Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1842-1843

pg 37        its wrought and cast iron works, and of about the same size as 
             the former, one thousand inhabitants.  At the same distance below 
             is the village of Bertrand, formerly a very flourishing place, 
             but then without any commerce whatever, Niles, a league and a 
             half below, having absorbed it all.
                  Although there was a little brick church at Bertrand which 
             could easily have been finished, still, as there never was more 
             than one priest at a time in the neighborhood, the Catholics of 
             those four little towns and of the neighboring county were 
             accustomed to look for spiritual aid to the church at the Lake--
             consequently it was there that the retreat of the Jubilee was 
             made by all the Catholics from miles around, to the satisfaction 
             and edification even of F. Sorin.  The cold was intense, and yet 
             the exercises were regularly attended.
                  For two years there had been only very rare visits by a 
             priest from Chicago.  The Catholic religion was consequently very 
             little known in all this part of the diocese.  The few ceremonies 
             that could be carried out, being necessarily devoid of all 
             solemnity, and even of decency, could have hardly any other 
             effect in the eyes of the public than to give rise to injurious