Excerpt from Souvenir of the Silver Jubilee in the Episcopacy of His Grace, the Most Rev. Patrick Augustine Feehan, Archbishop of Chicago: November 1st, 1890

It is a recognized fact that men and their deeds mark out the begin ning and line of progress of a people; before the people came there was no history. I have nothing to tell, said a venerable missionary. There were no people, hence no facts for history. I traveled from one small settlement to another over unbroken prairies, fording streams and camping in the woods, and that is all. No traditions cluster around the past; before emigration set in there was a vast wilderness.

The city of Chicago, the representative city of the Western Continent, presents an instance of this phenomenal growth of the Church. In 1833 Chicago was incorporated as a city and in the same year the first Catholic Church was built, and the two have grown up together, the marvel of the age.

Many are living who easily recall the day when they heard Mass in the little frame church referred to in the life of Bishop Quarter, in a city that now claims 84 churches, besides colleges, hospitals, academies, schools and charitable institutions.

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