ATLAS

Podcast #7 – Father Augustine Tolton

Posted on 27. Jun, 2009 by ATLAS in Famous Men, Mississippi River, Quincy, Religion, Slavery

In 1851, Martha Jane Chisley met and later married a slave from a neighbouring plantation, Peter Paul Tolton. Because their masters were Catholic, both Martha and Peter had been baptized Catholic, as it was the custom for the slave owner to baptize and provide some religious instruction to his slaves. Martha and Peter were married in St. Peter’s Church, Brush Creek, Missouri. The owners of Martha and Peter agreed to the marriage with the following conditions: The couple would live on the Eliot plantation, Peter would remain a slave of the neighbouring family, while Martha and her children would remain slaves to the Eliot family. They had three children, Charles, Augustine and Anne. In the summer of 1861, Peter gave in to his strong desire for freedom and left the Eliot plantation in the middle of the night to join the Union Army in St. Louis. It is not known if he engaged in combat but he died of the measles in a St. Louis hospital in 1862. Martha was never notified of his death.

Life for a slave on the Eliot farm became increasingly dangerous and Martha was afraid that the Eliot family would sell her children. One night Martha decided to flee, taking her three children, the youngest only about two years old, with her. Heading east towards the Mississippi, they made their way across the fields to Hannibal. Narrowly escaping arrest as runaways by Confederate officials in the town, the family was rescued by Union soldiers who claimed that Hannibal was under Union jurisdiction. Martha and her children were smuggled to the riverbank and loaded into a rowboat. Martha rowed across the Mississippi to land in Illinois and made her way north some twenty miles to Quincy. She settled in the east side of the city, sharing a small home with a widow, Mrs. Davis, and her daughter Mary Ann. The Tolton family went to work in the Dulaney Brothers Tobacco Company as stemmers who stripped the tobacco and prepared it for the rollers. Augustine “Gussy” Tolton was about eight years old. He continued working in the factory for nine years. He also learned how to make horse collars for the Schott Leather Works and Saddlery and spent some time at the J.J. Flynn Soda Bottling Company.

Augustine began his schooling in 1868 when he was fourteen. He sat in Louisa Alexander’s class in the original Lincoln school, which, at the time, was a log cabin near 10th and Oak. He was able to attend for about three months of the year when the tobacco trade had its off season. The Tolton family moved to 812 Maine Street and Augustine then attended St. Boniface School beginning in 1869. With the support of two priests in Quincy, one of whom was a Franciscan, he looked for a seminary where he could study, but no American seminary was willing to accept an African American student.

Hoping against hope and with the help of the minister general of the Franciscans, Augustine Tolton was admitted to Urban College in Rome, the seminary attached to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, on March 12, 1880 where African students were already enrolled. He was vested in the clerical garb of the College on March 21, 1880. Augustine spent the next three years studying the discipline and continued to reveal the depth and stability of his unique character. On May 6, 1883 he took the Propaganda oath and on May 14 received the Tonsure. His studies clarified his life’s direction and on March 8 and December 20 of 1884 he received Minor Orders. He entered the rank of Deacon on November 8, 1885. When the time came for Augustine to be ordained, the cardinal prefect of the congregation announced that if the Americans had never seen a black priest, it was now time for them to see one. After his ordination on April 24, 1886, Father Tolton was sent home to Quincy, Illinois, where he had a triumphal return. Later, however, he suffered persecution by a fellow priest in a nearby parish.

In 1889, Tolton moved to Chicago, and with the support of the archbishop, began a black parish with the name of St. Monica. Father Tolton was devoted to his people. His unique speaking abilities were in demand around the United States but he only occasionally left his struggling parish in Chicago. As in Quincy, he shared a precious gift of truthful love from house to house and heart to heart of the people in the community. He gave of himself and his heart and touched many lives.

In July of 1897, during a severe heat wave, Augustine collapsed and died at the age of 43. Following his wishes, Martha and Anne brought him back to Quincy for burial in St. Peter’s Cemetery. Prior to his death, Augustine drafted the following thoughts:

“One thing I do know and that is that it took The Catholic Church 100 years here in America to show up such a person as a black priest or sister. That is why there are so many now extending their hands to get a lift. In the whole history of the Church in America, I can’t find one person who has sworn to lay out their treasury for the sole benefit of the colored or the Indians. The South looks on with an angry eye and the north is criticizing every act I make. They watch me the same as the Pharisees did our Lord. Despite the stir there will be in this country as I begin my churches, I shall work and pull at it as long as God gives me life for I am beginning to see that I have powers and principalities to resist anywhere and everywhere I go. The world is indeed a great book and I have read many of its pages. When I have anything to give I will give it right off but God has destined my life to be this way and I must be contented.”

- Augustine Tolton, June 5, 1891 Chicago

A centennial pilgrimage in celebration of the life and legacy of Father Augustine Tolton was held in Quincy, Illinois on July 12 and 13, 1997, beginning with prayer at Father Tolton’s grave site and ending with a luncheon at Quincy University. Father Tolton was buried beneath a white priest and the headstone marker on the grave has the white priests name on one side and Father Tolton’s on the other. A special guest attended the centennial pilgrimage, Father Augustine Tolton’s third grand niece, Sabrina Penn of Chicago, IL. During the centennial, Father Tolton was memorialized with a statue erected outside St. Joseph’s Church in Quincy, Illinois.