No wonder Monks Mound was named after Trappists

Q: I recently made yet another visit to the awesome Cahokia Mounds. The largest earthen construction is named Monks Mound for the French Trappist monks who lived on a nearby mound for a very short time. Why is the large mound named after them? After all, Native Americans inhabited the area for centuries. Also, where did the monks go after leaving — back to France?

A: By at least one account, it literally took what some might call a miracle for those monks to brave the American wilderness and settle in 1809 at what is now the only World Heritage Site in Illinois.

But once they arrived, they found they were in desperate need of a second miracle to establish a home in this rugged territory filled with disease, crop failures and frequent weather extremes. They didn’t get it, and, as a result, left just over three years later. So what happened and how did their brief stay merit their name being attached to the largest pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas? For that, I turned to a revealing article in the October 1925 edition of the Illinois Catholic Historical Review:

The story begins in 1785, when 19-year-old Urban Guillet joined La Trappe Abbey, a monastery in Soligny-la-Trappe, Orne, France. Early on, the story goes, Guillet heard a dying priest predict that he would live to be a superior in the order. According to the Review account, Guillet thought the prophecy laughable because he was in poor health and destined for an early grave.

One day, the monastery’s abbot summoned Guillet. As required, the young Guillet tried to greet his superior by kneeling. However, he was so weak he had to be helped down to the floor. But when asked if he would go to Hungary to conduct the church’s mission, it was like, well, a miracle.

“Without help of anybody, Urban rose at once to his feet and, forgetting the crutch which he was accustomed to carry, started off at a running gait for his living quarters ...” the Review article noted. “A cripple for eight years, he felt so far cured as to be able to endure the fatigues of the road. ‘From that time on,’ he later said, ‘I never had any difficulty in walking.’”

Soon Guillet was made a superior, earning the title Dom Urban. Then, after stints in Hungary and Russia, he was directed to lead a colony of monks to the United States. Having assembled a party of 36 priests, lay-brothers and students, Guillet set sail from Amsterdam on May 24, 1802. Taking extraordinary measures to avoid English pirates, they spent five harrowing months at sea before landing Sept. 25 in Baltimore. Over the next six years, Guillet would do the Lord’s work in Pennsylvania and Kentucky before being invited to the St. Louis area.

At first, Guillet was destined to take up residence in Florissant, Mo., where John Mullanphy, Missouri’s first millionaire, offered the Trappists two houses along with 120 acres of land rent-free for a year. But before the Trappists could decide, Nicholas Jarrot — yes, he of the Nicolas Jarrot Mansion fame in Cahokia — presented an offer Dom Urban couldn’t refuse. Jarrot had been a steward in the Sulpican Seminary at Baltimore before moving in 1795 to Cahokia, where he became the district’s principal landholder. He offered to give Guillet 400 acres in the mound district plus the chance to enlarge the tract with additional land from the federal government. Envisioning a successful future, the Trappists moved to the “Big Mound” property in the fall of 1809.

The effort seemed doomed almost from the start. Instead of immediately digging a well, the Trappists drew water from a nearby stream (probably Cahokia Creek), which was so full of big fish, they died by the score and contaminated the water. Most of the monks succumbed to fever, probably typhoid. When Dom Urban arrived in November 1809, his community was fighting for its life. Still, the monks reportedly strove to follow the strict routines found in the order’s other monasteries, including unbroken silence and moderation in food and drink.

“Food consists of bread, vegetables and fruits,” an abbot told the Review in 1925. “Milk and cheese may also be given in Advent, Lent and all Fridays out of Paschal time. Flesh-meat, fish and eggs are forbidden at all times, except to the sick. The monks are obliged to sleep in their regular clothing, which consists of ordinary underwear, a habit of white and a scapular of black wool. The cowl, of the same material as the habit, is worn over it.”

The monks erected 18 cabins, presumably of logs, on a smaller mound just west of the Big Mound. They included a chapel, dining hall and kitchen. Although the monks were not planning to engage in actual ministry, circumstances dictated otherwise because only one priest was available to cover the entire Missouri Territory north of Ste. Genevieve.

“Dom Urban officiated at Cahokia, where for a while he refused to conduct services until the congregation repaired the sadly dilapidated roof,” the Review article stated. “But he was also frequently on the other side of the river in ministerial visits to St. Louis, St. Charles, Florissant and Portage des Sioux.”

In addition, the monks also restarted a watchmaking sideline they had practiced in Kentucky. An advertisement purchased by Dom Urban in the Jan. 21, 1811, Missouri Republican offered to trade their watches, clocks and other silversmith’s work for food, leather, tallow and blankets.

“The above-mentioned articles will be sold at a lower price to whoever shall pay cash,” Guillet promised.

The Big Mound itself was not built on by the Trappists, although they did raise wheat on its surface and cultivated a vegetable garden on a terrace at the southern end, the Review noted.

“But it was planned to use the topmost surface as a building site for the permanent abbey when means should be at hand for its erection,” the article added.

Those means never materialized as the monks dealt with crisis after crisis. In 1810, they suffered a total crop failure. The same year saw a virulent epidemic of “bilious fever,” which killed at least a half-dozen. Although never bothered by the Native Americans, they fell into a chronic state of poverty and distress.

“Dom Urban informed Bishop Carroll on Nov. 16, 1811, that he had been wearing the same religious habit for 13 years,” the Review article said. “Their dwelling-house was so intensely cold on occasion that the food froze while being served at table. And so it was that, discouraged and worn out by this final chapter of disappointment and failure, Dom Urban decided to return East. He withdrew with his community in 1812 according to Governor (John) Reynolds and March 1813 according to Bishop Spalding.”

The return journey of the Trappists was made by keelboat down the Mississippi and up the Ohio. They were challenged by sentries at Fort Massac, because the War of 1812 was in progress, but made it safely back to Baltimore. Eventually, Guillet went to New York to run a school and asylum for orphan boys in a house where St. Patrick’s Cathedral now stands on Fifth Avenue. Finally, the story came full circle. On Oct. 24, 1814, Dom Urban returned to France, where, after a life of hardship and disappointments, he died at a Cholet hospital on April 2, 1817, at the age of just 50 or 51.

His effort did produce one lasting legacy. During the Trappists’ short stay, they were visited by American writer-lawyer-judge Henry Brackinridge, who reportedly published the first detailed description of that massive 100-foot-tall earthwork that dominates the area. He honored them by calling it Monks Mound — and the name stuck.

For much more on this fascinating story, search for “Trappists of Monks Mound” at penelope.uchicago.edu.

Today’s trivia

What popular modern-day product originally was called Fruit Smack?

Answer to Saturday’s trivia: When Mark Tremonti was looking for a memorable name for the rock band he was forming in the mid-90s, he showed his bandmates a newspaper clipping about an abducted “naked toddler” and convinced them it would make a great moniker. Well, Naked Toddler certainly grabbed attention — for all the wrong reasons. “Girls hated it and said it made them think of pedophilia,” singer Scott Stapp wrote in his autobiography. Wisely, they changed their name to Creed, which quickly hit the big time with three consecutive multi-platinum albums. Nevertheless, its early blunder earned it the top spot on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2015 list of the 25 worst original names of famous bands. Runners-up were The Golliwogs (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and The Polka Tulk Blues Band (Black Sabbath). See the entire list at www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/25-worst-original-names-of-famous-bands-20150722.

This story was originally published August 12, 2016 at 4:21 PM with the headline "No wonder Monks Mound was named after Trappists."