About Fr. Augustus Tolton

Fr. Tolton’s Life and Times

1849: Martha Jane Chisley, (Father Tolton’s mother), moves to Missouri from Kentucky as a young slave. This same year, Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery, returns to the South and becomes one of the main conductors on the Underground Railroad.
 

1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel about the horrors of slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is published and sells 300,000 copies in the first year.

1854: Augustus is born to Martha Jane and Peter Paul Tolton in Missouri on April 1.

1857: In the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court decides that African Americans are not U.S. citizens, and that Congress has no power to restrict slavery in any federal territory.

1859: Martha Jane and Peter Paul are given permission to marry by their respective masters at St. Peter log-cabin Church, Brush Creek, MO. This same year, the last ship to bring slaves to the United States, the Clothildre, arrived in Mobile Bay, Alabama.

1861: Civil War begins with firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 14.

1862: Martha Jane escapes with her children to Quincy, Illinois. This same year, Mary Jane Patterson graduates from Oberlin College in Ohio and becomes the first black woman to graduate from an American college.

1863: At the age of 9, Augustus Tolton begins working in a Quincy tobacco factory and his brother Charles dies at age 10. This same year, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation legally frees all slaves in the Confederacy.

1865: Augustus Tolton entered St. Boniface School and left a month later because parish and staff were being threatened and harassed by his presence. This same year, the Civil War ends on April 26.

1868: Augustus Tolton enrolled in St. Peter School, Quincy, Illinois. This same year, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 21, granting citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States.

1870: Augustus Tolton was confirmed in St. Peter Church at age 16 and likely received his First Communion. This same year, Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi becomes the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate.

1871: The Chicago Fire burned from Sunday, October 8 to Tuesday, October 10.

1872: Augustus Tolton graduated from St. Peter School at age 18.

1873: Tutoring begins in preparation for the seminary.

1878: Augustus Tolton enrolls in St. Francis College, now Quincy University. He receives special instruction because he was far advanced over other students.

1880: Augustus Tolton departs for Rome on February 15 to enter the seminary at the Collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide. He expects to become a missionary priest in Africa. This same year, the Census of 1880 showed the U.S. population at 50 million with a Black population of 6.5 million (13%).

1882: The lower level of St. Mary’s Church in Chicago becomes Chicago’s first Negro parish. Mass is celebrated there until 1889.

1886: Augustus Tolton was ordained at St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome on April 24 and was told he would return as a missionary to his home country of the United States in Quincy, Illinois. This same year, Fr. Tolton conducted his first Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on April 25. He also celebrated his first Mass with Franciscan Sisters in Hoboken, New Jersey on July 7, and he celebrates his first Mass in Quincy at St. Boniface Church on July 18 and becomes pastor of St. Joseph Church. In Chicago this year, the Haymarket Riot occurred on May 4 on Des Plaines Street north of Randolph Street.

1889: Father Tolton begins his ministry in Chicago on December 19. This same year, Jane Addams establishes Hull House in Chicago.

1891: St. Monica Church opens in a storefront in the 2200 block of South Indiana Avenue. This same year, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams establishes Provident Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago, the oldest Black-owned hospital in the US.
1894: The dedication of St. Monica Church occurs on January 14. Click here to read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

1896: Plessy vs. Ferguson—The US Supreme Court, in a vote of seven to one, upholds the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal.”

1897: Father Tolton dies at Mercy Hospital in Chicago on July 9. He was 43. The funeral was at St. Monica Church, 36th and Dearborn Street on July 12. A funeral also occurred at St. Peter Church in Quincy on July 13. Articles on the death of Father Tolton in The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Daily News.