Two Irish-American classics with extensive historical commentary by Crystal Payton, this is the companion volume to the Paytons' award winning Mystery of the Irish Wilderness. John Joseph Hogan, first bishop of Kansas City, was a pioneer priest and gifted writer. Now this definitive edition brings his two memoirs. edited by Crystal Payton, together with biographical and historical information to provide a compelling image of an important figure in Missouri history and the development of the Catholic church west of the Mississippi. On the Mission recounts the young missionary's eleven years on the frontier of Missouri, through the Civil War. his first person account of train wrecks, federal and confederate attacks on rail lines and cities, travel by handcar, horseback and riverboat, and his arrest for violation of the Loyalty Test Oath following the War. In this volume, he creates a lively and personal picture of rugged frontier life, historical personalities and events. Here one finds the only first-hand account of his Irish Wilderness colony in the pre-Civil War Missouri Ozarks. On the Mission ends in 1868 when he first becomes a bishop, but Payton's research follows him through his administration of two dioceses to his death in 1913.
Few recollections of an Irish country childhood are as beautifully told as his memoir, Fifty Years Ago. Written in 1898, Hogan looks back on his early childhood in County Limerick during the 1830s and '40s where momentous historical events contrast with a lively rural upbringing and rigorous education. He gives a detailed account of his emigration from Ireland to America in 1848 and arrival in St. Louis and acceptance into Carondelet seminary. A talented realist writer, Hogan's accounts of life in Ireland and America are keenly observed, poignant and at times delightfully humorous.
Raymond J. Boland, Bishop Emeritus of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese and a native of Ireland, wrote the introduction.
