The Community of Monches
Compiled and Edited by Michael R.Reilly
Last Revised 03/03/2005
Monches in 1920
The Founding of Monches, Waukesha County, Wisconsin
extracted from historical publications by DonaldJ. Schulteis
Back in 1843 two four acre plots of land were donated to theMilwaukee Diocese. These were contiguous acres four (Section 34) were located inWashington County and four (Section 2) were located in Waukesha County (MertonTownship). Therally around the flag pole location was a log church constructed in thesoutheast corner of the Washington County four acres. It would seem, at thetime, the dominant individuals (Irish) lived in the Township of Erin and therally around the flag pole area was referred to as O’Connellsville. In 1845 thiscommunity had a resident pastor by the name of Reverend Thomas Morressy and achurch St. John The Baptist. So we have, it would seem, the making of acommunity on the rise.
But something happened. It would seem the dominating factor switched from theWashington County side (Irish) to the Waukesha County side (non Irish) and by1850 the area was called Monches. (See St. John’s Parish link below.) In 1853the new flag pole area was confirmed as the log church was replaced and the newchurch located across the border, only a stones throw away, but in WaukeshaCounty. So the rally around the flag pole location was then Waukesha County withits name Monches.
A second version of history of O’Connellsville and Monches,
at the web pages for St. John’s Catholic Parish in Monches.
The first documented Catholic Mass celebrated in the townwas by the Rev. Father Kundig at the home of William McGrath, in November, 1842.Three sources verify this event including an article written by ArchbishopMessmer entitled “Chips from a Kundig Block”, which references aletter written to Rev. Patrick O’Kelley by Father Kundig. It stated:
As near as can be ascertained, the first Catholic settlersto locate in the neighborhood of Monches came there on September 2, 1842.Services were first held at the home of William McGrath in the town of Erin byRev. Martin Kundig, in November, 1842. . .
There is also documented evidence that masses were held atBernard McConville’s log home shortly thereafter (September, 1844) Ñ(J.M.LeCount, 1891). Rev. Kundig made his advent into Erin on foot, coming up fromPrairieville (now Waukesha) by the way of Merton and Monches. Soon after, thecitizens assisted in building a log church at Monches where the early settlersof Erin worshipped for a number of years. (J.M. LeCount, 1891)
Regardless of where the first mass was held, what matteredto those early pioneers was that they were continuing in the practice of theirCatholic faith by receiving the sacrament of holy communion.
The first Catholic church in the area seems to have been inMonches. A priest from Fond du Lac, a Father Morrissey came down and saidMass there.
Early settlers in Pewaukee trekked to Monches for Mass. Peoplearrived in the Duplainville area in 1848 attended Mass in Brookfield (Thereseems to have been a parish in Brookfield – St. Dominic -1842-1845, but there isno actual record prior to 1858. ). In 1855 they built a meeting house (church)in Duplainville where people attended Mass.
St. John’s Church in its early Monches days
The earliest record of St. Mary’s Church appears on December16, 1858, when a frame church was built on 306 Main Street as a mission of St.Joseph Parish in Waukesha.
In 1859, Fr. Weiss of Fussville (Menomonee Falls) built a logcabin church in Duplainville as a mission of St. Anthony.
In 1865, Fr. Thaddeus Kerwin was appointed priest of St.Mary’s. It then became a mission of St. James, Templeton (Sussex).
On May 30, 1868, a deed was signed for the property on whichSt. Mary now resides. St. James in Sussex remained the principal church until1874, when Fr. Thill from St. Joseph of Waukesha came twice a month to say Mass
Origin of the name Monches (from Town of Erin IMMIGRATION& SETTLEMENT)
Other tribes in the same locality had the same tradition.Away back in the early “forties” (1840’s) , when the settlers came in,there were several families of the Menomonies scattered along the Oconomowocriver from below Loew’s Lake on the south, to Friess Lake on the east.
Old Monches was the chief of this tribe at the time, andwas always on friendly terms with the white people. Living in the vicinity ofthe hill, whenever by chance it was alluded to, he would become greatlyinterested and loved to tell of how his tribe was knowing to the fact that whitemen once came from Lake Michigan many years before and planted a cross on itstop. When speaking of the event, he would always illustrate his story by markingthe shape of the cross, either in the snow, sand or whatever soft substancehappened to be most conveniently at hand.
After the death of both Kewaskum and Monches, theirremains were subjected to the most shameful and ghoulish usage, and at the handsof a race for which they had shown great friendship, while living. Both shared asimilar fate, for each, after he had been buried over twenty years, was dug upfrom his humble, shallow grave by relic hunters and his bones left to bleachupon the surface or to be scattered by the winds of earth. Old Kewaskum wasburied on Indian (now Barber’s) island, on the Rock River, about four milesnorth of Hustisford. Old Monches died about the year of 1848, while living bythe Oconomowoc river near the residence of the late John Whelan of Erin. Nearlythirty years later, some curiosity seekers found his grave, and some others ofhis tribe on a little knoll (Blanket Hill) about a half mile east from thevillage that bears his name. They unearthed his remains and those of others andleft their bones uncovered, until a hand more humanely disposed reinterred them.
But while the graves of these chiefs were desecrated, yettheir names were made lasting; for each has a place in Washington County namedafter him; Kewaskum near the north, and Monches in the south.
