A Stone House Amongst the Maples: Forestry, Stability and Benedictinism at St. John's, 1866-1960

              A Stone House Amongst the Maples:
Forestry, Stability, and Benedictinism at St. John's, 1866-1960
Franz Young
May 7, 2002
HIST 399 - History Thesis
Dr. Gregory Schroeder, Instructor
Dr. Derek Larson, Co-sponsor
In the 1993 epilogue to his 1957 history ofSt. Jolm's Abbey and University,
Worship and Work, Colman Barry updates his audience on the "environmental
stewardship" that is continuing at St. John's. The picturesque lake, the bountiful forests,
I
and the quiet isolation have been consistent elements drawing!t;eligious, students, and
guests to the property since the 1850's; they are essential parts of St. John's that have
been and are meticulously protected. Environmental stewardship-the ethic of
responsible environmental supervision devoted to resource management and ecological
outlook-is also referred to in the 1979 "Land Management Task Force," the "2002
Green Certification," and the 1997 "Values of an Arboretum." Each describes St. John's
as possessing an advanced environmental consciousness with a theological and historical
basis, one leading back through not only the nearly 150 years of St. John's land practice,
but back even to more obscure roots in 1500 years of Benedictine environmental history. 1
Unfortunately, none of these pieces describe how "Benedictine" environmental beliefs fit
explicitly into The Rule of Benedict or how they have influenced environmental practices
during the past 150 years at the Sagatagan site.
1
Do "Benedictine stewardship values" exist in ancient Benedictine practice or in
St. Jolm's own environmental history? Conversely, did the frontier monastic experience
in the context of American environmental sentiments create something singular at St.
Jolm's? I argue that the ideas and practices of St. John's enviromnental history so often
interpreted as Benedictine "stewardship" are only that by virtue of the Rule's opaque
reference to nature. More importantly, Benedictine environmental thought at St. Jolm's
was largely in step with-if not guided by-the prevailing environmental sentiment,
which in my study I have conceptualized into three chronological periods. During the
years 1866-1890, the practical needs of frontier life largely preempted the value of
"stability" from any purely monastic meaning; from 1890 to 1930, contemporary cultural
I
and conservationist trends inspired St. John's to develop forestrY; and "a sense of place";
and from 1930 to 1960, St. John's moved beyond traditional beliefs about "stability" and
"self-sufficiency."
I. A Benedictine Land ethic?
Historiography and Background
Monasticism had been in existence for some 250 years previous to St. Benedict
(d. 547 A.D.), while Christian ascetics and anchorites had been theologizing their
impressions of nature even before that. The meanings of these ancient land attitudes have
been the subject of debate for many years, especially in the historical context of Christian
theology's general tenor of "dominion over nature." Classic works like the Edward
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and G.c. Coulton's Five Centuries of
Religion, posit that monastic attitudes towards nature were influenced by their fear of
I Colman Bany, Worship and Work. (Collegeville, MN: TIle Liturgical Press, 1993),422-5; Larson, Derek.
"Reverence for the Tools of the Altar: The Benedictine Tradition of Stewardship at St. John's Abbey and
2
pagan demons in nature and their fanatical Christian activism. Supposedly, "taming" the
wild was a part of the religious experience, the product of monastic inability to interpret
nature - its fields, streams, and forests - as anything other than dangerous distractions
bound for Genesis-style "dominion." Only seeming revolutionaries like Francis of Assisi
are singled out for praise.2
Roger Sorrel attempts to rehabilitate3 this legacy, saying that monastic and ascetic
sentiments were the only real attempts of the period to create an appreciation for
"creation," a religious culture where ascetic innovation was usually accompanied by
dynamic changes in nature aesthetics. Early monastics such as St. Basil and St. Ambrose,
writes Sorrell, sought out a nature characterized as inherently beneficial to the spiritual
,
joumey they were enjoying.4 Often, however, the monastic ~bcounts Sorrell cites were
not written in the context of a "corporate" or "collective" monastic tradition we associate
with the stable, location-oriented Benedictinism of Monte Cassino or St. Jo1m's, but
rather those of ascetics and wandering monIcs. Consistently finding such clear sentiment
in the stable, economically complex climate of the medieval or modem monastery is
more difficult. The challenge has, in part, been taken up in much greater detail by
Clarence Glacken in Traces on the Rhodian Shore, a study of the environmental attitudes
of antiquity and how they infonned practice from ancient to early modern times. The
University, MN" (Unpublished, 2002), 1-2.
2 Roger D. Sonel, st. Francis of Assisi and Nature: Tradition and Innovation in Western Christian Attitudes
Toward the Environnlent. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968),3-4.
3 ibid., 14; further, Sonel writes: " ... when the expressions arising from the ascetic tradition are examined
on their own terms as a coherent unity, and not taken out of context and generalized in the assumption that
the "negative" elements represent all the important conceptions at issue, the researcher is confronted with
attitudes much more profound and interesting than the stereotypes would seem to indicate. One discovers a
tradition actually possessing a great potential for appreciation of the natural environment, a tradition which
often expresses sentiments of a universal relevance, and at times even resembles certain modeln American
associations with the natural enVirOll111ent. .. " (p. 14).
4 ibid., 19,21-3.
3
Benedictines, says Glacken, merged notions of manual labor and land use with the
hierarchical relationships between God, man, and the nature that COID1ects them.
Importantly, though, he shows how this cOlmection was based more often on practicality
than theological rationale, and that the relationship shifted dramatically with time, place,
and social context. 5
Historical scholarship on Benedictine land attitudes pertaining to American
Benedictinism is more rare. Specifically regarding St. Jolm's, the works of Alexius
Hoffman, Colman Barry, Vincent Tegeder, and other clerics describe virtually every
aspect of the institution's monastic life and history, yet they treat environmental issues
only accidentally, purely scientifically, chronologically, or anecdotally. Hoffmam1's
,
History of St. John's Abbey and Barry's Worship and Work, f\)1' instance, layout the
colonization and continuing settlement of the Indianbush, but offer no explicit ideas as to
how nature and monastic settlement coincide theologically. Similarly, Hoffman's A
Natural History of Collegeville and Tegeder's "High Above the Sagatagan" weave
science, history, and anecdote to show a progression from the Indianbush's natural state
to its settled usage, but offer no concrete account of Benedictine theology's particular
role in monastic colonization.6 Missing, then, is a significant degree of critical or
analytical insight as to what the land meant to the institution fundamentally, how
Benedictine values concretely affected the land for good or ill, and how the "Benedictine
values" and "stewardship" have changed over time. To make up for this neglected
nalTative, I will integrate a modern analysis of Benedictine environmental theology, a
5 Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought From Ancient
Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967) 292-4, 311-3.
6 Alexius Hoffmann, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota: A Sketch of Its History.
(Collegeville, MN: The Record Press, 1907); Barry, Worship and Work; Alexius Hoffmann, A Natural
4
familiarity with Benedictinism's historical relationship with the environment, and the
study of St. John's enviroIDllental history in the context of an American history. This is
also a strategy undertaken recently by Dr. Derek Larson in analyzing the viability of
current stewardship claims at St. John's, and it is hoped that together my work and his
will create a fuller picture of Benedictine stewardship as it stands in history.7
"Stability"
Compared to the writings and legends of early monastics like Basil, Guthlac, and
St. Brendan, Benedict of Nursia seems to describe no explicit relationship with nature.
The Rule of St. Benedict-not the first monastic rule, but long the widest used-focuses
almost entirely on matters of monastic administration and spiritual guidance. Still, one is
,
able to derive implicit meaning from certain values of the Ruld;;values peripheral to a
possible "stewardship" ethic. In 2000, future abbot John Klassen, OSB, issued his The
Rule of Benedict and Environmental Stewardship, a meditation on the ramifications of
Benedictinism on environmental practice based on Terrence Kardong's thesis of three
main ecological "themes" in Benedictine doctrine. From the Rule and its tradition
Klassen traces the "stewardship values" that St. Jolm's and other Benedictine institutions
should emulate in a modem world so fraught with environmental problems. Key among
these values is "stability," the desire to stay and lmow a place so well as to find temporal
ease and spiritual fulfillment. Within this value lies the localism so characteristic of
History of Collegeville. (Unpublished: St. Jolm's Abbey Archives, 1934); Vincent Tegeder, "High Above
the Sagatagan: A Landscape Paradise." The Scriptorium 25, Christmas Issue (1986): 95-106.
7 Derek Larson, "Reverence for the Tools of the Altar: The Benedictine Tradition of Stewardship at St.
John's Abbey and University, MN" (Unpublished, 2002).
5
Benedictinism, the bond with "place" that is the foundation of the community and the
prerequisite of spiritual serenity. 8
Chapter fifty-eight of the Rule mentions "stability" twice; Benedictintends it as
an entreaty to find spiritual perfection in remaining cloistered instead of wandering
throughout a world of temptations. Going beyond the ability to stand or stay in one
place, however, Rule 66 demands that the mon1e be economically self-sufficient-maintaining
"water, mill, and garden"-so that a the community might be self-sufficient.
Further, according to Kardong, Benedictine monasticism pays heed to the old ascetic
axiom, "Take care of your cell, and your cell will take care of you": in order to maximize
the amount of time spent in a place, one must give much thought and effort to
,
maintaining its inhabitability.9 Benedictines have sometime~i;been guilty of mere
provincialism, Kardong admits, and even vague notions of Benedictine stewardship have
not been uniformly adhered to throughout history. Generally speaking, however,
Benedictinism has "remained loyal to the localism taught by Benedict ... a witness that a
certain stability is necessary to proper care of the earth.,,1o
Manual Labor and Dominion over Nature
Tradition dictates that "stability" be attained through the physical labor and
resulting spiritual rootedness of the monastic community; monastics "are only truly
monks when they must live by the labor of their hands," states Chapter forty-eight. 11 A
diversion from idleness and temptation, a path to "humility," and a way to
8 Jo1m Klassen, "The Rule of Benedict and Environmental Stewardship." October 28,2000; Kardong,
Tenence. Commentaries on Benedict's Rule: II (Richardton, North Dakota: Assumption Abbey Press,
1995), 180; the other two values are "frugality" and "humility," both of which are open to a similar
analysis.
9 ibid., 176-7.
10 ibid., 177-8.
6
mortification-but the main purpose was practical: it was the method by which many
monks earned their keep within the community, and the very way that communities
attained a degree of self-sufficiency. 12 It was out of necessity that early monastics were
to take up axes and hoes, to do the "peasant's task" of clearing forest and working fields,
but the early Benedictines saw work as both a form of dutiful prayer to God as well as a
practical activity, creating a cycle of practical and pious activity that essentially merged
into one "means to an end." As Glacken states: "Piety was an active ally compatible
with ... desired changes in nature. Creating a landscape fit for Christian settlement for
conversion and colonizing was a reward of piety.,,13 The piety of manual labor fit very
well with the Cln·istian idea of "stewardship," in which "stability" finds its essential
I
justification for utilizing natural resources from "God's creatW~" l."
Ideas about humanity's "stewardship" emerged from Christian interpretations of
Genesis creation, but it was early theologians and monastics that constmcted a hierarchy
of God, human, and creation that not only allowed but mandated the cultivation of the
earth. Nature clarified humanity's relationship to God; people were God's gardeners,
praising God by toiling to bring forth nature's preordained harvest. Others saw nature as
incomplete, requiring man work against sinful idleness by adorning nature, completing it,
and furnishing it as if the Lord's abode. Still others saw it in a utilitarian fashion: God
had provided for man's needs as fitting his will for His peoples' improved spiritual lives,
and it was man's ultimate responsibility to use nature's bounty towards pious means. 14
11 Basilius Steidle and Urban J. Schnitzhofer. The Rule of st. Benedict. (Beuron, Gelmany: Beuroner
Kunstverlag, 1952), 2l7.
12 Paul Delatte, Commentary on the Rule of st. Benedict (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1921),305-9.
13 Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 292-4, 302-6.
14 Ibid., 295-302; among those whose stewardship ideas that Glacken discusses are Philo the Jew,
Tertullian, Oligen, St. Basil of Caesarea, S1. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Theodoret, and
Cosmas Indicopleustes. For instance, Gregory of Nyssa thought that people were master over nature
7
Monastics idealized their interactions with the natural world by claiming the piety of the
environmental action and righteousness of the ecological result in the pursuit of spiritual
and temporal "stability."
II. Medieval Benedictinism:
Benedictine land practice and values illustrated
Does early European Benedictinism offer instances of the "stability" we seek of
St. Jolm's land practice? The likeness of St. John's to its European predecessors has been
noted often, such as by August C. Krey in 1949:
"As we tumed off the main highway through the well cleared woods, so
symbolic of the forest that once covered this region, so serene in its
quietness, screening off all signs of human activity-'apart of the world
yet of it'-suddenly there burst upon our view the mOlhtfstery and the
church, the college and the well-tilled fields beyond .... exactly like my
historical visits to all the Benedictine Monasteries I had 1m own from
Monte Cassino to Cluny.,,15
The likeness of St. John's to its European forbearers ventures beyond the superficial,
however. They foreshadowed the American foundation in method, purpose, and the
application of a "stability" ethic. From the reign of Charlemagne in the eighth century
tln"ough the High Middle Ages, monasticism and Christianity moved west into Germany,
deliving new appreciation for nature as they gained "stability" in and intimacy with the
wildemess, even as they "tamed" it. Monks spoke of the pleasure of finding "paradise"
where great forests would "give great solitude." Eight-Century reformer Benedict of
because God had created nature and allowed them to praise Him through its exploitation; because God
could create nothing low, useless, or wOlihy ofrejection, however, evelything had the dignity of God's
community. Blessed were all things in nature, but man was in all practical senses superior to it all by his
invention, intended by his God-given, idleness-hating spirit to adom nature, complete it, and furnish it like
the Lord's abode.
15 August C. K.l'ey, "The Heritage They Brought Us," Minnesota Centelmial Convocation, St. John's
University, 20 May 1949; as relayed by: BalTY, Worship and Work, 62, 106; St. John the Baptist Parish,
Stones and Hills. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1975),239.
8
Aniane heightened his understanding of nature in the wilderness by subduing it, having
"guided the plow with the plowman, used the axe with the woodsman, reaped with the
reapers.,,16 Glacken maintains that earlier monastic tradition was characterized by closer
ties with and heightened intuitive knowledge of the land. With deep sincerity, they felt as
though they were recreating the paradise "before the fall," sowing an ordained progress in
God's fertile fields. 17
As in modem instances, however, the bulk of Benedictine land practice and its
spread seemed more a result of political and economic necessity rather than spiritual
prerogative; "stability" was defined according to economic survival. Benedictine
monasteries of the Dark and Middle Ages were arranged on a model of the Carolingian
I
manor, often holding rather large, scattered tracts of land. Thd':,monasteries actively tried,
through purchase or benefaction, to come into possession of land that best suited their
material needs more often than their spiritual desires. This "colonization" was endemic
throughout the medieval centuries; large fluctuations in lay and monastic labor,
population growth, and increasing commodity values forced increasing encroachment on
otherwise wild domains. 18 Most monasteries were founded in isolated areas, untilled
fields, and forested lands that were increasingly cultivated over the centuries as monastic
membership and prestige rose. Forest acreage was claimed and cleared for agriculture,
with remaining forest eventually sourcing wood for constmction, fuel, and furniture.
Surrounding populations saw monasteries as "model farms" opening new and fertile
areas to exploitation and showcasing newer agricultural tec1miques. At the expense of a
16 Sorrel, st. Francis of Assisi and Nature, 26-7.
17 Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 294.
18 Lowrie lDaly, Benedictine Monasticism: Its Formation and Development Tln-ough the lih Century.
(New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965),247-9.
9
"stability" ideal, Monasteries acted increasingly as rural enclaves of faith in which they
trained the locals in gardening, agriculture, and even forest conservation. 19
The ideal of stability and self-sufficiency often fell victim to monastic prestige as
encroac1m1ent by sUlTounding population, increased membership, and political wrangling
hemmed monastics into their cloisters. The solitude that the monks so fervently sought
amongst the trees was eclipsed by practical concems: the physical and monetary
requirements of establishing missions, setting up schools, and maintaining manuscript
libraries. Bureaucratic prerogative and dependence on outside labor eventually overcame
a system ofland practice bolstered by strong ideals of work, self-sufficiency, and
"dominion" theology. Tenant and serf agricultural labor eclipsed monastic manpower as
,
monasteries struggled to produce enough food and sufficient fflpds for the increasing
monastic and vassal obligations. Many monasteries resigned themselves to a passive
usage of their lands, exchanging the increased cost of material transport and over-stretched
manpower for the increased power and profit of vassalage and land-leasing. 2o
Abuses, as Kardong noted previously, were more prevalent as corporate rationale
circumvents the Rule's admonishment of the individual to material restraint and respect
to sUlToundings. Worldliness "diluted" the purity of sentiment found in early monastics
and anchorites as it avoided the "humility" and nonnative power necessitated by work
upon the land. Attitudes towards the enviromnent became "indistinguishable" from lay
institutions; decisions on, say, whether to clear land of forest thereafter depended less on
19 Daly, Benedictine Monasticism, 251-2; Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 312-3.
20 Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 302-3; Daly, Benedictine Monasticism, 218, 248-52.
10
strongly held "nature" associations bound in tradition to the Rule than with the "greed,
worldliness, and corruption" of corporate spirit. 21
Timber Practice
Environmental Change resulting from monastic practice was of a power virtually
unmatched for its period and place, particularly with logging. The laity could not match
the manpower, strict discipline, or the sense of administrative purpose mustered by the
associative power of the monastery. Philosophies of labor and strict "stability" motivated
working monks and lay laborers as they cleared large swaths of forest for building sites
and agricultural lands. Still, trees were more than an impediment. There existed in
European Benedictinism a "culture of wood and water" in the great forested tracts of
I
central and eastem Europe, where "places without woods or ~flter are no places for
monks.,,22 The necessity of wooded land, aesthetics aside, was founded in its material
use. Forest was a central part of monastic and lay livelihoods in the Middle Ages. The
materials of everyday life-fuel, lumber, grazing land, hunting stock-were to be found
there. At the same time, agricultural land was needed. Perhaps more expressly than the
laity of the eighth through the twelfth century, monastic communities felt this tension
between the need for preserved sources of wood and the large-scale desire for both
agricultural land and the lumber obtained with its clearing.23
Forest usage changed as the economic circumstances of a monastery evolved.
The foundation of a monastery was an instance of prolonged and dramatic interaction
with the land: laboring in the forest, in the place so enthusiastically sought out for its
solitude and its immediacy as a source of materials, provided a distilled 0ppOliunity to
21 Kardong, Commentaries on Benedict's Rule: II, 174-5; Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 294, 314.
22 Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 311.
11
view Benedictine land attitudes amid religious fervor (see note).24 It was not, however,
this early tie to the land that bore the impetus for monastic forestry. Ironically, the
movement away from a close personal tie to the land through manual labor-coinciding
with more worldly monastic living-brought about the increasing popularity of forestry
on monastic and lorded lands. Forestry (the management of forested areas) originated in
Gennany in the twelfth century and grew in popularity into the early modem ages,
alternately to encourage forest economy and to protect traditional hunting and pleasure
lands. As economic interests diversified beyond the local, monastic decisions on issues
like deforesting a plot of land became more distinctly an economic, rather than a
theological concern. Afforestation (the preservation of wooded lands) and reforestation
,
(the cultivation of new forests where previous forests had beeH;cleared) had more to do
with land rights and usage than concerns over solitude in the wilderness. 25 Forests were
"involved in both the need for change and the need for stability," and so became potent
symbols of a monastery's priorities and immediate needs, being cleared in the case of
those chapters needing fannland, being kept in those cases where the uses of the forest-wood
and grazing land-outweighed reasons to increase cultivation.
Glacken notes that, from the very first, it is easy to overemphasize religion's role
in influencing monastic land practice; after all, he says, it was always more a path to
23 Ibid., 318-20.
24 Ibid., 309:
"The abbot was with the workers when they started to fell the trees for making the arable. In one hand he
had a wooden cross, in the other a vessel of holy water. When he arrived in the center of the woods, he
planted the cross in the earth, took possession of this untouched piece of earth in the name of Jesus Christ,
sprinkled holy water around the area, and finally grasped an axe to cut away some shrubs. The small
clearing made by the abbot was the starting pointfor the monks' work. One work group ... cut down the
trees, a second ... took out the trunks, a third burnt up the roots, boughs, and the undergrowth. "
This came originally from Dubois, Geschichte von Morimund; via Winter, Die Cisterncienser des
nordostlichen Deutschlands; It must be qualified here, according to Glacken, that these are Cistericians,
who typically used lay brothers to do this type of work.
25 Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 314, 325-31.
12
understanding man's relationship to God than a widespread, developed idea of
responsibility to the land. Everyday existence and contemporary custorn proved the
ultimate rationale. Moreover, increasingly corporate and politically savvy monastic
orders responded to economic and social pressures by creating rational-use plans, which
oven-uled intimate personal or community c0l1l1ections to the land.26
III. Benedictines, Wood Usage, and Context
on the American Frontier (1866-1890)
When Father Bruno Reis trundled through the Indianbush (the hilly area west of
3t. Joseph) searching for a suitable place for a new abbey and college, he harkened back
to the fervent colonization of the European forests. The missionary spirit pervaded the
h
( \
Benedictine effort in Mil1l1esota, part of a larger, rejuvenated effort to provide spiritual
support for pioneer Catholics and increase Catholic influence. The centuries since the
Protestant Reformation saw European Benedictine monasteries confiscated through
persecution and wars. In places such as Bavaria, monasteries were making a slow
comeback as the Napoleonic secularization of their lands in places like Bavaria were
being reversed.27 The romanticism of nineteenth century Gennany, further, was having
an impact on the Benedictine revival, causing many to look back to periods before the
great religious wars as idyllic, to see active missionary work and education endeavors as
key, and to seek out rural spots for settlement both out of aesthetics and for the isolation
from future religious persecution.28 The Benedictine settlers of America and 3t. John's
26 Ibid., 313-4, 320, 323, 337.
27 Barry, Worship and Work,S.
28 Hugh Feiss, "Watch the Crows: EnvirOllllental Responsibility and the Benedictine Tradition." And God
Saw That It Was Good: Catholic Theology and the Enviromnent. Drew Christiansen and Walter Grazer,
Eds. (Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, Inc., 1996), 158.
13
were centuries distant from the grand rural monastic tradition that they romanticized in
their reinvigorated missionary ideology.
A monk from the ancient monastery of Metten in Austria named Boniface
Wimmer began to extend this Benedictine revival by creating new in-roads in the United
States of America. This led eventually to the Minnesota foundation. Founding
personalities like Abbot Boniface Wimmer and the original Minnesota Benedictines were
mostly GenTIan, Austrian, or Gennan Swiss. Of the twenty-four members joining the
community under "the Pioneer Abbot" Rupert Seidenbusch, only two were American.
The parallel is intriguing; like the GenTIan Benedictines a thousand years before them,
they thought they were struggling to bring civilization into the wilderness, to save souls,
,
and to maintain their "Benedictine principles" all the while. Tiley were bringing GenTIan
culture, Winm1er reasoned with benefactor King Ludwig of Bavaria, civilizing with
Christianity, cultivating fertile land, and bringing settlers into the Bavarian Benedictine
fold. 29 Yet, the pioneer life would be very different from the cloistered existence familiar
to well-educated monks more at home with teaching and preaching. They arrived in a
new environment, one where survival depended on using resources extensively and
wisely. While the Rule of Benedict indirectly structured the relationship between monk
and landscape, the realities of frontier life and the immersion in American land ethics-which
I will describe more fully later-heavily influenced environmental attitudes at S1.
Jo1m's.
As in ancient times, the Benedictines sought glorified solitude in the woods of the
Indianbush. Its "primitiveness" provided a chance to escape from "intrusion." This need
for isolation had likely disqualified other potential settlement areas. Alexius Hoffmann,
14
for instance, believes that the move away from the Collegeville meadow and up to the
lake was affected by the railroad's imminent course through the area and the resulting
destruction of solitude.30 Still, practical considerations proved of foremost importance,
and Bruno Reis was quickly persuaded by the possibilities of the Lake Sagatagan area of
the Indianbush. His 1889 reminiscences published in The St. Jolm's Record note that
timber was of prime concem in choosing the current site in the Indianbush, along with
water represented by the Watab and the Sagatagan, and the pasturage of the Collegeville
station site. In fact, his reluctance to give up the good tree cover in section six of the
property stretched his claims so that the meadows and the beautiful lake almost lost their
cOlmecting territory. Even as he claimed so many acres of prime forest, the proceeding
generations were left to grumble that he had not gotten more\"!;especially the land south of
the lake that would have given sole access to St. John's.31
The new site seemed "in all its primitiveness" a perfect site for contemplation in
"the quiet of the forest, and above, the great, blue dome of heaven." A stout and practical
man, however, first abbot Rupeli Seidenbusch looked beyond aesthetics and actively
worked to efficiently use these local resources and provide a stable foundation. The
original site of the monastery, the East banle of the Mississippi south of St. Cloud,
actually proved too short on timber even as the monastics were forced off the land, while
the original homestead near Collegeville Station had only a meager fork of the Watab for
its water needs.32 The heavily wooded lots of the lake site and the lake they surrounded
seemed to supply both needs more than adequately, and the Benedictine value of self-
29 Bany, Worship and Work, 6, 39,105.
30 Barry, Worship and Work, 99; Alexius Hoffmann, A Natural History of Collegeville. (unpublished: St.
Jolm's Abbey Archives, 1934), 59.
15
sufficient stability illustrated in Medieval monastic "culture of wood" was realized.
When the spring thaw of 1865-1866 came, local worlm1an cut a road cut tln'ough oak and
maple from the Collegeville site to the Sagatagan site, felling maples where the
Quadrangle now stands. By 1868, a dam was placed on the Watab and a saw and grist
mill put into operation; the wood being cleared from agricultural and building sites was
now tuming into lumber for buildings, fumiture, and other purposes. Wood products
.
would not then have to be purchased in St. Cloud, eleven mil~~away. Cordwood was
fueling stove fires and the kilns that baked the locally clayed bricks. It was cheaper and
more efficient to bake bricks than haul stones and quany granite, and shortly, local wood
and brick were being used to create the large red-brick buildings that make up the
,
quadrangle. As time wore on, "improvements" were constari'~ly being made to the
buildings, always under the belief that "lasting, ample shops and outbuildings were the
first step in this program of supplying food and physical necessities at home." 33
Lay pioneers of contemporary age and location were hardly concemed with
spiritual notions of "solitude" or "stability," but their quest for survival through the forest
materials was quite comparable to the instinct for continued institutional survival driving
settlement at St. John's. This is not to say they were identical. While St. J01m's actively
sought out wooded areas because of their desperate need for lumber and their associative
ability to clear land faster, many pioneer settlers chose instead prairie and forest edge,
owing to the ease of plowing this clear land instead of deforesting and clearing woods for
agricultural use. A family farming forestland would be less likely to fmm beyond
31 Bruno Riss, "The Earliest Years ofSt. Jo1m's, 1856-1862, Fmi 3." The Record. (Apr 1889):
.
32 Barry,. Worship and Work, 37, 81,99.
33 Ibid., 82-83, 135.
16
sustenance level. In a similar vein, just as Fr. Bruno Reis secured a large proportion of
woodland in his initial claims, the lack of adequate pasture at the site and the reluctance
of the Abbot Alexius Edelbrock to clear all of the land necessary for adequate agriculture
prompted him to buy one thousand acres of prairie in the West Union township for the
purposes 0 f agn.c u1 t ure. 34
Moreover, pioneer wood usage was quite similar on a smaller scale to that of S1.
John's. As at the Sagatagan site, pioneer families utilized forest for grazing land, for its
materials used in housing and fencing, and for its fue1wood. An interesting dynamic
involved the famler selling excess wood or its products to mills or directly to consumers;
sometimes economic necessity forced men into seasonal employment lumbering for
I
someone else.35 This occurred very early on and consistently £t S1. Jolm's, showing that
solitude in the forest and the manual labor of monastics clearing it rarely found true
application at S1. John's. Hired laborers-men from local farms-had worked to clear
the road to the Indianbush and its building sites in the mid 1860's, as well as provided
paid carpentry services and aided in the major construction efforts. The school would
also readily buy fuelwood from surrounding farmers, thereby avoiding the assignment of
precious manpower to the arduous task of cutting down trees. Oppositely, to supplement
the college's cash flow from student emollment, the school sold farm products and the
services ofthe gristmill to 10cals.36 Outside labor and an extemal source of funds was
already diminishing earlier themes of self-sufficiency, a need for solitude, and the
mandate to personally work the land.
34 Ibid., Worship and Work, 151-152.
35 Michael Williams, "Pioneer Fam1 Life and Forest Use." Encyclopedia of American Forest and
Conservation History. (1983): 530-533.
17
III. God's Forest, Humanity's Resource:
Familiarity, Romanticism, and Forestry (1890-1930)
As the abbey and college forged through their third decade in the Indianbush,
"stability" was forming a personal, familiar, and occasionally religious interpretation of a
local nature and producing the modem "sense of place". This was becoming prominent,
further, just as the practical issues of sustainable resource management at St. John's were
becoming increasingly evident. By 1886, the Quadrangle had achieved its essential shape
and provided not only a source of shelter, but also a face or personality and a much-needed
rock-solid sense of stability. Abbot Alexius Edelbrock, predecessor of the
practical and modest Rupert Seidenbusch, spent his abbotship from 1875 to 1890
1'1
l\
expanding both the physical presence and missionary influence of St. John's, with the
Quadrangle being the legacy of his frontier charisma. After Edelbrock's storied yet
troubled administration, however, Bernard Locnikar represented a move to a more
central, less externally motivated philosophy of monastic living.37 His preference for the
cloistered life came about just in time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Indianbush
college, an invitation for many to look back upon past experiences at St. John's and the
"old college" lifestyle. The St. John's Record, founded in 1888, quickly became a
showcase for nostalgia about the founding days and the "Old St. Jo1m's" that proceeded it
by a mere twenty-five years; the properties had already become hallowed ground to a
generation of monastics, students, and alumni. Quite consciously, the living memory of
near-sanctified founding circumstances was already merging into practical ideas of
36 BaITY, Worship and Work, 62, 106; St. John the Baptist Parish, Stones and Hills. (Collegeville, MN: The
Liturgical Press, 1975), 62-65.
37 Barry, Worship and Work, 212, 214, 221.
18
forestry to create a movement toward active "preservation" of the essential character of
St. John's, the wooded lakeside landscape. Of course, the complex relationship between
sustainable wood use and personal/spiritual possibilities of nature was, in fact, already
writ large in the mainstream of American environmental sentiment.
''A Sense of Place"
"Stability," besides its denotation as just "staying in one place" in self-sufficiency,
also entails in the Benedictine ethos an intimacy with one's surroundings.
Modem examples of this sentiment abound at St. John's, indeed fonning a shared
affection for the locality commonly referred to as "a sense of place.,,38 This idea might
have been common to Benedictinism generally, but its wide interpretation at St. Jolm's as
I
a core experience of both monastic and college life overwh~l1, ns any such sentiment to be
found in similar foundations across the world. One can perhaps understand why in view
of the aptly named collection of short anecdotes A Sense of Place, published,
appropriately, at the Liturgical Press in Collegeville. Short biographies and anecdotes of
monks, priests, visitors, and students attempt to depict how St. John's possesses an
essence of spiritual self wholly unique to the institution. Hillary Thimmesh, fonner
president of St. John's, says that this "sense" is based on a shared history and, in the case
ofSt. John's, the shared influence of the local environment. That the college-with its
steady supply of youthful, malleable inhabitants--exists in concert with the Abbey and its
exaggerated sense of locality does much to influence institutional and personal attitudes
toward nature at St. Jolm's. This cOlmection between monastics, non-monastics, and
nature becomes important later in this paper, when I analyze the student publication The
St. Jolm's Record for early evidence of Benedictine land attitudes at St. John's.
19
The inhabitants of St. John's have engaged in dialogues about the aesthetic
qualities of the Sagatagan since the original or "pioneer monks" first caught site of the
lake and the surrounding forest. Besides its abundance of wood and water, the Sagatagan
site was singled out for its pastoral beauty, labeled by early inhabitants "a landscape
paradise." Yet, the fervor and activity of pioneer settlement had by the 1890's given way
to a stable, if rapidly growing institution of spiritual and educational opportunity. By the
1880's-less than twenty years after its initial, tentative settlement-the properties were
webbed with trails and hiking paths, spanned by foot-bridges, and dotted by remote
hiding and gathering places. No longer was activity involved with making the land
"livable," but rather "enjoyable" and a part of the St. John's "experience." Uthe pioneer
I
monastics saw local nature primarily in terms of how these res~urces could support an
institution, the monIcs, priests, and students of St. Jolm's at the tum of the century
believed that the land needed to be manicured, experienced. Physical necessity as
defined by "stability" became in a particularly Gilded Age fashion the strong locality of
"a sense of place."
Snapshots and postcards show by the late 1870's and through the tum of the
century that a culture of leisure existed in the environs of St. J olm' s in the midst of
rigorous classroom sessions. The glass negative collection and main photographic
collection in the Abbey archives offer many examples of student and monastic leisure
activities. Many photographs are incidental, but the large glass negatives would suppose
a higher degree of preparation; the large number of nature, landscape, picturesque, and
leisure pictures staged, photographed, and developed at St. John's suggest the cOlmection
between school/monastic activities and the lands, especially wooded scenes. One glass
_ ..... _ .. _-_._.-_._---_._--------_._------- ----- -------... -
38 "A sense of place" is a phrase ofrecent origin, used for its current fashionability at St.John's.
20
negative shows a group of boys lounging on rocks lakeside, their school uniforms being
mussed by the dust and mud, assuming casual poses, as if escaping into the cool morning
between classes. Another negative shows a rustic forest den replete with a pair of class-weary
rascals. Others show monks at play, like a monastic picnic being held in 1892 at
Chapel Island, a common place for picnics during this period. Other personal photos
include monastics and visitors on community occasions fishing, boating, picnicking,
hiking, and generally taking in the natural sights. 39 The close relationship between
school, monastery, and landscape shown in these photographs were integral parts of a
strong sense of familiarity that would create a memorialized personal cOIDlection with the
land.
I
Another venue for such c01mections was the St. J ohIi7:s Record,40 which began in
1888 as very much a general interest student reader. The pages included fiction, world
events, pieces on Catholic doctrine, Shmi editorials, occasional travel nanatives
commissioned of traveling monastics, perhaps a page or two of rowdy student banter, and
periodic scholarly explorations of the abbey/school's history. The twenty-fifth
mmiversary of the first session at the Sagatagan location was celebrated with a spate of
"reminiscence" miicles ("Jubilee Reminiscences, 1867-1892") 41 to which cunent and
former students were invited to contribute. An air of affectionate familiarity with nature
and sacralized "place" was a C011ll110n feature throughout. In the 1891 Record article
"Forgotten Haunts," for instance, we're reminded of all of the "old places" and hangouts
once loved and now growing un-used by students. The Watab Spring, a curious wooden
39 Photographs courtesy of St. Jolm's Abbey Archives (SJAA), under Br. David Klingemmm, OSB.
40 Hereafter, The Record or Record.
41 "Jubilee Reminiscenses." ~cord. 5, n.1 (Jan 1892): 10-1; "Other Days and Scenes." The Record. 3
(Mar 1892): 53-4; Basel., Jno. "Glipses of Nature," same issue, 59; "The A.L.A. Picnic." The Record. 5,
21
structure called Mount Carmel, and other places "changing and growing older, yet ever
beautiful" are invoked as shared nature experiences with deeply personal meanings.42
Transcendental aspects of nature often colored this ethic of familiarity and the mundane.
The notion of the sacredness oflocation found concretely in the modest saintly
monuments located around campus and so basically important to the religious ideals of
the Benedictines existed alongside and gave an immediate application to ideas of "God in
nature." An 1893 Record article entitled "Beauty in Nature" ruminated on this topic.
Starting out with nature's "inherent beauty" and its meaning to man aesthetically, it soon
expounds upon how man can never really understand it just as he cmmot truly rule it. He
is left to merely be its steward, and the imagery of trees is liberally used throughout.
I
God, in all of his transcendental mystery, is the secret behinli;nature's power, and should
one want to understand and find confidence in Him, reads the article, one must revere and
contemplate nature.43 (One-hundred years later, the language of theology is still applied,
and in official capacities to land management.)44
Some Record articles wax nostalgic about the college's first years, conspicuously
emphasizing the school's wild locale and its early virility as a civilizing influence on
wildemess. "The Sylvan quiet was rudely broken by the din of cheerful boyish voices,"
reflects a January 1892 article on the college's begilmings, "and deer no longer felt at
home. Life had suddenly been infused into the wildemess." Because of its isolation
from towns, "The college was truly in a wildemess," and the "old-timers" remember that
"the axe had made little havoc in the forest which almost overshadowed the building."
--_._----------_._-----_._--------------_._------. __ .--_._.
11.6 (June 1892): 140-142; "Kodak Treasures." The Record. 6,11.2 (Feb 1893): 33-4; "Kodak Treasures."
The Record. 6, n.6 (Ju11e 1893): 134.
42 "Forgotten Haunts." The Record. 4, n. 12 (Dec 1891): 262-3.
43 "Beauty in Nature." The Record. 6, n. 7-8 (Ju1-Aug 1893): 158-61.
22
This seclusion was important, states the article, because it enforced a high level of
discipline on student and monastic alike. Yet, student life was enj oyab1e, even in "the
wilderness"; before long, stump-pulling would become an institutional spOli, making
space for ball-fields.45 The article expresses a sense that inhabitation improves the
wilderness, but that wilderness has its advantages, too, and should be dealt with
accordingly. The title "Kodak Treasures" begins some miicles, an obvious allusion to the
contemporary, middle-class pursuit of leisured photography using the small, mobile
cameras produced by Kodak that were novel at time. Short, memory "snapshots," these
stories usually recalled the students' adventures in the "wilds" ofthe area.
Can-ying this interest in wildness fUliher-even into the world of fancy, some
I
writings penned for the Record during this period express a fd~cination with the natural
history of St. Jolm's and its believed extension, Native Americans. An article called
"The Watab" appeared in a 1900 Record, describing the path of the Watab River as it
flows through the properties and then its connection to the glaciers that etched the whole
of the state and the region. Of course, the climax ofthe tale is when "civilized man"
came in the form of white settlers, whose power has improved the area: "Had not the
pale-face taken possession ... there would have been from mouth to source a slope with
just enough inclination to carry the scourings of rain.,,46
Much the same tone of "natural history" colored the occasional piece on Native
American inhabitants. An interesting anachronism now, "Autobiography of an
Arrowhead" expresses an interest in Native American culture, in the cold and detached
44 Preface and "Education and Land Management Ethics" from "St. John's Management plan," draft form,
April 2000.
45 "Jubilee Reminiscenses." The Record. 5, n.l (Jan 1892): 1O-l.
46 "The Watab." The Record. 13, n.l (Jan 1900): 5.
23
tone of a scientist describing a creature of nature. In dramatic style, the article tells the
tale of an Indian object as it passed from its walTing "red men" creators to "rediscovery,
or resulTection" in the hands of his "new masters" at St. John's, in antiquity "to be gazed
at by all who take interest in [the alTowhead].,,47 Alexius Hoffman, the imminent
historian of his time, compiled his earthy Natural History of Collegeville in the 1920's by
commission of Abbot Alcuin Deutsch, showing a large-scale interest in the subject during
the first decades of this century. In it, he describes out of his own experience and
personal knowledge the natural history of the area, its flora and fauna, and its settlement.
His description of the Chippewa peoples previously occupying the area, their custom of
birch-boat making, and the etymology of their place-names is calTied out with all of the
I
colorful relish and lack of irony becoming of his time periocJ!;i;the Gilded Age and the
decades thereafter. 48 The process of "stability" had in its exhortation to extreme intimacy
of the land had in the decades sUlTounding 1900 created for the learned peoples and
imaginative students of St. Jolm's a desire to know the history of the wilderness that they
were "civilizing," if only to better alTange the nalTative of the area and justify the
institution's hand in it.
During this period, aesthetic beauty-or the "improvement" upon its natural
state-also proved of concern to monastics, with landscapes and features being
"beautified" and "consecrated" by the hand of man. Alexius Hoffmann, himself a
product of the era, desclibes with great relish the "advancements," technological and
aesthetic, taking place at St. John's during this period. The technological advancements
recounted included a new powerhouse (1889), modem bathrooms, and a new water tower
47 "The Autobiography of an Arrowhead." The Record. 16, n.3 (Mar 1903): 81,87.
48 Hoffmaml, A Natural History of Collegeville, 12,36-37,56.
24
(1890). According to Hoffmann, "beautification" began occUlTing in earnest in about
1889 with work on "the Peninsula," (as Boniface Point was called) with undergrowth and
shrubs being removed, a band-pavilion being relocated there, and roads and bridges
created. In this way, describes Hoffmann, "the playgrounds were extended and a pleasant
resort created for those who relished a walk in the shade of the summer foliage." The
grounds that before was held more of a utilitarian importance to the monastics were in the
1890's becoming a property to be manicured into a park for enjoyment.49
Other improvements to the property included more fencing, grading, and
landscaping that by 1897 had given the grounds "definite shape and fmm at last"; interest
was great in "the beautification" and "enjoyment," and the work was so large and gradual
I
as to overwhelm the impulse to collect data on it. Pmi of this/w, as the installation of
much statuary. By 1872, the Stella Maris Chapel had already been built (replacing an
earlier birch-wood sIrrine ofunlmown origins) "Round the Beat" on the trail around Lake
Sagatagan, but efforts to beautify it and make the island more accessible via roads around
the lake. This was just one of many religious icons, statues, and grottoes that would dot
the property over the next few decades, the continual upkeep and upgrading of which
testified to the reverence they held. 50 The most profound aesthetic alterations to the land,
however, involved forestry, which I will address shortly.
The provincial tone of this "sense of place" ideology might tempt one to concur
that the familiarity with nature so emphasized at St. John's was indeed an isolated
incident borne out of seclusion and Benedictine values. Yet, this period so integral to the
institution's self-conception belies a cultural context that echoed many of the same
49 Alexius Hoffmann, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Mil1l1esota: A Sketch ofIts HistOlY.
Collegeville, MN: The Record Press, 1907,94,97, 102.
25
sentiments. Affection for the "wild," the "natural," and outdoor leisure activities was a
common theme of 1890's American society, forming what Roderick Nash calls a
"Wilderness Cult." The whole spectrum of personal and spiritual application to nature
had been a part of American thought on nature for decades, with particular attention paid
to forests. The American transcendental movement began in the 1850's in large pad
from the Romantic, picturesque movement in Europe, with aesthetic scenery becoming a
central theme in discussions about the beautiful, the sublime, and the spirit. Writer-philosophers
like Thoreau (in various works like his Walden of 1854, and "Walking" in
1851) and Emerson (in his Nature of 1836) and poets like Walt Whitman had already
brought this discussion into the American context of wilderness and frontier, taking the
I
rather esoteric European philosophies and applying them to tit~ rocks, trees, and animals
as beautiful things worth preservation.51
Even contemporary to the settlement of the "Indianbush," naturalist Jolm Muir
had further expressed the validity of nature as a spiritual and abjectly personal
experience, a pure source ofreflection and renewa1. 52 St. John's in large part was an
audience to this transcendental legacy and applied it to their lands, spilming into it a
Benedictine metaphysical bent. By the 1890's, the "wilderness" was becoming very
popular subject for books, plays, speeches, and articles in America. Frederick Jackson
Turner found early fame with his 1893 theorization based on census figures that the
American frontier was now closed, that there was no where left to settle unencumbered.
He cOlmected with the discontent many people felt with modem life in cities, and "the
50 Ronald Roloff, "Now It Is in the Building." The Scriptorinm 6, no. 1 (1946): 62-77.
51 Eugene C. Hargrove, "Philosophy, Religion, and American Forests." Encyclopedia of American Forest
and Conservation HistOlY. (New York: McMillan Publishing Co., 1983),526-8.
26
wildemess" became an important, albeit dying symbol of what made America great:
virility, independence, touglmess, and the pioneer. Social societies (from the Sierra Club
to the Cub Scouts), national parks, and wide public sentiments formed that sought to
cherish, support, and/or preserve nature, the ability to interact leisurely with natural areas,
the sources of resource wealth, and even the now marginal Native American civilizations.
They were aided by tremendous improvements in transportation and documented by
more advanced cameras. The earlier pioneer disregard for nature transfonned into an
enthusiasm for anything having to do with nature as people were realizing that the
detac1mlent people felt in urban areas resulted not from too much isolation, but rather not
enough.53 The value of stability, the prerequisite for Benedictine ideas of enviromnent-
,
rooted spirituality, camlot be separated from s contemporaf)h~ate nineteenth-century
American belief in the value of "place" to a person's physical, spiritual, and aesthetic
well-being.
"Scientific F orestlY"
The forestry that came about at this time would seem to be something of a twin to
this "familiarity" notion as an outcome of a Benedictine "stability" value. By the 1880's,
photographs show that the old growth hardwood forest that once stood tall above the
Sagatagan was largely a thing of the past, that nearly a half-mile radiating from the
Quadrangle had been denuded of this growth. From the shores of the Watab across the
istlmms to the Sagatagan was nearly bare of mature trees, along the shore of the Lake to
Boniface Bay, from the site of the present cemetery to Observatory Hill. Noting these
serious in-roads into the source of future wood and of aesthetic identity, successive
52 ThmTI1an Wilkins, Jolm Muir: Apostle of Nature (NOlIDan, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press,
1995),265.
27
abbots employed dramatic reforestation programs, depending on a string of dedicated
monastics to direct and carry out these efforts, men who would later be singled out as
forbearers of a "stewardship ethic." In the mid-1880's, Father Urban Fischer spent a few
short years assigned to this occupation in addition to his pastoral duties, leaving in 1887
due to the strain. Father Adrian Schmitt, in particular, has been singled out as a founding
personality of a "Benedictine tradition of forestry" at St. John's, with the pine-crowned
hill south of Observatory Hill (now the Prep school) being named "Adrianople" in his
honor. Schmitt was descended from a line of foresters stationed in the Black Forest of
Baden in Gennany, and he often consulted with relatives about which varieties of trees
would be appropriate for planting. Much is made of this in modem re-tellings of this
,
story; the Benedictine legacy mixes well with the ages old tf~dition of Gennan forestry to
add an air of "ancient" lineage to Forestry at St. John's. He was joined, in pmi, by famed
hOliiculturist Father Jolm Katzner, himself oft-mentioned as proof of St. Jolm's distinct
claim to a Benedictine forestry ethic. 54
Monastic efforts planted about fifteen varieties of conifer in predominantly
hardwood areas. 55 This choice was made for a number of reasons: it was fast growing, it
worked well to uphold shorelines like those of the Sagatagan, and its omamentation was
quite aesthetically pleasing and fond to Gennan-bom and descended monastics and
students.56 One should not forget, though, that many pines and conifers-especially
----.------.. --------
53 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 143-147.
54 Colman Bany, Worship and Work, 237-8; Jeffrey S Mayer, "A Short History of Farming at St. John's."
St. John's Abbey: unpublished, 1975; Urban Fischer, "Brief Summary of Fr. Urban Fischer to Fr. Abbot."
Letter to Abbot Alexius Edelbrock, (6 March 1887).
55 There is a great deal of debate about the nativity of pine in the area; pines of many types, however, grow
naturally only a few miles north; Julius TerfeIn-, Interviewed by David Manahan, OSB. 1977.
56 Bany, Worship and Work, 237-8; Mayer, Jeffrey S. "A ShOli History of Fanning at St. Jolm's." St.
Jolm's Abbey: unpublished, 1975; Fischer, Urban. "Brief Summary ofFr. Urban Fischer to Fr. Abbot."
Letter to Abbot Alexius Edelbrock, (6 March 1887).
28
white pine-are also quite desirable as lumber logs, and the school's extensive plantings
are apparently quite marketable. 57 The later 1937 report by Lawrence Ritter reports that
the white pine plantings of 1894 were the best examples in that they were more a more
marketable grade oflumber. He also states that the traditional plan of St. Jolm's forestry
involved clear-cutting hardwoods for the planting of pines, although no subsequent
repOlis mention this management plan. 58 In any case, the plantings were seen not in
terms of pure aesthetics, but more likely in view of their potential for lumber, either for
sale or institutional use.
Brother Ansgar Niess, who followed Schmitt and Katzner into the reforestation
work, seemed to elicit more immediate attention from students and professionals about
his plantings, perhaps due to heightened perception of forestry in the intervening decades:
In the far distant future, when the present students of St. Jolm's have
become memories, giant trees will be standing, mute testimonials of the
untiring work of Brother Ansgar in raising them ... The work of planting
and raising the sensitive seedlings is an exceedingly slow and laborious
one, but Brother Ansgar hopes to have St. Jolm's surrounded with
picturesque pine trees when he ceases his labors. 59
The year 1927 expected the planting of up to 25,000 seedlings, while 200,000 remained
in the nursery. As many as ten such mass plantings occurred between 1894 and 1930.60
The year 1930, though, proves to be an important year in forestry. First, the first forest
management report written by an official from a government agency appears in the guise
of a growth chaIi of trees inspected by Lawrence Ritter of the Division of Forestry.
Secondly, Brother Julius Terfehr was assigned to the forestry endeavors at St. John's.
57 Henry Hansen, et al. "Report on Visit to 8t. Jo1m's University and Inspection of Various Properties
Owned by That Institution." 8t. John's Abbey Archives: Unpublished, 1947.
58 Lawrence B Ritter, "Forestry at 8t. Jo1m's University." 8t. Jo1m's Abbey Archives: Department of
Conservation, Division of Forestry, (7 Dec 1936).
59 "Bro. Ansgar Directs Annual Reforestation." The Record. 5 May 1927, 7.
GO ibid.
29
Thirdly, one sees the last and most well-documented (relative to early St. Jolm's) instance
of clear-cutting, directed by Br. Julius. The Record began reporting in November 1930
about the clearing a piece ofland southwest of the highway leading to Avon and plans to
clear another piece ofland southwest of the road to St. Joseph totaling 80 acres by March.
The reason, Br. Ansgar repOlied, was for fuel and for the agricultural land. Workmen
under Br. Ansgar and Br. Julius created a grand total of 1200 cords of fuelwood for use in
the power plant, as well as plenty oflumber. Ultimately, no agriculture or pasture has to
anyone's knowledge taken place on any of those lands, which were eventually planted
W.I t1 1 pm. e. 61
As with transcendental nature ethics, forestry had already been an issue in
,
America for decades by the time Fr. Fischer had been assigI19d to put it into practice at
St. Jolm's. Of course, forestry as a discipline and a concem had been around for a
thousand years in Europe, even among the medieval Benedictine order. The first
American example of experimental forestry had taken place in Florida in 1828. Arbor
Day had been created in 1872, the American Forestry Association had been organized
three years later, the Division of Forestry created in the Department of Agriculture in
1881, and the American Forestry Congress established the following year. Numerous
forest acts would be enacted in the next two decades as the practice of forestry evolved
through the efforts of men like Gifford Pinchot, the Division of Forestry's first head and a
"wise-use" advocate and a pre-eminent proponent of forestry's scientific usefulness. 62
Forestry was spreading as a disciplined altemative to the haphazard logging and clear-
6] "Growth Study: St. Jolm's University, Collegeville, MINN." St. John's Abbey Archives: Unpublished,
1930; Julius Terfe1rr, Interviewed by David Manahan, OSB. 1977; The Record (13 Nov 1930), 1; The
Record (19 Feb 1931), 1.
30
cutting that was evident in many parts of the country. By 1898, Samuel B. Green's
ForestlY in Minnesota had become a popular textbook in high schools, agricultural
schools, and other institutions around the Great Lakes Region.63 We see evidence of this
spread in articles published in The Record. In 1901 's "The Preservation of Our Forests,"
for instance, the author criticizes the decidely un-wise usage of America's forests
generally by those lumbennen that for reasons of economics have destroyed or wasted
large tracts of valuable timber, robbing Americans of trees' "healthful" benefits to men
and the gainful employment logging should nomlally provide. This type of wise-use
logic is typical of the time, with its exhOliations to "pmdence" and stricter regulations. 64
In the context of American forestry culture, neither the efforts at St. Jolm's nor their
I
motivations can be seen as purely a Benedictine phenomen~1;1.
IV. A Movement Towards Management (1930-1960)
Never quite a whole reality, the Benedictine belief in institutional self-sufficiency
would gradually end by 1960, beginning with timber management advised from outside
the cloister walls, shoved along gmffly by World War II and its booming afiennath, and
finished by the realization that post-war economics made out-sourcing the only way to
remain solvent. It seemed as though stability would have been undemlined by the
increased reliance on the outside world and the end of the "self-sufficiency" ethic based
on manual labor. In the final analysis, however, this loss of perceived independence has
strengthened the school's claim to be an enviromnentally friendly place of spirituality.
62 Roderick F Nash, American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation HistOly. CSt. Louis: McGraw­Hill
Publishing Company, 1990) xi-xiii.
63 Samuel B Green, Forestry in Milmesota. Delano, Milmesota: The Mimlesota State Forestry Association,
1898.
31
The first forestry report originated in 1930 with Lawrence Ritter of the Division
of Forestry in the Depmiment of Conservation, and his guidance led to numerous fmiher
reports and collaborations. It might not seem only coincidental that St. John's began
collaboration with the Depmiment of Conservation just as the Great Depression was
broadening and such govemmental agencies became increasingly active. Forestry
became a potent solution for many problems in areas hard hit by erosion and dust-stomls,
and as St. Jolm's had a reputation as the oldest tree plantations in the state, the attraction
to St. John's would be evident. But, St. Jolm's inclination in collaboration is not quite so
clear. By 1947, the school was offering to Ritter, Henry Hansen, and others the
0ppOliunity to use St. John's as a SOli of forestry station to the state. This movement
I
towards rational plalming involved a reflexive reduction in alvpunt and malmer of wood
harvesting. No longer would clear-cutting be used, and wood would be increasingly
obtained from outside sources in the local area. 65
To a large extent, the institution's need for local wood was already waning. By
1936, the buming of coal supplemented the inconsistent fuelwood supply. The institution
harvested and used hardwoods-whether to explicitly make way for pine or not-as fuel,
to the tune of nine-hundred cords of wood per year, much of which was supplied by the
off-season land-clearing oflocal fanners. As the search for cordwood was becoming an
endeavor past its prime, the end to the need for massive amounts of building lumber was
also in sight. Monastics had designed and labored with their own hands in the
construction of campus buildings since erecting the lodgings on the Mississippi in 1856.
64 "Forestry." The Record. 19, n. 1 (Jan 1906): 2-7; Elias Lemire, "The Preservation of Our Forests." The
Record. 14, n. 4 (Apr 1901): 133-7.
65 "Growth Study: St. Jo1m's University, Collegeville, MINN." St. Jo1m's Abbey Archives: Unpublished,
1930; "Growth Study, 1931, St. Jo1m's University ~ Collegeville, Minnesota." 1931; Ritter, Lawrence B.
32
A shift away from monastic self-sufficiency, however, meant that monks would no longer
be so "hands-on" in constructing new campus buildings. According to Dietrich
Reinhart's companion piece to the exhibit Saint Jolm's Furniture 1874-1974, the
institutions had not really given up constructing buildings, still helping build dozens of
residences from the 1930's to the 1950's (e.g. the Edelbrock House and Jolm Gagliardi's
house). Yet, the school had been moving gradually toward the external design and
construction of buildings, and by 1953 many advised that the largest building allowed
construction by monlcs should be a garage. The new direction became umllistakable
when the school and abbey secured the architectural services of famed modernist and
Neo-Brutalist Marcel Breuer. His designs for a new abbey wing, abbey church, and
j
university library attempted to redefine St. Jolm's provincia~\image along more modern
and worldly lines. 66
St. Jolm's furniture and other wooden products were quickly becoming, the main
end product of local wood. As active participation in building construction diminished,
demand for the chairs, tables, and other products of the carpentry shop had grown, with
much attention being focused on the shops in the past few decades. The 1956
construction of the new abbey wing provided the carpentry office with its most extensive
task ever, namely providing the new quarters with wardrobes, desks, and shelves. The
monastics performed the task with relish in front of visiting audiences, a visible and
meaningful retUlTI to the age of pronounced wood usage. For many monastics, this
prolonged whine of the buzz saw against fresh wood recalled olden days when the daily
regimen of wood-working was a part of the institutional life-a source of entertainment,
._ _ .. __ .... _.. __ ._. __ .. _---_ .. _-------_._-_._-----------.. ---.
"Foresh)' at S1. Jolm's University." St. John's Abbey Archives: Department ofCollservation, Division of
Foresh)" (7 Dec 1936).
33
an occupation, and the fulfillment of the institution's needs. The sawmill itself, however,
did not remain a part of the college's future, though, and it would shortly be abandoned in
favor of off-campus saw-mills in 1958. To be sure, the institution began to limit major
wood usage-over 40,000 board feet in 1946 and 27,000 board feet in 1947-in large
part to the mstic romanticism of the maple syrup boilers, the quaint charm of the furniture
shop, auxiliary construction, and maintenance. To many, the "culture of wood" at St.
Jolm's would remain viable only if the carpentry shop kept its doors open. The 1953
Report ofthe FmID and Shops Commission to the Building COlmllittee recommends more
brothers be trained in the art, mainly because it's the cheapest source of furniture, it
minimizes lay workers, and "it lends itself so readily to the monastic ideal" of manual
I
labor and self-sufficiency. "If the carpentry shop becomes ~Jow-keyed assembly line or
a school," concludes Reinhart, "there will be fine furniture. But if its roots in this land
and its place in the life of this cOlmnunity are lost, we will all be the poorer because of
it. ,,67
The 1953 Report of the Fmm and Shops Commission more than anything
epitomized the movement away from "self-sufficiency" toward an acknowledgement of
the institution's limits in the context of modern society. Put simply, it says, the farming
enterprises have been costing the school a disproportionate amount of money, effort, and
manpower. The money problems stem from labor and transportation cost analysis, while
the effOli and manpower issues involve the school's changing self-image; no longer a
place so physically and economically isolated and intact, the agricultural and horticultural
....... _... - .. _----_. .._ -_.-._----_. . _-_ .. -_._ .. _--_ .. _--_ .. _.----
66 Dietrich Reinhart, "St. Jolm's Furniture, 1874-1974." Exhibition pamphlet, (October 1974), 12.
67 "Report of the Farm and Shops Conunission to the Buiding Committee." SJAA, (25 May 1953), 5;
Reinhart, "St. Jo1m's Furniture, 1874-1974," 12; Larson, Derek. "Reverence for the Tools of the Altar," 11;
34
endeavors were trying the patience of an educational endeavor that had better uses for the
space, resources, and people used on out-moded facilities that were also costing the
institution money. The carpenter shop is reduced by the document to mainly a
maintenance capacity, though it advises more monastics become involved in
woodworking because it holds so close to the traditional monastic ideal. 68
In essence, this is the larger picture of the move toward lessened independence.
The monastic ideals so often now associated with ancient or antique instances of
Benedictine labor reach their most self-consciously Benedictine meaning when the
rhetoric of isolation is dropped. In a wider instance, the wetlands and forest regeneration
projects of the last twenty years have only come about tlu'ough the abandomllent of the
I
"self-sufficient" endeavors that occupied the space and effa1rt previously. As Derek , i
Larson puts it, "It may be said, then, that one workable definition of 'Benedictine
stewardship' may simply be the realization that some practices are unsustainable and
having the flexibility to adapt to changing times by deciding not to use a pmiicular
resource.,,69 The desire to find a Benedictine value or set of values that can pertain to all
enviromnental practice might ignore the fact that it is the very adaptive ability of its
ecological ethic that allows this monasticism to survive, that Benedictinism should be
allowed to evolve in ways that broaden its compassion instead of bind it to an ambiguous
tradition.
Vincent Tegeder, "High Above the Sagatagan: A Landscape Paradise." The Scriptorium 25, Christmas
Issue (1986): 100.
68 "Report of the Farm and Shops Commission to the Buiding Comrnittee." SJAA, (25 May 1953), 1,2,5.
69 Larson, Derek. "Reverence for the Tools of the Altar," 12.
35
Conclusion
The Benedictines of St. J olm' s have historically been-like the Benedictines
before them-pmiy to certain environmental tendencies because of religious constraints.
On the other hand, so have other American Benedictine houses, yet they do not justify
their endeavors with substantial claims about a Benedictine environmental stewardship.
For instance, St. Meimad's Abbey in Indiana parallels St. Jolm's in many ways.
Established by Swiss Benedictines in 1870 on 2400 acres of woods and farmland, St.
Meimad was afforded a large degree of self-sufficiency until economic pressures. Until
recently, it also had both a college and a seminary. Yet, there is no great claim to an
active environmental ethic based on the Rule. 70 Conversely, the Monastery of Christ in
,
the Desert in New Mexico has been forced by its harsh des~~1 surroundings to utilize
many environmentally-friendly technologies, but they also seem silent about Benedictine
land ethics.71 Why, then, does St. Jolm's espouse such an ethic? A comparative study of
the environmental attitudes of American monastic houses would seem to be in order.
Has environmental practice been determined historically by religious sentiment at
St. Jolm's? Does the cutting down or planting of trees fit in with an over-arching
theological ethic that can be invoked in modem times as one pleases? The founders did
not, unfortunately, deign to tell the following generations why they cut down trees, or
how exactly this fits in with their understanding of Benedict's Rule, beyond the
happenstance of it being thought necessary to the survival of the community. One
cmmot, in the end, then, take Terrence Kardong's modem interpretation and use it to
70 Richard M. Andress, "The Enduring Vision: Stability and Change in an American Benedictine
Monastery, VolT' (PhD. diss, Purdue University, 1974) 1-10,238-43; "St. Meimad," 2001,
 (accessed May 1,2001).
71 "The Monastery of ChIist in the Deseli," 2002  (accessed May 5, 2002).
36
justify the actions of the monastics in the forest, placing "stability" on their lips as it
pleases modem man. In order to obtain a better understanding of what drove these men
in their spiritual fervor to reap or sow as they did, deeper and more critical analysis is
needed than I can offer in these limited pages. Such an analysis would be vital to
understanding cunent environmental decisions--understanding why the cunent monastic
cOlmmmity sows what it sows, and how it will reap what it reaps.
37
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