St.
John's Catholic Church in 1905
(Photo courtesy of the Ensley Historical
Society)
(Photo Enhancement by Verduin
Webs)
Story by by Dorothy Siegel
The first Roman Catholic
Mass held in Ensley Township was said in the 1870’s in section 9 in
the parlor of John and Mary Kinney. The Kinneys had immigrated from
Ireland where the English had closed the Catholic Churches and
prohibited the practice of the Catholic religion. For seven years
John Kinney worked in the Baltimore area where for the first time in
their lives the family could freely practice their religion. In 1856
the Kinneys came to Michigan in order to homestead. The first summer
they lived with the John Norton family in Oakfield Township (Kent
County) and went to Cannonsburg to church. The church there, St.
Patrick’s, had just recently got its first resident pastor. It was
under the Diocese of Detroit and had been part of St. Andrew’s
Parish, Grand Rapids. Then, St. Andrew’s extended from Yankee
Springs on the south to Manistee on the north and from lonia west to
Lake Michigan. (Today this covers approximately 15 counties.) The
parish had a pastor and usually one assistant who covered that
entire area which was a dense wilderness with small groups of
farmers scattered at various spots. Out- side the area surrounding
Grand Rapids were 15 mission stations, which were — “attended
occasionally”, only two of which had church buildings: Muskegon and
Newaygo (later called Croton) township.
Location of the St. John's
Catholic Church
This is what remains of the
foundation
(Photo taken by Verduin Webs)
The Kinneys homesteaded land in what was then Croton Township. Their
farm bordered the only
north—south road in the township. That road
led to the church about
nine miles distant. For almost twenty-five years the Kinneys who
were the first practicing Catholics to settle in Ensley, and their
Catholic neighbors belonged to the Croton Mission of St. Mary’s.
St. Mary’s was the first church of any denomination to be built in
Newaygo County. When the first Catholics came to the county, they
took their babies to Machkigong (Muskegon) to be baptized by the
missionary priest, Fr. Andrea Viszosky, who visited the Indians
there about three times a year. This saintly priest did most of the
pioneer work in establishing and nurturing Catholicism in what was
started in 1833 by Rev. Frederic Baraga as the St. Mary’s Mission on
the Grand River. Because his health was considered too frail for
work in the upper peninsula, he was sent to become the first pastor
of St. Andrew’s. He traveled throughout this large territory for
seventeen years until his death January 2, 1853, from pneumonia
after exposure while traveling through a storm to annoint the sick
during an epidemic. In Chapman’s History of Kent County
it is noted that Fr. Viszosky delivered his sermons in English,
French, German, Ottawaian and Otchipwe. He was respected by the
entire community and the cathedral church is
named for his patron saint.
On February 10, 1853, Viszosky’s successor, Fr. Edward Van Paemel,
came up the Muskegon River to the home of Jeremiah and Catherine
Riordan Ryan. All the Catholic neighbors came and in the Ryan home
Father said the first Mass of record in Newaygo County for the
pioneers.
The Location of the Church
(Photo taken by Verduin Webs)
The St. Andrew’s Parish records show that during the next three
years Mass was said in the Ryan home a total of four times. Then the
record shows that on August 21, 1856, Fr. Francis Van Erp baptized
four babies in the “ecciesia in Croton”. The Newaygo County deeds
include a deed on August 6, 1856, of 22 rods square and a building
(according to the description) in section 6 of Croton Township, to
Peter Paul Lefever, (who was the Bishop of Detroit), from Jeremiah
Ryan and Catherine his wife.
In addition to the priest who “attended occasionally” from St.
Andrew’s, was a missionary who came from Pentwater and spent about
one month each year with the Indians at Brooks Lake. This was also
in what was then called Croton Township and was also about nine
miles from the Kinney’s log cabin. The Kinney’s youngest child,
Rosa, was born in Ensley in 1858, and her mother carried her “up to
Croton” to be baptized. The Kinney grandchildren, Tom’s, and later
John’s and Jim’s oldest were also baptized in Croton. Whenever a
Mass was scheduled, the whole family went -
at first by oxen and wagon
and later with a team and wagon.
In 1873 St. Mary’s Church in Big Rapids became a parish and in 1875
Croton became one of its missions. The railroad had come to Big
Rapids from Grand Rapids and transportation became much easier into
Croton and Ensley from the railroad stop at Howard City. In 1880,
when it was not popular to be either Irish or a Catholic, the
Kinneys with their five sons, three daughters, and the spouses,
together with their Irish neighbors, the Kellys and the Webbs,
determined to build a church.
Like the Kinney’s parish church in Kilkeevan (Castlerae, County
Roscommon) which had been closed by the English many years before,
this church was constructed from materials close at hand. In Ensley,
the Catholics and some of their neighbors donated pine lumber and
timbers; in Kilkeevan (in St. Patrick’s time, it’s said), the
faithful brought building stones from their fields. In both
parishes, when each member’s earthly work was finished, the bodily
remains were laid to rest in the churchyard. A touch of Kilkeevan
was added to Ensley when the Kinneys sent away for creeping myrtle,
a small shrub whose leaves are dark green, the symbol of hope, which
they planted in the churchyard. The carpenter was Axel Johnson.
According to the parish records at Big Rapids, the first service in
the church was the funeral of Anna Kinney the oldest daughter of
James and Mary Quinn Kinney on February 28, 1881. The mother had
gone in to wake the four year old and found her dead in bed holding
a bouquet of strands of yarn. Mixed in the yarn were matches with
the sulphur heads eaten off. Also on that day Fr. Henry William
Grimme had the first baptisms: Blanche, daughter of Ruben and
Cynthia Walther Lloyd; and Philamena, daughter of Patrick and
Katherine Neville Kinney. Although three of the Kinney’s children
were married after the church was built, none were married in the
church. Rose married William Welch and Tom married a second wife,
Emeline Thompkins, in St. Mary’s at Sand Lake. Mike married Edna
Phelps in the parish church in Big Rapids. The first wedding of
record was that of John, son of John and Mary Webb Byrne, and
Margaret daughter of Thomas and Mary Fulley Maloney.. The witnesses
were his niece and nephew, John B. and Maggie Kinney, whose parents
were Thomas and Mary Byrne Kinney. Fr. Bernard Gousens of Greenville
performed the ceremony on June 17, 1890.
The church was dedicated on December 21, 1881, to St. John, the
patron saint of John Kinney. The local paper, the Howard City
Record, carried the item that “a large number of divines are
expected to attend.” The land records of Newaygo County show that
in. 1882, when Grand Rapids became a diocese, the Croton and the
Ensley churches were the only Catholic churches in the county.
(Picture courtesy of the Grant Public
Library)
The Grand Rapids Diocesan Archives contain the information that at
St. John’s Mass was said every second Tuesday of the month “in good
weather”, and that the congregation records never showed more than
from seven to twelve families. Newspaper accounts reveal that for a
funeral Mass a priest would make a special trip to Ensley, if not
from Big Rapids, from another parish -
sometimes Greenville. However, when
the Kinney’s oldest son-in-law, John Lawler, died in January, 1887,
no priest was available to say the funeral Mass. His body was buried
in St. John’s Cemetery and the Mass was said at the priest’s next
visit.
During the 1880’s, St. John’s was one of eighteen missions and
stations attended from St. Mary’s, Big Rapids. Usually, a newly
ordained priest who was assigned to Big Rapids as an assistant would
be given the duty of caring for the missions. Because of the
transportation facilities, he could be in only one church on a
Sunday. When the priest came to Ensley, he took the train to Howard
City where either a parishioner met him or he hired a livery to
travel out to St. John’s. He stayed overnight at the home of one of
his flock and returned to Howard City the next day. In this short
time he would hear Confessions, say Mass, baptize all the babies and
any others who were instructed, minister to the sick, teach
catechism, and attend to the affairs of the parish. The children
were excused from the nearby rural schools, the Hillman and the
Kinney, to go to Mass and to catechism class. The young priest would
hardly get to know his parish when he would be transferred, often
becoming the first resident pastor of a newly formed parish.
Ensley Township was not exempted from the anti-Irish and
anti-Catholic prejudices which pervaded the country during the
latter part of the nineteenth century and later. When Grover
Cleveland took office as President in March, 1893, one of the post
office political appointments was that of Thomas J. Kinney as
postmaster of Grove. Some members of the community objected to the
appointment on the basis: (1) he was a Catholic and therefore his
allegiance would be to Rome rather than Washington, D.C.; (2) his
wife, Nellie, was not only a Catholic but also a foreigner
- having
immigrated from Canada.
An investigation was held and it was
not until August 16, 1894, that the appointment became effective.
During this time some members of the Socialist party published a
newspaper in Georgia called the Menace. Their objective was
to separate the Protestant workers from the Negro, Catholic and
Jewish workers by inciting hate and prejudice. The weekly enjoyed a
rather large circulation among the members of the Ensley Baptist
Church. The last newly ordained assistant from Big Rapids to serve
St. John’s was Rev. S. A. Van Gessel. When Fr. “Van” became the
pastor of the newly formed parish at St. Mary’s, Sand Lake, in 1925,
he was given the responsibility for six missions: Newaygo, White
Cloud, Morley, Croton, Ensley and Volney.
From the beginning of his pastorate, Fr. Van owned an automobile
- in
fact he wore out a car each year. He was able to say one Mass each
Sunday in Sand Lake and a second Mass in either Newaygo, White
Cloud, or Morley. Ensley remained a week day station; however, the
St. John parishioners began to own automobiles and they drove weekly
to attend Sunday Mass in Sand Lake. This was the third generation of
Catholics in Ensley to whom the privilege of Sunday Mass was first
available.
St. John's Bell
(Picture
Taken By Verduin Webs)
After Fr. Van Gessel was transferred in 1937, the church continued
to be used for funeral Masses. Finally, during the winter of
1946-47, this landmark in Ensley which was built, furnished, and
supported for over sixty years by less than a dozen families, was
torn down for lumber. Most of it was used for the rafters and roof
boards in the building of the mission for the Mexican migrant
workers in the Rice Lake muck land, Our Lady of Guadelupe. The bell
which had been a bequest of the eldest Kinney daughter, Maria
(always pronounced Miriah, the Gaelic) Lawler had previously been
placed in the new church building in Sand Lake where
it
is still in use. Some of the
furnishings were sent to the Lakeview parish.
The changing methods of transportation and the rerouting of main
thoroughfares left both St. Mary’s and St. John’s churches off the
beaten path. But they remain a tribute to that Catholic faith which
survived despite persecution and with very infrequent encouragement
and strengthening from the ministry of a priest.
St.
John's Bell
Made
by Mc Shane Bell Foundry
Baltimore Maryland
1900
(Picture
Taken By Verduin Webs)
