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

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1844

pg 74        post.  They were first lodged in a house rented from a Catholic, 
             where they remained until the spring of 1846.  They received a 
             certain number of postulants, and also a few pupils; but being at 
             the same time cramped for room, having no persons of talent and 
             experience, and no pecuniary resources, their house could hardly 
             develop.  The following year a grant of 5000fr. was made in their 
             favor by the Propagation of the Faith.  They made the attempt to 
             build a house for themselves.  A piece of ground of seventy-seven 
             acres had been given them at Bertrand, on which they set up their 
             residence on the banks of the St. Joseph's river, three minutes 
             walk from the church.  They put up a frame building, which could 
             not be finished till the spring of the following year.
                  They had just entered when F. Sorin returned from France in 
             1846.  He brought back with him the former superiors and eight 
             others, novices and postulants.  Among the novices of this colony 
             were Mary of the Cenacle, soon afterwards superioress.  Under her 
             energetic government good order and religious discipline were 
             reestablished in the whole house.  It had suffered much in the