Send orders to: Nancy Thornton, Canal Heritage Enterprises, PO Box 1482, Choteau, MT 59422; e-mail: nancetho@canalheritage.com. The price of the book includes postage and handling.
This is a source book for genealogists researching the early Catholics outside of the City of Chicago, including Irish immigrants along the Illinois and Michigan Canal. It contains parish records from 1838 to 1851of St. Patrick's Church in Joliet, Illinois, and its mission stations, listing baptisms, marriages, and witnesses of some 4,000 individuals with over 1,800 surnames. This book also presents the story of the forgotten pioneer circuit riding priest of Will County, Father John Plunkett, from whose early labors have grown some 120 parishes in ten counties in northeastern Illinois. A new index has been added to this reprint of a commemorative book written in 1960 by Rev. Norman G. Werling.