Our Catliolic Heritage i11 Texas
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to part from his old companion. "This parting cost me fully as much as when I started for the Barrens," he candidly confessed years later. 61 As Timon returned to the United States by way of Natchitoches, Odin set out for San Antonio by way of the Trinity and Angelina settlements, Washington on the Brazos, Independence. Ruttville, La Grange, and Lavaca settlements, Victoria, Don Carlos Ranch, Refugio, and Goliad. Over a month later, on March 12, 1841, he reported tired but happy, that he had arrived in San Antonio. From the time he left the city in November, 1840, to go to Austin and hence to East Texas with Timon, he had traveled over 2,000 miles in the middle of winter, through mud, rain, and snow, and visited almost every settlement, saying Mass, hearing confessions, administering the Sacraments and com- forting the sick. He estimated the Catholic population of Texas at about ten thousand, not counting the numerous Protestants, who, prior to independence, had hurriedly asked to be baptized in order to secure legal title to their lands. "Heaven has begun to bless our feeble efforts," he wrote Etienne. "From August 1, 1840, to March 1, 1841, we have heard 911 confessions, administered 418 Communions, and 281 Bap- tisms, performed 24 marriages, conducted 45 burials, given 31 First Communions, confirmed eight, and baptized 21 converts, six of them adults. We have constructed a small chapel on Don Carlos' ranch and repaired the building in Victoria, as well as that in San Antonio. The good of our Religion demands that churches be built in Galveston, Houston, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, Lavaca, and the Capital of the country, Austin, but where can the money be secured?" The people were poor and had little or nothing to contribute, he explained. 62 When Timon and Odin parted in San Augustine two months before. both were well pleased with the work accomplished and were agreed that the greatest obstacle to the spread of the Faith in Texas was the need of financial aid and personnel. In the spring of 1841 there were only six priests, counting Odin, to care for the 10,000 scattered Catholics throughout Texas. Calvo and Estany were stationed in San Antonio, Haydon and Clarke were assigned to the Lavaca and Navidad settlements and were doing splendid work. Stehle was tending to the settlements on the Colorado and the Brazos-largely German-while Odin looked I after Galveston, Houston, and the lower Brazos and super- vised the entire field as Vice-Prefect.
HBayard, of cit., 210-:nt. 62Qdin to Etienne, April 11, 1841, C. A. T.
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