A Library and Museum on the Frontier

   In 1832, Father Pierre Jean DeSmet left St. Louis for a brief period to return home to Belgium for rest due to ill health. While in Belgium, DeSmet continued to think of the needs of Saint Louis University. He made arrangements for the acquisition of numerous items to be sent to the University. Probably most significant among the items DeSmet had sent to the University were hundreds of books for the new university library. Many of these titles were acquired by Father De Smet from a closed Augustinian monastery at Enghien, Belgium. At first these books were kept in the University’s original brick building just west of Ninth Street.

   But the library found a more spacious and permanent home in 1853 in a new, three-story building at the corner of Ninth Street and Washington Avenue. The first floor contained a chapel and a hall for the senior students, while the library shared the second floor with the University museum. On the third floor was a beautiful auditorium and exhibition hall. Above this third floor rose two towers in each of the front corners of the building. These towers served as observation posts for the faculty and the students as they conducted astronomical and meteorological studies.

   The library was called "the rarest in the West" with an impressive collection including titles in the ancient classics, English and French literature, travel accounts, ancient and modern history, theology, philosophy and science. The museum, which contained numerous ancient and contemporary archaeological specimens, art work and other items, was visited by American notables such as Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster and Robert E. Lee, as well as by the British author Charles Dickens.

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Among the small group of Jesuits who arrived at the St. Louis riverfront in May 1823 was a 22-year-old novice by the name of Pierre Jean DeSmet. DeSmet had been drawn to America by the prospect of working as a missionary among Native Americans of the western United States. Although Father DeSmet served as treasurer for both Saint Louis University and the Jesuit Missouri Province, raising thousands of dollars for both institutions, it was because of his missionary activities among Native Americans that he is most famous. Known simply and affectionately as "Blackrobe" by the Indians, DeSmet traveled more that 180,000 miles during his lifetime, bringing Catholic Christianity to literally thousands of Native Americans while at the same time learning a great deal from the spirituality of the Indians. The contact between the 19th century Catholic, Jesuit spirituality of De Smet with the spirituality of the Native peoples of the American west was truly a "sacred encounter." Most experts agree that Father DeSmet was one of the best known Catholic missionaries in American history and Saint Louis University was his home base!