Name: WEINZAPFEL, Roman
Born: April 13, 1813
Place Born: Ungersheim, Sultz, Upper Rhine, Germany [Ungersheim, Departement du Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France – FindAGrave]
Ordained: May 4, 1840
Place Ordained: Vincennes, Indiana
Years of Service: 1840-1895 (OSB 1873-1895)
Died: November 11, 1895
Place Died: Saint Meinrad, Indiana
Burial Info: Saint Meinrad, Indiana – Archabbey Cemetery, Row-I, Grave-119, November 14, 1895
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Find-A-Grave
Surname variations: Weinzapfel or Weinzaepfel.
Born at Ungersheim, Canton, Schults, Upper Rhine, France.
The Diocese of Vincennes [Indiana] was established in 1834 and was a mission field that comprised all of Indiana and one third of Illinois. The vast territory of the Diocese was almost a wilderness at this time. The coming of many German emigrants who settled in parts of the Diocese soon created a need for priests who spoke the language. About 1839, it was resolved that Father Hailandiere (French assistant to Bishop Brute in Vincennes) should return to Europe and procure priests and students who could speak the German language. He hastened back and visited the seminary at Strasbourg where he obtained permission from the bishop to take along with him all the young men whom he could persuade to follow him. The group, including Roman Weinzapfel, set sail from La Havre, France on 2 AUG 1839, on the [ship] Republican.
In October 1839, Roman Weinzapfel, a young subdeacon, arrived in Vincennes at the invitation of now Bishop Celestine de las Hailandiere. Roman, with the approval of the Bishop of the Diocese of Strasbourg, had volunteered for the Vincennes Diocese. He came with the highest recommendation and testimonials for learning and character. Not being acquainted with the language and customs of this country and having for years suffered from continuous headaches, he stood in need of rest and time to become familiarized with his new surroundings. Though he was promised two years to prepare for the ordination and to learn English, the desperate need of missionaries compelled the bishop to ordain him less than six months after his arrival.
He was ordained April 5, 1840, and was immediately assigned to assist Father Anthony Deydier, pastor of Assumption Church in Evansville. He celebrated his first mass on April 7, 1840, in the Cathedral of Vincennes. He arrived in Evansville on April 9, 1840, to assist Father Deydier with building a church there. Between 1840 and 1842, Father Weinzapfel labored at the following churches: St. Wendel, St. Joseph, St. James, St. Philip, and St. Matthew’s in Mt. Vernon.
In May of 1842, a treacherous scandal was perpetrated against Father Weinzapfel by a Mrs. Schmoll and her husband. Father Weinzapfel was accused of violently assaulting Anna Maria Schmoll and was arrested and tried in the Circuit Court at Princeton, Indiana. It seems the prevalent prejudice against Catholics reigned and he was found guilty of rape and sentenced to five years at hard labor in the state penitentiary at Jeffersonville, Indiana on March 12, 1844. (It took that long for the process to be completed). The Catholics of Vanderburgh, Posey, and Gibson counties petitioned Governor Whitcomb to release Father Weinzapfel from prison. They based their request on the relationship with him and the bad character of his accuser. Petitions were not limited to local Catholics. The Governor’s office was inundated with letters and petitions clamoring for an immediate pardon. One of the more influential men to petition was Archibald Dixon, the Whig Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky. Dixon had been one of Father Weinzapfel’s defense counsels at his trial. There were more than 3000 petitioners, including representatives of every religion and both political parties. One of the more interesting petitions received by the governor was signed by 482 ladies who were all residents of Vanderburgh County, of which 193 affixed their signatures as being non-Catholics. Imprisonment lasted from 12 MAR 1844 until 24 FEB 1845. The wife of President James K. Polk interceded with Governor Whitcomb to pardon Father Weinzapfel. The Governor admitted that he was convinced of Father Weinzapfel’s innocence, but would not take any action as it was an election year and he was up for re-election. He feared the anti-Catholic sentiments in the state. On 25 FEB 1845, the Governor did pardon Father Weinzapfel and declared him innocent of all charges.
Upon his release from prison, Father Weinzapfel went to the Holy Cross Fathers at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, for a year. In the meantime, the perpetrators of the awful deed against Father Weinzapfel confessed their guilt at their home in St. Charles, Missouri. After his year at Notre Dame, Father Weinzapfel was sent back to the area by the Bishop. It was now 1846, and Father Weinzapfel was instructed by the Bishop to undertake the building of a Chapel at St. Philip, Indiana. The Bishop designated St. Philip, the Apostle, as the Patronal Saint of the Parish, and also gave the small village its name. Father Weinzapfel first built a rectory at St. Wendel from which he could work in the area. A log church was built at St. Philip with Father Weinzapfel donating the altar, windows, doors, and hardware. Father Weinzapfel offered the first mass in St. Philip’s Church on the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, 12 SEP 1847.
Father Weinzapfel’s brother, Michael Weinzapfel, immigrated from Europe to St. Philip in July of 1847 and another brother, Franz Anton Weinzapfel, immigrated in July of 1849. Franz eventually returned to Europe, though, as he was unhappy in America. Father Weinzapfel retained his residence at St. Wendel, regularly serving the people of St. Philip’s Parish. He also served the communities of St. James, St. Joseph, and St. Matthew. He remained in the area until August of 1858, when he requested a change and was appointed pastor of New Alsace’s St. Anthony’s Church in Ripley County, Indiana. Partial loss of eyesight and other physical infirmities forced Father Weinzapfel to later resign his pastorate and he was granted permission from the bishop to become a fully professed Benedictine Monk at St. Meinrad, Indiana. He died there on 11 NOV 1895 and is buried in the Seminary cemetery.
-source: “The Weinzapfel Family Tree Book”, pages vii and viii, 1993 edition, by Janice Nowell, Tulsa, OK
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The Religious Persecution of Father Weinzapfel
by Kenneth P. McCutchan
Southwestern Indiana was settled by Protestants, Baptists, Methodists, Cumberland Presbyterians and a few Episcopalians. Almost no Roman Catholics came into the area in the early years, and what few did arrive were shunned by the rest of the populace.
Many of the first settlers were Scotch-Irish who harbored a profound, almost militant hatred of Catholics because of the persecution they had suffered as Protestants in Ireland.
It was not until 1837 that an attempt was made to establish a Roman Catholic Church in Evansville. Father Daydier was sent from Vincennes, and in that year succeeded in organizing the Assumption Parish. Three years later a gentle little priest named Father Roman Weinzapfel was sent to be Father Daydier’s assistant and there followed one of the saddest cases of religious persecution that ever occurred in the area.
Living in Evansville was a widower named Martin Schmoll, who took up with a certain young woman of questionable reputation and married her. Mrs. Schmoll had been raised a Catholic, so upon the insistence of her father, she and her husband went to Weinzapfel and asked him to perform another ceremony in the church. Schmoll did not accept the faith, but agreed that if there were children, they would be raised as Catholics.
On the vigil of the Feast of the Ascension, Mrs. Schmoll went to the church for confession; she insisted upon being last. During her confession she seemed to faint, but she was quickly revived with water from the holy fount. The next day she took Communion.
The following day, Schmoll brought charges against Weinzapfel for sexually assaulting his wife while she was in a faint in the confessional. Two constables arrested the priest and took him before Mark Wheeler, a justice of the peace and a Methodist minister.
The Protestant townspeople were violently aroused. When Wheeler offered to release Weinzapfel on a $4,000 bond, a mob threatened to burn the Catholic Church to the ground.
Weinzapfel, fearing for his life, fled to Vincennes on foot. From many saloon doors could be heard the toast, “Whisky on the death of the priest.”
The trial was postponed several times. Once it had to be postponed when a band of Catholics came over from Kentucky to protect the priest and threatened to start a religious riot. It was decided a change of venue was needed, so the case was moved to Princeton, Indiana. The trial was in March of 1844. Weinzapfel was quickly found guilty of rape and sentenced to five years at hard labor in the state penitentiary.
As soon as the trial was over, he was taken to a blacksmith shop and welded into irons. He was brought back to Evansville, put aboard a steamboat and sent upriver to the state penitentiary at Jeffersonville, Indiana.
It was not long after the trial that the Schmolls were divorced because of some scandalous misconduct on the part of Mrs. Schmoll. Hundreds of Protestant ladies, realizing they had accepted the story of a woman with loose morals over that of a man of the church, signed a petition to the governor of Indiana asking that Weinzapfel be released from prison.
The prosecuting attorney, James Lockhart, eyeing the coming election and sensing that public opinion was changing, issued a statement saying, “I was led astray by prejudice and have done the Catholics and their priest a great injustice.”
On Feb, 1, 1845, when the new president, James Polk, and his wife were traveling up the Ohio River on a steamboat on their way to Washington, Indiana’s governor, James Whitcomb, came to Evansville to board the boat and ride with the presidential party as far as Madison, Indiana.
When the boat was passing Jeffersonville, the governor pointed out the towers of the state penitentiary. Mrs. Polk asked if that was not where the Catholic Priest, who was universally believed to be innocent, was a prisoner. The governor replied that the priest was indeed a prisoner there, and he added that he did not believe the man was guilty.
Thereupon, Mrs. Polk drew herself up indignantly and said, “Sir, you mean to say that you believe the man to be innocent, yet you leave him in prison?”
The very next day, Whitcomb issued a pardon, and Weinzapfel returned to Evansville and resumed his ministry.
Sometime later it was learned that Schmoll was living in St. Charles, Missouri, and had been heard to boast to his protestant friends in a saloon that he had invented a plot to have a Catholic priest put in prison.
Two priests, one from Vincennes and one from Jasper, then went to St. Charles and got sworn affidavits from witnesses who heard Schmoll’s boast. Armed with this new evidence, they returned to Evansville and asked for a new trial, but a new trial was never scheduled and in time the case was forgotten.
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Passenger List Information: [via Ancestry.com]
Name: R Krimffen [R Weinzaepflen]
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Birth Date: abt 1813
Departure Port: Le Havre, France
Arrival Date: 16 Sep 1839
Arrival Port: New York, New York, USA
Ship Name: Republican
[https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYM237_40-0069?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&pId=1022595193]