Biography - M Weis
Rev. M. WEIS, priest, Litchfield, was born in Bavaria, in Franconia, on June 8, 1838, and came to the United States in 1852, at the age of fourteen years, with his parents, who settled in Montgomery County, N. Y., in the vicinity of Amsterdam, and remained there five years. He came to Illinois in 1857, settling in Effingham County, in Tentopolis (called German City), and two years later began teaching in a primary school, continuing one year, when he came to Edwardsville, Ill., and there for two years taught a parochial school. During that time he studied, preparatory to entering St. Joseph's College at Teutopolis, which he did in the fall of 1862. He studied there three years, completing classics and philosophy, and in the summer of 1865, he started for Montreal, Canada, where he entered upon the study of theology, in the Grand Seminary there, in charge of the Sulpician Fathers, where he received holy orders. He was ordained to priesthood at the Alton, Ill., Cathedral, by the late Bishop Younger, in the spring of 1868. He began his pastoral work by taking charge of the Catholic Church at Vandalia, Ill., having also missions at Ramsey, Oconee, Sandoval and at Vandalia. After a year and a half he was transferred to Marine, Madison Co., Ill., where he remained two years. In September, 1871, he was removed to Effingham, and was pastor there five years, during which time he built a large church, costing over $36,000, and a hospital for the Sisters of St. Francis. Being broken down in health, he started in the spring of 1876 for California, and returned to Minnesota in June, where he took charge of two congregations in the dioceses of St. Paul, called respectively Hoka and La Crescent, near La Crosse, continuing three months. He was then recalled to the diocese of Alton and appointed Secretary and Chancellor to the Bishop, which important and laborsome position he held until 1880. He was sent thence to Saline, Madison Co., Ill., where he enlarged and finished a church and built a schoolhouse, filling that pastorate until he came to Litchfield in October, 1881, when he was transferred to the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Litchfield, Ill.
Extracted 19 Nov 2016 by Norma Hass from 1882 History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, Part 2 Biographical Department, pages 181-182.
