Adrian Hoecken

Adrianus Hoecken, SJ (Tilburg, 1815 – Milwaukee, 1897) was a Jesuit missionary of Dutch origin who worked among different Native American tribes in the United States.

Adrian (Adrianus, Adriaan) Hoecken, son of Jacobus Hoeken and Johanna Vermeer, was born in the city of Tilburg in The Netherlands, March 18, 1815.

Adrian was educated at two dutch catholic seminaries in the (nowadays) southern province North Brabant, namely Beekvliet (1830) and Herlaar (1835).

In 1844 Hoecken was sent to the Rocky Mountains and the Oregon Country Mission that Pierre-Jean De Smet started in 1840.

[4] Hoecken lived and worked among the native American nations for nineteen years (1842–1861), particularly the Flathead, Blackfoot[3] and Miniconjou.

The negotiations with the Bitterroot Salish, Kalispel, and Kootenai tribes suffered huge cross-cultural miscommunications.

Hoecken informed De Smet in a letter about the chief of the Kalispel, Etsowish-simmegee-itshin (Grizzly Bear Standing), who was already baptized in 1843.

Vincent Magri set up St. Peters Mission at Priest Butte on the Teton River, on a site just southeast of the current town of Choteau, Montana.

However they had to abandon this site in 1860[7] and moved their mission to the Sun River, about 8 miles (13 km) upriver from Fort Shaw,[8] near what is now Simms, Montana.

Hoecken, fatigued from strenuous years of service, took a few months break at the Jesuit college of Santa Clara in California.