It was in the small St. Peter’s Church in Brush Creek, Mo., that a group of about 30 pilgrims felt the closest to Father Augustus Tolton, the first acknowledged black Catholic priest in the United States. Standing there, in the church where he was baptized in 1854, they could see the two cemeteries: one for white people, one for slaves like him. They could see the balcony where slaves sat during Mass and other services, separated from the families that owned them. “It was very powerful for the pilgrims to actually see the separation,” said C. Vanessa White, director of the Augustus Tolton Program at Catholic Theological Union. White directed the Sept. 17-19 pilgrimage, which was sponsored by the archdiocese’s Office for Black Catholics, Bishop Joseph Perry’s Office and the Tolton Program at CTU. The pilgrims learned about Tolton’s early life and prayed for his beatification. The Archdiocese of Chicago formally introduced his cause for sainthood in March, and Bishop Perry is coordinating efforts for his cause. The connection the pilgrims felt to Father Tolton at Brush Creek, at the Mississippi and at his gravesite is the mark of the journey’s success, the bishop said. “I was hoping the pilgrims would have a true experience of getting closer to Father Tolton by seeing the places where he lived and prayed and work,” Bishop Perry said. “We deem him the first link in a long chain of faith in the Catholic experience, really giving an impulse to parish life among black Catholics that we hadn’t seen before.” Settled in Quincy The group traveled by bus to Quincy, Ill., where Tolton settled with his mother, brother and sister after escaping slavery in 1862. They prayed in St. Peter’s Church, where the young Tolton had his first Communion at age 16, and enjoyed the hospitality of the parish community. The following day, they prayed again at each stop. They visited the Elliott Farm, from which the family escaped; St. Peter’s Church in Brush Creek, where his parents Martha and Peter were married and where he was baptized, the stretch of the Mississippi River where he crossed in a rowboat with his mother and siblings; Quincy University, where he studied; and his gravesite. At the end of the day, Bishop Perry celebrated Mass at St. Peter’s Church in Quincy. Pilgrim Devin Jones, 24, is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is discerning whether he has a vocation to the priesthood. He felt particularly close to Father Tolton at Brush Creek, where the group also met a Tolton impersonator. “Father Augustus Tolton is someone I can draw strength from,” said Jones, a parishioner of St. John de la Salle on Chicago’s South Side. “A lot of times, people don’t think of African Americans as cradle Catholics. To know there are black Catholics who were Catholic at birth is important.” Tom Berry, a parishioner at St. Clotilde, reflected on the distance that the family had to travel to make it to Illinois and away from slavery. “We drove across the river and down the road, watching the farmland pass by,” he said. “There was probably some forest then, and they would have been on foot, a mother and three young children, then crossing the Mississippi River in a rowboat — surviving all that was a miracle.” White said historical sources show that the family — the boys were about 7 and 8 years old, and baby Anne was younger than 2 — was fired upon by Confederate soldiers who were alerted by the baby’s cries as Martha tried to get them across the water in the dead of the night. “You think of being a young mother with three children in a rowboat, traveling at night, not knowing how to swim,” she said. “When they arrived in Illinois, a white family helped them. Many of the families were Quakers and abolitionists, and Quincy was a major stop on the underground railroad.” Challenges continue But the challenges for Father Tolton did not end when his family reached freedom from slavery. He had to work to help support his family, and he had to leave the first Catholic school in which he enrolled because of threats made against the parish and school. Three years later, he enrolled at St. Peter’s, and with extra tutoring from the teaching nuns to help him catch up, he excelled. It was then that he started to discern a vocation to the priesthood. He had the support of several priests from Quincy as he studied at what is now Quincy University, but no U.S. seminary would admit him. Ten years after he voiced his desire to be a priest, he was admitted to a seminary in Rome at age 26. Even after ordination, when he returned to Quincy, obstacles stood in his path. While he was popular among many Catholics — both black and white — he was not accepted by their pastors. Three years later, at the request of Archbishop Patrick Sheehan, Father Tolton came to Chicago to minister to the black Catholic community here. “It’s a witness for any person, young or old, who is told they cannot do what they really feel called to do,” she said. Taking it home Eva Leonard, a parishioner at St. James on Wabash Avenue, traveled with her brother and sister-in-law, who were visiting from Florida. She intends to bring what she learned back to her parish community, she said. “We feel some of the trials and tribulations he went through in his early days,” she said. “He still believed in God and that things should be better for him.” White said supporters of the Tolton cause will likely organize more pilgrimages to the Quincy area, and she hopes to develop a walking tour of the important places in Father Tolton’s life in Chicago. Bishop Perry said that he is in the process of forming two groups necessary to go forward with the cause for sainthood: a historical commission to review documents and other material, and to determine what further research must be done, and a guild of laity and clergy who will work to popularize the cause. The archdiocese is also forming a tribunal to hear witnesses and testimony on his “heroic Christian virtues.” Bishop Perry will offer a lecture about the sainthood cause of Father Tolton Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. at Catholic Theological Union, 54th Street and Cornell Avenue.