by the ministrations of the most skillful gentlemen of the faculty. Also, that Porthier was a good Catholic of many years standing, a good citizen, and a good man generally; that he had become poor through no fault of his own, and had been presented with a little lot of ground, upon which he built a small cot, at Bay View, with $142, the results of a subscription among the old settlers, where he lived, probably on the very ground where he had trapped for the Juneaus something less than two or three centuries ago. (Porthier is said to have had Indian blood in his veins.) He was a quiet, easy-going old gentleman, and gave no one trouble, but many
LEARNED TO LOVE HIM
for the many good qualities with which he was blessed. This poor gentleman, who had trapped in the wild woods where the substantial streets of our magnificent business city now stand, went quietly down to the grave, and was refused Christian burial; so said the aggrieved parties-or those who thought themselves aggrieved.
To learn
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
several prominent Catholic laymen were visited, who were popularly supposed to know all about the affair. Some said J.S.B. was a pompous, meddling citizen, who was always trying to get other people into hot water, and wondered whom the initials could possibly stand for.
Others said that the Catholic Church never cast out her children, or refused them Christian burial, or let them lie and rot for want of a bit of consecrated ground to repose in; as had been charged. Others said that these complaints were always being made, but were never true. And others admitted that Catholics are sometimes refused burial, but never except for good abuse, such as being a member of a secret society, or of having lived a dissolute life, or disobeyed the commands of a priest, or refused to receive the visit and exhortations of the holy father at the dying moment. In such cases, they said, a man who had thus voluntarily put himself outside the pale of the church might be refused burial, but they could not believe such a thing happened.
Among the assertions made by an "old settler", who had it from a gentleman whose name shall be incognito until he denies it, was, that
PORTHIER'S PRIEST
having refused burial at Bay View, for the very good reason that he had no burying ground to put the corpse in, gave the friends of the deceased a letter to the Catholic authorities in Milwaukee representing the circumstances; and that, armed with this letter, they came to Milwaukee, applied for a lot in Calvery, and were brusquely refused; that they thereupon returned to Bay View, and left the body with the son of the deceased, not knowing what to do with it; that there was no question raised as to the deceased being a good Catholic; that the simple ground of refusal was that the decease did not belong to the Milwaukee district; and that if it had been a mere matter of money, the old settler would have settled it without difficulty.
The thing looked too think, on the face of it, but nevertheless had to be investigated, so the reporter called to see Father Donoghue and Father Kundig, respectively, but both were out, and
THE VENERABLE BISHOP
himself was next invaded, and found at home.
The right reverend father, venerable and placid looking, clad in a purple robe, close fitting to the body and descending to the feet with his silver hairs struggling from beneath the little skull cap placed at the back of the head, with a massive gold cross dependent from the neck by a long gold chain, was indeed an object to extract homage and respect.
The reporter commenced by stating the rumors in circulation, the different statements made by citizens who insisted upon their truth, and the excitement likely to result from the very vagueness of the charges; and then asked the Bishop whether it was true as a reporter, that there had been any difficulty as to the burial of the deceased Porthier.
The Bishop answered that he had no knowledge of anything of the kind.
The reporter referred to the letter said to have been written by the Bay View priest requesting burial for the deceased.
The Bishop said Father Purteet (?) had written no such letter, or, if he had, he had not seen it. The father would not write such a letter. It would be unnecessary. The church is catholic enough to provide for any emergency that may arise in the way of giving burial. If the deceased has not "perfected" himself, before death, for burial in the usual form, other places can be found; so as to avoid any impropriety or indcency. The father knows this, and would not have written any such letter.
The reporter asked whether he was aware of
THE POETRY PUBLISHED IN THE WISCONSIN,
on the subject, and if so, whether there was any truth to it or not.
The Bishop said that he had heard that such "rhymes" had been printed, but had not read them, and did not even know what "points" they contained. He remembered, however, the priests talking of the matter at the table, and some of them saying that there was no truth to it.
The reporter asked whether, as no such letter as charged had been received, any such application could have been made to a priest without the Bishop's knowledge.
The Bishop said, certainly, Any priest could receive a proper application for burial, and knowing it to be correct, see it granted.
But, said the reporter, if burial was refused, would it be done without reference to the bishop?
No, said the Bishop, certainly not. If any difficulty should arise the bishop would be aware of it.
And no difficulty, that the Bishop was aware of , had occurred in the case of Porthier?
The Bishop answered that none such had taken place. The first he had heard of any difficulty was from the conversation just mentioned. He was not even sure who Porthier was, and asked the reporter, in detail, all the particulars of the alleged outrage, with names and dates, finally assuring him that so far as the Catholic authorities were concerned,
NOTHING OF THE SORT ALLEGED HAD TRANSPIRED
He then further explained how Porthier's friends could easily have obtained burial for the body at St. Francis, if they desired to without coming to Milwaukee at all, and that it would have been easier to do so, if deceased died within the church; and if he did not, that burial could have been easily found elsewhere, without scandal attaching to the church.
The right reverend father was kind enough to enter the conversation on the subject of burials generally for a few moments, and the reporter then withdrew.
PORTHIER'S INTERMENT
Source: Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, (Milwaukee, WI) Friday, February 27, 1874; pg. 8; Issue 49; col C
Further Investigation into the alleged Roman Catholic Outrage
A Very Great Rumpus about a Priest Simply Doing His Duty.
Brief Recital of the Facts
Mr. Buck met a Sentinel reporter, yesterday, on the street, and at once jumping to the conclusion that he was the person who wrote up the Porthier burial matter, and interviewed with the Catholic Bishop Henni, attacked him in loud and excited language, impeaching the accuracy of the report and the interview, from the first line to the last, and declaring he "would show up" the unhappy victim of his misplaced wrath. As there was probably some concealed reason for Mr. Buck's anger, the reporter determined to interview every person connected with the affair, from beginning to end, until he found
SOMETHING MORE TANGIBLE
than the poet Buck's mere vaporings. In accordance with this view, he drove to the residence of Mr. H. Chase, brother of Dr. Chase, who was said to be one of the parties acquainted with the facts of the alleged outrage. Mr. Chase turned out to know nothing about it, except what he had heard, and what he had heard was not of a sufficiently reliable kind to be published in a newspaper. He said Dr. Chase knew all about it, as well as Mr. Merrill, who lived with him; and gave directions where to find the Doctor, or MR. Merrill. The reporter drove through to the Doctor's house, which stands alone on the crown of a hill overlooking the whole country, just commanding a view of the chimneys of Bay View in the far distance; and found that neither of the parties of whom he was in search was in the neighborhood. To cut a long story short, and not to weary the reader with an account of the long research after sons and cousins of the Porthiers, and priests, and doctors and people, which was sufficiently wearying to the reporter to sicken him of any more buggy drives in the open country on a windy winter's day in an unknown locality, after a will-of-the-wisp, cock-and-bull story; it may be said in short that it turned out that Porthier's son had received the papers necessary for his father's.
DECENT AND PROPER BURIAL
but never produced them until too late; that no priest ever refused burial, but a priest did refuse to perform the services over a body of which he had no cognizance of dying in the bosom of the church; and that the friends of the deceased thereupon got disgusted and turned back, leaving the corpse there in the charge of the son, who buried it, towards dusk, in a half-finished grave.
The truth of the whole story seems to be that young Porthier, who certainly ought to have been acquainted with the requirements of his church, led the worthy gentlemen of the Old Settler's Club a disgustingly cold and barren chase, and the latter.-without properly understanding the reason, but simply resenting the to them inexplicable obstacles placed in the way of a man being buried-returned home, filled with those ideas that Buck committed to verse, and got printed in the evening contemporary.
If Mr. Buck, by "showing up," means to deny the statement made in The Sentinel, as to the precise charges he is known to have made, besides those contained in the doggerel, he can be subpoenaed a witness out of his own mouth. If he went taking of these things all over the town, he must have expected to have had them fathered on him. The whole story seems to be a fraud-in which, of course, nobod will think of implicating Mr. Chase and Mr. Merrill.
Porthier Requiescat The Old Settlers Make a Statement about the Interment
Source: Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, (Milwaukee, WI) Saturday, February 28, 1874; pg. 8; Issue 50; col C
Somebody Has Blundered-Simply That and Nothing More
CAN HE SEE IT?
If from the airy abodes to which his spirit has flown, the old settler Porthier can look back at his late dwelling place, he must be slightly astonished at the rumpus which has been kicked up over the interment of his remains. He has had notoriety if not greatness, thrust upon him with a vengeance, and after death his name, has had a trumpeting which it never had in life.
THEIR STATEMENT
Three members of the Old Settlers' Club waited upon The Sentinel reporter yesterday to give the statement of eye witnesses in this matter. They say the whole story grew out of a misunderstanding on the part of the son of the deceased. And this is the pith of the matter: On Friday evening of last week, Narcese, son of Porthier, called upon Dr. Chase and informed him that the old gentleman, his father, was dead, and said that owing to the condition of the remains it would be necessary to bury them as soon as practicable. The Doctor, on behalf of the Old Settlers' Club, told him that all needed arrangements for the funeral would be made, if he, Narcese, would see that a grave was prepared, and the funeral would take place on the following morning at 10 o'clock. This the son promised to attend to. At the appointed hour for the funeral, and when the procession was ready to move, it was ascertained that, instead of procuring a permit for interment, the son had through a misapprehension of what was required, obtained from the resident priest only a certificate of fitness of the deceased to be interred in a Catholic cemetery. The procession, however, proceeded to the church of St. Francis, and upon arriving there, those forming the cortege were informed by the priest in attendance that the deceased belonged to another parish. He said, however, that he should have no objection to solemnizing the burial rites, if permission of interment were obtained of the trustees in charge, but without their sanction he could not proceed. These gentlemen were not to be found, and after stating the urgency of the case, and upon consultation with the friends of the deceased, the procession moved to the Protestant cemetery something like a half a mile distant. Upon arriving there there was a manifest of reluctance on the part of Porthier's relatives to have the remains buried there, notwithstanding the fact that they had freely consented to the proposition at first. IT was finally decided to go to the Union Catholic Cemetery with the remains, which was finally done, and there the procession dispersed, and young Porthier and Mr. Buck came to this city and obtained the necessary permit for burial.
A Misunderstanding
This whole hullabaloo grew out of the simple fact that the son who was to have obtained a permit for a grave, simply, through misapprehension, procured a certificate of the old man's good standing as a Catholic. At the last, with the aid of Mr. Buck, he did just what he should have done at first-got a permit. No one objected in the least; there was no attempt to deny a decent burial. All that was demanded was a compliance with the usual forms in cases of sepulture (sic). It must have been slightly discouraging, however, to that funeral procession to wander around several hours in the cold, visit three cemeteries, and finally leave their corpse unburied.
It should be added that the cemetery that was first visited has no connection with St. Francis Seminary, but belongs to a small parish in the vicinity. The parish is poor and its cemetary (sic) small, which may account for the hesitation of the priest to bury a man who resided within another parish.
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