Special Collections and Archives

THOMAS W. FOLEY COLLECTION

Correspondence, journals (1888-1890, 3 vols., re Standing Rock Reservation missions), and other papers of Rev. Francis M. Craft, 1871-1921, with related facsimile documents, research notes, drafts, and power point presentations collected and created by Thomas W. Foley, 1990s-2011.

Gift of Thomas W. Foley, 2012, and processed by Mark G. Thiel, C.A., 2013.

Biographical Note

Ordained in 1884, Rev. Francis M. Craft (1852-1920), of Mohawk ancestry, served as an itinerant pastor to Native Americans in Dakota Territory, 1884-1900; a U.S. Armed Forces chaplain in Cuba during the Spanish American War, 1900-1901; and the pastor of St. Matthew Church, East Stroudsberg, Pennsylvania, 1902-1920.

As St. Matthew’s pastor, Craft established and served the nearby St. Mark’s Mission in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania. There he became close friends with relatives of the yet unborn Thomas Foley (1931-2013) who had established a hotel and golf course complex. Craft then died in the arms of Foley’s father Robert and the hotel and golf course became a casualty of the Great Depression, which led family members to relocate to Chicago in 1942.

Thomas Foley attended Fenwick High School and Loyola University in Chicago. He served in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army and then U.S. Gypsum Corp. until his retirement. Soon after, he wrote his company's official corporate history, United States Gypsum, A Company History (1995). Next, he turned his attention to researching the life of Father Craft, whose journals and papers he had discovered in a closet in his Aunt Mamie’s Chicago home in 1943. In so doing, he and his wife Ruth embarked on travels that took them to monasteries and archives from Rome to the Great Plains and Marquette University, which he first visited in 1992. Although lacking a scholarly background in historiography, Foley eventually succeeded in successfully publishing three books -- Father Francis M. Craft, Missionary to the Sioux (2002), Faces of Faith, A History of the First Order of Indian Sisters (2008), and At Standing Rock and Wounded Knee, The Journals and Papers of Father Francis M. Craft, 1888-1890 (2009).

Scope and Content

This description of this collection remain under construction. For further information, please ask an archivist.

The Foley collection is divided into two series -- the original papers retained by Fr. Craft, and the facsimile papers, news clippings, and photographs by and about Craft compiled by Foley along with derivative presentations created by Foley. Bracketed item numbers 1 through 8 are sequentially numbered physical items, e.g. [volume 1], [volume 8] whereas comparably numbered items without brackets denote electronic copies that lack numbers displayed on the cover of the physical item.

Rev. Francis M. Craft Papers, Series 1. Focuses primarily on Craft’s ministry to Native Americans in Dakota Territory and his Spanish American War chaplaincy in Cuba. In Dakota Territory, Craft served as an itinerant missionary to the Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Standing Rock Indian reservations and to the Congregation of American Sisters, a community of Lakota women religious that became based on a mission on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. During the Spanish American War, Craft's chaplaincy in Cuba included service with the four remaining American Sisters, who administered a U.S. hospital in Havana.

Included are letters by Rev. Pierre-Jean de Smet, S.J., 1871; Bishop Martin Marty, 1884-1886, 1890, re Catholic Indian missions and schools, 1884 pictorial message by Sitting Bull to Leo XIII painted on a buffalo robe (see – Sitting Bull and the White Man's Religion: Early Missionaries in North America = Sitting Bull und die Religion des Weissen Mannes: Frühe Missionare in Nordamerika, Colin F. Taylor, E99.D1 S62 2000; copy in Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records, series 14-1); Claudia Crowfeather, a.k.a. Mother Mary Catherine Sacred White Buffalo, and the novices/sisters of the American Sisters, 1888-1889, 1891-1893, re Congregation of American Sisters, a Catholic community of Lakota women religious and Craft’s recovery from Wounded Knee massacre; Bishop Shanely, 1890-1891, re Wounded Knee recovery, lecture tour by Craft; Chief Sitting Bull, 1886; Bishop John Ireland and secretary to Bishop Ireland, 1893, 1899-1900, re Congregation of American Sisters; Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, Rev. Joseph A. Stephan, Director, Willard, Secretary, et. al., 1887-1891, re Catholic Indian missions and schools; U.S. Secretary of War Redford Proctor, 1890; U.S. Commissioners of Indian Affairs W.A. Jones, Bliss, Morgan, et. al., 1887-1888, 1891, 1898; James Cardinal Gibbons, 1893, re Congregation of American Sisters.

Craft’s journals (vols. 1-3). Describe…

Thomas W. Foley Research Papers, Series 2. Contains primarily collected facsimile documents by and about Craft in electronic and paper form plus Foley’s related writings and presentations. The black and white copy prints from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Craft and his contemporaries and related sites in the Northern Plains and Pennsylvania. Among them are Native men wearing crucifixes received as gifts from Catholic missionaries, Native women who became religious sisters in the Congregation of American Sisters, and President Theodore Roosevelt. The color prints mostly by Foley from the turn of the 21st century pertain to Craft-related sites and archival repositories in the Northern Plains and Pennsylvania. The research papers in electronic form include a typescript of and introduction to Craft’s journal plus typescripts of Craft’s retained correspondence and his related correspondence from other sources. These scanned papers are numbered 1-102 and 600 plus one is unnumbered, Numbers 1-52 originated from these sources:

MUA = Bureau of Catholic Indian Mission Records, series 1-1, Marquette University

Baltimore Archdiocese = Archdiocese of Baltimore (Maryland) Archives

SBS = Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Archives (Bensalam, Pennsylvania)

Sacred Heart Priory (place)

ME = Sr. Mary Ewens, O.P. Collection, Marquette University

St. Meinrad Archabbey Archives (St. Meinrad, Indiana)

Northwestern Chronicle [newspaper]

The Dakota Catholic [newspaper]

The bulk of the papers came from the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records and Sr. Mary Ewens, O.P. Collection, both at the Marquette University Department of Special Collections and University Archives.

No. 53-102: TWF and uncertain provenance (noted by footnotes of likely sources, e.g. U.S. National Archives, ME). No. 600: Image of Craft, undated. Unnumbered: Illustrated story of President Theodore Roosevelt visiting the Watergate House hotel, Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, August 2, 1910, amid a gathered crowd with Craft.

Hovering Eagle – The Daily Journals & Papers of Rev. Francis M. Craft, 1863-1941: Foley’s collected facsimiles and research notes in three volumes (vols. 4-7), plus one volume (vol. 8) of newspaper clippings and notes, 1890-1991.

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