St. Stanislaus Museum: preserving NoCo’s frontier history

Founded in 1823, St. Stanislaus Seminary covered nearly 1,000 acres in the Howdershell/Charbonier area. Here it is in 1928, with the river to the north.

It’s a hard life to imagine these days – building your own home, growing all your own food, and doing so in a vast wilderness populated by natives who may or may not want you there. That was the life of early Jesuit missionaries who arrived in North County in 1823, intent on sharing Christianity with local Native Americans.

Residing on 212 acres in the “common fields” of Florissant, the Jesuits constructed various log buildings and ran a small school for Indian boys, who they hoped to train as interpreters. When the school closed in 1831, St. Stanislaus Seminary opened in its place (at what’s now 700 Howdershell Road), and within ten years, it began to resemble the entirely self-sufficient monasteries of medieval Europe.

The Rock Building at St. Stanislaus, built by the Jesuits in 1840. Photo: Rome of the West

In addition to farming their land, the brothers and seminarians at St. Stanislaus quarried massive limestone blocks from the Missouri River bluffs, building themselves a new stone residence in 1840. All of the doors and woodwork were fashioned from walnut trees on the seminary grounds. The Jesuits also fired their own bricks on the spot.

Over the next 100 years, their property would grow to include multiple buildings and nearly 1000 acres, encompassing apple orchards, wheat fields, vineyards, beehives, a butcher shop, a chicken ranch, a creamery, a bakery and even a winery – the only Missouri winery allowed to operate during Prohibition. At the height of St. Stanislaus in the 1930s and 40s, the “priest farm” (as it was known by local residents) was something of a self-contained city, sprawling all the way from Howdershell Road to the Missouri River, including parts of Charbonier Bluff.

By 1971, with seminary enrollment declining and the Jesuits’ land increasing in value, St. Stanislaus was closed, and most of its buildings, except the 1840 limestone “Rock Building,” were sold to the Gateway College of Evangelism. Father Claude Heithaus, a Jesuit professor of archaeology, recognized the historical significance of the Rock Building and the many unique artifacts contained within, and he fought vigorously for their preservation.

On display at St. Stanislaus Museum is the original cross (or an exact early replica) that Father DeSmet gave to Sitting Bull.

As Heithaus knew, many early priests and brothers at St. Stanislaus had played key roles in educating Native Americans and establishing Catholic parishes and universities. Some, like Father Pierre DeSmet, were even renowned figures in frontier history, writing influential books, creating early maps, and documenting Native American customs and culture.

In 1976, with the help of his brother William, Heithaus established the nonprofit St. Stanislaus Historical Museum Society, aiming to preserve and display items from the seminary’s past as well as artifacts related to the frontier history of Florissant and Hazelwood. Operating out of the three-story Rock Building, the museum society carefully tended to its large and diverse collection, which included rare antique books, Renaissance paintings, Navajo rugs, Colonial tools, and garments worn by Father DeSmet himself.

Like a place stuck in time, the Rock Building was also preserved, looking much as it had when the Jesuits lived there. Visitors could see the priests’ dining hall and spartan bedrooms, along with tools, furniture, cigars and other items that they used in their daily lives. For 25 years, “The Museum of Western Jesuit Missions,” as it was known, offered a rare and fascinating glance at monastic and missionary life in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. It was a true North County treasure – until 2002.

Father Pierre DeSmet, who was said to travel 200,000 miles over the course of his missionary journeys, posing with men from four Native American tribes

That was the year Father Lawrence Biondi decided that the museum’s collection belonged not at the Rock Building, where it had genuine historical relevance, but at the Jesuit-run St. Louis University. Though the St. Stanislaus Historical Museum Society had been solely responsible for the collection’s preservation, Biondi wanted to showcase the artifacts at SLU, so he compelled the Jesuit order to sue the museum society, and unfortunately, the Jesuits won.

In 2003, approximately three-fourths of the museum’s holdings (including its most valuable pieces) were moved to SLU. That same year, the remains of Father DeSmet and other frontier Jesuits were removed from their graves at St. Stanislaus and reinterred at Calvary Cemetery.

By all accounts, it was a sad time for the museum society, and some questioned whether the group would continue. For a while, they displayed some of their remaining artifacts at St. Ferdinand Shrine in Old Town Florissant. But in 2007, they were kindly gifted with a new home: a pre-1860 farmhouse on Charbonier Road, adjacent to rolling fields that were once part of St. Stanislaus. The museum still operates there today.

One of the original beds from St. Stanislaus Seminary is on display at St. Stanislaus Museum, along with other Jesuit artifacts.

Gone are the priceless 17^th-century globes and DeSmet cassock that were highlights of the Rock House. But in their place, the museum society has embraced the pastoral, old-timey feel of its new locale and put more emphasis on the Jesuits’ self-sufficient lifestyle. Within sight of the former St. Stanislaus bell tower, museum board members maintain a working chicken coop and large vegetable garden. They also invite period reenactors to camp on-site and to talk about the tools and skills that were necessary in frontier times.

“I love that we’re promoting the idea of self-sufficiency,” says museum board secretary, Pat Jackson. “We’ve planted fruit trees here, and some of our board members do canning. I think we’re showing people a little bit of what it was like at St. Stanislaus, where the priests did everything for themselves.”

Board members harvest eggs and grow vegetables on the grounds of the museum.

Inside the museum, Jackson and other board members have used a handful of key pieces from the Rock House to fashion exhibits. One room boasts Father DeSmet’s own desk, as well as crosses and relics that he and other Jesuits gave to Native Americans. Another room features an original bed from the seminary, accented by simple wooden kneelers that the priests used for prayer and study.

“The furniture we were left with tells a story,” Jackson says. “And what’s nice about this house is that we can arrange the furniture how it might have been used – a desk in the study, chairs and a table in the dining room. It helps you understand the context.”

Upstairs, the museum’s oldest artifacts – textiles from 400-800AD – crown a room already brimming with Native American treasures, most of which were found in North County. “Because of the confluence, this area drew Native Americans from all over the place,” Jackson says. “It’s easier to say which tribes didn’t come here, there were so many.”

The museum displays Native American pottery, arrowheads, jewelry and other items, including artifacts recovered at burial sites on Charbonier Bluff. It also touches on the Lewis and Clark expedition, with frontier-style clothing and fur trapping gear shown beside Native American artwork and early photos of the area.

St. Stanislaus is not a large museum, at least not now. But it’s definitely worth a visit. Its growing collection paints a vibrant picture of what life was like, both at St. Stanislaus Seminary and in frontier North County. And if you come this Sunday, period reenactors will add another layer of interest to this already interesting place, setting up camp outside the museum during Florissant’s Christmas House Tour.

St. Stanislaus Museum, 3030 Charbonier Road, is open every Sunday, 1pm – 4pm. Except for this Sunday, when house tour tickets are $10, admission is free. For more info, call (314) 837-3525.

The entrance to St. Stanislaus Museum is through the back door of this charming pre-Civil War farmhouse at 3030 Charbonier Road.

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