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

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1847

pg 104                            2.  St. Mary's, Kentucky

                  To take up the history of this affair from the beginning, we 
             must go back to the month of January, 1846.  At the departure of 
             the Jesuits from Kentucky. Mgr. Chabrat wrote to F. Sorin, 
             offering him this institution, which was to be left vacant in some 
             months.  After communicating the affair to the council he 
             answered the Bishop that he thought he could accept St. Mary's to 
             establish there a school of English, perhaps a Brothers' 
             novitiate, and a school of arts and trades; on condition, however, 
             that the property just as it was (that is to say, four hundred 
             acres of excellent land on which the Jesuits, according to the 
             Bishop, had just spent $50,000.00 and whose buildings could lodge 
             three hundred persons) should be given to the Society of Holy 
             Cross, and that His Lordship would do his best to form at St. 
             Mary's a central novitiate for the United States, sanctioned by 
             all the Bishops of the Union.  He added that he was on the point 
             of embarking for France, where he did not doubt that he could have 
             this matter approved, if this pleased His Lordship.