One hundred seventy-five (175) years ago today, October 24, 1848, John Joseph Hogan, age 19, departed from his family home in Cahirguillamore, County Limerick, to travel to St. Louis to study for the priesthood. Not the traditional path to holy order perhaps, but his chosen path to fulfill his desire to become a missionary on the plains of the still-new country in America.
Young John Hogan was the eighth of nine children of James Hogan and Ellen Connor.
My father, though educated for a profession, had the good sense to confine his ambition to the safer and less contentious way of living as a farmer of land and a dealer in cattle and crops; and besides, the penal laws, then in force in Ireland, debarred Catholics from the learned professions and from Government office, unless upon recusancy of their faith, which, in my father’s case, was an insuperable objection.
His education and background set him on a path to holy orders. But unlike one of his brothers who studied for the priesthood in Rome, Hogan dreamed of being a missionary to those who had not before heard of Jesus Christ. To this end, he determined that the place most suited for him was the plains of North America.
MY MIND MADE UP
I had learned from many reliable sources of information that in the far-away Western World, on the banks of the Mississippi, a great diocese was growing up that had immense missionary fields, over which the Church was spreading rapidly. One of my sources of information, the American Catholic Almanac, sent regularly every year to my father by his brother, my uncle and namesake in America, gave full description of the diocese of St. Louis and had a well-executed frontispiece engraving of the Cathedral of St. Louis and buildings adjoining it, so that I had become greatly familiar with the place.
Priests were not needed in Ireland, where for every vacancy there were twenty or more applicants. In the St. Louis diocese it occurred to me that possibly there might be more vacancies than applicants, as it was a new country. Why not go where, as it was reasonable to suppose, “the harvest was great, and the laborers few”? Besides, I preferred going where few had gone before me and where new paths had to be opened. Of “perils of rivers” or of “perils of the wilderness,” I was not afraid. St. Louis was, as I regarded it, my foreordained place. I made up my mind to go there. This conclusion was reached by me on Thursday, the 9th day of October, 1848. I sought an interview with my father and informed him of my purpose and of the reasons that led me thereto.
He unhesitatingly gave me his necessary permission to depart and that I might begin at once to make preparations for the journey
Travel in 1848 was a more arduous exercise than today (although holiday travelers with cancelled and delayed flights or families in cars stuck in traffic might argue that point). But Hogan’s journey started with a full day of riding and consulting with shipping agents to determine his itinerary.
The next day I rode twelve miles to Limerick to consult the shipping agents as to the best way to go to St. Louis. The shipping agents informed me that, as the American railways had been built only as far west as the western boundaries of New York and Pennsylvania, the journey thence westward to St. Louis, about 1,000 miles, was too great to be attempted by uncertain ways, such as stagecoaches and sailing on lakes and rivers, especially as the cold, freezing weather of winter was about to set in.
They advised that I sail from Liverpool to New Orleans and take steamboat from New Orleans to St. Louis, which I might possibly reach in the early part of winter, should the Mississippi River be then free from ice, as they thought it might be, on account of its more southern latitude than that of the northern lakes and rivers. Accordingly, I engaged passage from Liverpool to New Orleans on the first ship sailing on that voyage that I could reach, which was the Forfarshire, advertised to sail on Wednesday, November 1st, the intervening eleven days being sufficient for my preparation and the journey to Liverpool. On that same day that I went to Limerick, Friday, October 20th, I returned to my home at Cahirguillamore and announced my purpose to finally leave home on the following Tuesday, October 24th, feast of St. Raphael Archangel.
Archangel Raphael with Bishop Domonte. Painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682). Wikimedia commons
In the Old Testament book of Tobit, a faithful and wealthy Israelite living in Nineveh, suffers reverses and is blinded. He sends his son, Tobiah to retrieve money he has left in a place several days’ journey from his home. But Tobiah is young and unfamiliar with travel. They engage a guide, who is the Archangel Raphael in the guise of “an Israelite, one of your kinsmen” who says his name is Azariah (“Yahweh helps”). The Old Testament story of course is detailed, intricate and enlightening. From this singular event, the Archangel Raphael has been considered a protector of travelers. A fortuitous date for the commencement of Hogan’s life.
Departure day arrived and young Hogan rose at 4 a.m. After sad adieus he traveled to Limerick:
I reached Limerick in less than two hours, and was at the railway station on time for the departure of the morning train for Dublin. The train went out on the Limerick and Waterford Railway as far as the Limerick Junction and there turned northward on the tracks of the Great Southern and Western Railway for Dublin.
Arrived at Dublin in the evening, I straightway proceeded from King’s Bridge terminus by the Liffey along the quays past the Custom House to the North Wall, where I found the steamship Royal William with steam up bound for Liverpool. The Royal William, then one of the fastest steamers afloat, made the voyage from her Dublin pier to her pier in Liverpool in ten and a half hours.
The first leg of his journey was accomplished in little more than 24 hours. From Liverpool, his sites were set on New Orleans, Louisiana …. far across the Atlantic.
On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir is available on our website for $10.50, postage paid at www.beautifulozarks.com, Companion volume, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness, is also available for $9.50, postpaid.
