IMPRIMATUR: * John Gregory Murray Archbishop of  ST. PAUL

The following article written by Monsignor Reardon is well worth reading for its content reveals a great priest struggling for his "sheep" in the savage wilderness of the great plains from 1831 to 1859 -- and again from 1860 to within one month of his death in 1874.  Monsignor Reardon captures the true humanity of father Belcourt and catholicity of this beloved priest.
In addition, it reveals father Belcourts' and Bishop McDonalds' direct involvement in Monsignor's family on P.E.I. in a fluent, captivating style, lost by authors of the present breed.

"A Decade on “The Island”" {part 3 of the article is printed here. The full article is posted on the internet HERE. }
       "When Father Belcourt left Dakota in March, 1859, he, undoubtedly had the intention of re-entering the ministry in his native province and spending the remainder of his days in the peace and quiet of a pastoral life far removed from the stirring scenes and strenuous activity of the western plains where he had passed nearly thirty years as a missionary among the Indians and half-breeds. But it was not to be. His active career was not to end until death summoned him to lay aside the burden of parochial administration and seek the reward exceeding great.

       "Shortly after his return from the West, the Right Reverend Bernard D. McDonald, Bishop of Charlottetown, P.E.I. wrote Archbishop Turgeon of Quebec requesting the services of a French-speaking priest to take charge of the parish of Rustico with the mission of Hope River, and Father Belcourt was selected for that purpose.

       "He arrived in Rustico November 1, 1859, a few weeks before Bishop McDonald, who had resided in that parish since his consecration in 1837,  transferred his residence to Charlottetown where he died on December 30.
Father Belcourt was deacon at the Bishop’s funeral on January 4, 1860.

      " The Church of St. Augustine, built under the direction of the Bishop, served as the Cathedral of the diocese for more than twenty years. It was a frame structure of generous proportions, with a three-storey square campanile, surmounted by a cross, with side doors opening into the vestibule. The interior was unfinished until 1845. It was the largest and most beautiful church in the diocese. In it Father Belcourt performed his first official act –the baptism of Modeste Doucet on December 11, 1859 – the beginning of a pastorate extending over a decade of years, during which he built the stone structure which still serves as the parish hall, and established the Farmers’ Bank which was in active operation from 1864 to 1892.

       "He opened a high school in the parish house and taught it himself until he secured the services of Israel J. D. Landry at Montreal, an experienced teacher and an excellent musician, who had charge of it for two years. The curriculum comprised Latin, Greek, French, Mathematics, Plain Chant and Music. The school was attended by fourteen young men chosen from among the most intelligent graduates of the grade schools. Ten of these became teachers in the Acadian parishes; one a judge; another, a doctor; and another, a railroad official. The school was an innovation in those days.
"That it was a success is evidenced by the fact that it is today {1951} the only high school among the Acadians of the Island.

       "To complement and enhance its work the pastor organized a study club, known as the Institute, whose members met twice a month to receive instructions from him. All had to be total abstainers from intoxicants. Furthermore, to encourage the reading of good books he established a parish library and for several years received from Emperor Napoleon III a gift of one thousand francs through the good offices of his friend, the historian, Rameau de Saint-Père, who kept up a friendly correspondence with him for fourteen years and aided him in his colonization projects on the mainland. At each meeting one of the members had to give a summary of the book he had read since the previous meeting.

       "He installed a carillon of three bells in the church tower and, with the aid of Professor Landry, organized a band which was for many years the pride and glory of the parish.
       To meet the difficulty resulting from an inadequate supply of land, he encouraged the younger members of the parish to migrate to neighboring regions where good land was available.  In May, 1860, the first group of five families left Rustico by schooner for Matapedia, and a few months later thirteen others joined them. The next year twenty-two additional families followed and within a few years several others went to the colony. They had to endure many hardships in the beginning but the descendants of these early settlers now constitute the populous parishes of St. Alexis and St. François and are happy and prosperous. Later on a number of families left Rustico to form a new parish at Bloomfield on the Island.

       "Not long after he came to the parish he cruised a tract of land in Kent County, New Brunswick, which Bishop Sweeney of St. John had secured from the government for colonization purposes. He was accompanied by Joseph Arsenault and Felix Poirier of Egmont Bay, P.E.I., and guided by Jean Louis Girouard of St. Mary’s in Kent County. The survey was made in 1860 and, four years later, the first settlers – from Egmont Bay and Rustico – took possession of their holdings on what was known as “the Bishop’s land” now part of the parish of St. Paul in Kent County, New Brunswick.

       The story of his closing years can be briefly told. He continued his parochial duties in Rustico until the autumn of 1869, when be retired to a farm in Shediac, N.B., where he planned to spend the remainder of his life in the agricultural pursuits that were traditional in his family. For two years he had leisure to pursue his hobbies; but in August, 1871, he was summoned again to his priestly duties by Bishop McIntyre of Charlottetown, who appointed him pastor of Havre-aux-Maisons in the Magdalen Islands. His ministry there during three years of labour among the fishermen and their families might well serve as the subject of another paper. It is a simple story, not without an element of heroism, the story of an ageing man, whose strength had for years been expended in the service of God and his fellow men, struggling against almost insuperable difficulties to bring some measure of comfort, material as well as spiritual, to the families to whom he ministered. It ended only when failing health forced his retirement. He was brought, already a dying man, to his farm in Shediac in May, 1874, and at the end of that month his death closed a career of sacrifice and service that had brought him from his native Quebec to the plains of Manitoba and Dakota, and thence to the bleak, storm-bound islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

       "Father Beleourt’s claim to remembrance lies not only in what he accomplished in establishing parishes and laying the foundations of the Church, but even more perhaps in his training of other missionaries in the Chippewa language. His dictionary and grammar of this language have been indispensable aids to others who have followed him in this field. He was a linguist of more than. ordinary ability, who spoke and wrote English, French and Chippewa with ease and fluency. He grasped the genius of the Chippewa language with rare perspicacity, and he was an authority without peer on the history, traditions, customs and character of the Indians and half-breeds of the West. He wrote text-books, catechism and prayerbooks, as well as his grammar and dictionary, and throughout his missionary career he kept up a voluminous correspondence, much of which is preserved in the diocesan archives of Quebec and Montreal. One article on the Hudson Bay Company fills thirty pages in the first volume of the Minnesota Historical Collections, 1850 to 1856.

       "His letters reveal the character of the man. He possessed a forceful personality, a high degree of intelligence, a keen mind and indomitable courage. He was a man of action and vision, somewhat fickle and self-willed, not to say obstinate, easily discouraged and extremely sensitive, but withal, devoted and generous in the service of God and his fellowmen. He possessed mechanical ability of a high order, was a skilled carpenter, an expert joiner and blacksmith, a designer and builder of houses, schools, boats, carts, farm implements and a grist-mill. He was a willing and tireless worker, but a poor team-mate, because he wanted his own way, regardless even of the wishes of his superiors. He was always a man of the people, ready to support them in every way, a splendid type of missionary priest, who gave himself unreservedly to the service of those among whom he labored.

"His life story should be of interest to all who appreciate heroic endeavour, to all who would recall the labour and the suffering that were endured to bring the faith to the aborigines and to minister to the spiritual needs of the early colonists on the western plains and on the sea-girt islands of the Atlantic."

Generation No. 3  Monsignor James Michael Reardon PA 1972 - 1963  His Father, Mother and their children

Generation No. 1

Generation No. 2