Assumption Chapel

[2][3] The shrine stands upon one of the tallest hills in Stearns County, and which is known locally as (German: Marienberg), meaning "Mary's Mountain", on the outskirts of Cold Spring, Minnesota.

Francis Xavier Pierz[4] and which remained, until shortly before the Second World War, a major center for the speaking of the German language in the United States.

Although inspired by thousand-year-old traditions carried from Southern Germany to central Minnesota by its peasant-pioneers, the Assumption Chapel, similar to the St. Boniface pilgrimage shrine in nearby St. Augusta, was constructed in 1877, as a desperate plea for heavenly intercession against the Rocky Mountain locusts; a species of giant grasshopper whose plagues devastated the region between 1856 and 1877.

As many local peasant pioneers had emigrated from regions of southern Germany that had been evangelized by Hiberno-Scottish missionaries from the Celtic Church, customs associated with both shrines bear close similarities to traditional Breton pardons or to the pattern days of Gaelic Ireland.

[5] In 2014, the species of insects which was once numerous enough to block out the sunlight and reduce farm families throughout North America to starvation was formally declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Bruno Riss (1829–1900), a Benedictine missionary priest from Augsburg, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, the first Rocky Mountain locust plague to strike Central Minnesota began on 15 August 1856, during the preaching of a mission for the Feast of the Assumption by Father Francis Xavier Weninger inside the newly erected log chapel in St. Joseph, Minnesota; following the lifting of a personal interdict imposed against that community by Bishop Joseph Crétin in May 1856.

Only after the mission did the real reason for the "storm" become apparent, and the clouds of "hoppers" swiftly devoured both the crops and much of the seed grain, which left the newly arrived German-American Catholic settlers of the region destitute.

The first terrible winter was at hand the victuals that remained were soon consumed, prices rose enormously, because the nearest market was at St. Paul, and it required a full week to make a trip with an ox-team.

"[10] Although the grasshoppers were believed to have been killed off by the 1856-1857 winter and seed wheat stood at $2 per bushel, it became apparent during the spring planting in 1857 that the locusts had simply laid their eggs in the furrows.

When the warmth of the sun hatched the eggs, the results were even more catastrophic for the local population than the events of the previous year, as the grasshoppers, "suffered nothing to grow, except peas.

"[12] According to Father Bruno Riss, George Berger (1823-1897), a St. Joseph homesteader from Oberschneiding, in the Kingdom of Bavaria,[13] raised the question, in a typically self-deprecating example of Stearns County German humor, after Mass one Sunday, "Why does God afflict us with grasshoppers?"

Bruno Riss was almost certainly referring to elderly Rockville pioneer homesteader Michael Hanson, Sr., an immigrant from the Luxembourgish-speaking but Prussian-ruled village of Obersgegen and combat veteran of the French Imperial Army who had lost a leg to enemy fire during the Napoleonic Wars,[15] when he wrote about, "an old man [who] dwelled with several of his children on a farm" near St. James Church in Jacob's Prairie.

"[18] By May 1857, conditions among the settlers had deteriorated to the point that the four Benedictine priests responsible for the region discussed the situation together and proposed to their parishioners the idea of vowing to make a biannual religious procession and pilgrimage (German: Bittgang) in perpetuity if the locust plague were lifted.

[20] Meanwhile, the writer of a letter from Stearns County to Der Wahrheitsfreund in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was published on July 2, 1857, commented, "Truly, one feels that they have been transported back to Germany when they see the beautiful customs of the Fatherland, votive and other processions, which proceed over fields and meadows".

Bruno Riss later recalled, however, "In subsequent years, I am informed that the custom of observing these processions was abandoned, but a return of the ancient enemy revived the former fervor.

The Hiberno-Scottish missionary St. Magnus, the founder of St. Mang's Abbey, Füssen who is traditionally known as the "Apostle of the Allgäu", continued to be widely venerated in Stearns County as a patron of good harvests and as the protector against lightning, hail, and plagues of vermin.

"[3] The later plague began in the summer of 1873, when similarly migrating Rocky Mountain Locusts laid claim to a territory spreading from southern Wyoming over Nebraska and the Dakotas all the way to Iowa and Minnesota.

[23] One historian reported that "grasshoppers, sixty to eighty per square yard, could devour one ton of hay per day each forty acres they covered.

[24] Each year, the Minnesota State Legislature appropriated more and more funds to assist its distressed citizens with the purchase of seed and even the necessities of food and clothing.

In Stearns County, about a month after the Statewide day of Prayer, newly ordained Father Leo Winter, OSB, was assigned to the Parish of St. James in Jacobs Prairie, with further responsibility for the mission of St. Nicholas eight miles away.

"[27] One Sunday, while Father Winter was saying the Offertory of the Tridentine Mass, the thought came to him of urging his parishioners to promise to build a chapel in honor of Mary, Help of Christians, so that She would intercede with Her Son for relief from the grasshopper plague.

[30] As described by a local reporter for Der Nordstern, cannons were fired off at 5:00 am to announce the beginning of a religious procession (German: Bittgang) in the nearby villages of Cold Spring, Jacobs Prairie, St. Nicholas, and other communities.

As the pilgrims passed through Cold Spring, a reporter later commented that the houses were decorated with flags, and oak and evergreen garlands as though the Blessed Virgin herself, or some earthly monarch, were visiting the community.

[35] In 2014, the species of insect which was once numerous enough to block out the sun and reduce farm families throughout North America to the brink of starvation was formally declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

"[36] According to Stephen Gross, the future Bahamian missionary was stricken with Sydenham's chorea when only 12-years of age, only to be completely cured as his parents made a twelve mile Bittgang, or pilgrimage on foot, to the Blessed Virgin's shrine upon Marienberg.

The destruction of the chapel was complete--except for the wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child which had been carved by Joseph Ambroziz and carried in the wagon from Jacobs Prairie in 1877.

In the winter, the farmers talked about rebuilding their chapel, but in summer with the pressure of farm work, they forgot about it..."[39] Marienberg would accordingly stand vacant for the next fifty-eight years.

Above the altar stands the very same wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin and the Christ Child that was carved by Joseph Ambroziz, carried in the wagon from Jacobs Prairie in 1877, and which survived the destruction of the original chapel by the tornado in 1894.

A formal proclamation was also issued for the anniversary, by which Governor of Minnesota Rudy Perpich, "do hereby join with you in a reaffirmation of faith and thanksgiving" for, "the 'miracle' that took place one hundred years ago.

[48] A similar Roman Catholic pilgrimage chapel and large outdoor crucifixion shrine formerly stood atop what still called "Calvary Hill" (German: Kalvarienberg) and along what is now Cooper Avenue in the South Side of St.