I grew up on a farm in southern
Indiana. When Dad told people where our
place was, he would say, “It’s five miles north of Montgomery." Montgomery was a small town, population currently
361. It also contained St. Peter’s
Church, the second oldest parish in Indiana.
It was after I had lived in South Bend for quite a while, a mile west of
the University of Notre Dame, that I found out the Father Sorin, Notre Dame’s
founder, had settled in Montgomery before he came to South Bend. This is how it is described at the Montgomery,
Indiana website:
The history of Montgomery's St. Peter's Catholic Church dates back to 1820, when a log church was built. In 1841, the Vincennes Bishop gave land at Black Oak Ridge to Fr. Edward Sorin and six Brothers of the Holy Cross. They built onto the original church and began teaching with the goal of starting a college. However, the Bishop opposed the plan, since a college existed in Vincennes. So he offered them land in northern Indiana for the college, and the offer was accepted in the fall of 1842. Fr. Sorin headed north to establish Notre Dame at South Bend.
The present church, shown above,
was completed in 1869 and remains a beautiful church. I continue to like the coincidence of twice
living so close to Sorin’s work. And I
wonder what Montgomery would be like today if Fr. Sorin had been able to build his college
there.
