Mary and the grasshoppers pilgrimage to celebrate 130th anniversary of shrine

by Samantha Schommer

About 130 years ago, grasshoppers from the Rocky Mountains came into Minnesota and literally infested the southwest part of the state for several years, destroying all of the crops and devastating farms. These miserable years ate away at the pride and assurance of Minnesotan farmers in the 1870s.

The seven plagues began with the first two in 1856 and 1857, leaving major crop damage and confused Minnesotans. The bigger and more advanced plagues started in 1873 when thousands of pesky grasshoppers came in from the Rocky Mountains to the southwest part of the state, leaving their impact on not only the crops, but also the people as well.

Grasshoppers literally came by the millions, chewing on stalks until there was nothing left. They ravaged meadows and pastures, attacking even the cattle that would in turn die from blood poisoning. The pests could easily devour one ton of hay per day for each of the 40 acres they covered.

In 1874, the Minnesota legislature appropriated $30,000 to help farmers who had suffered because of the infestation. What they needed most was seed to plant for the coming year. However, the new seeds were almost uselessly planted because the next year the grasshoppers came back for another round of torment.

Offspring of the first round of grasshoppers came back the next year and they too destroyed all of the crops in the southwestern counties of Minnesota. The state legislature appropriated $95,000 to suffice for the damages that the farmers suffered and to help with the costs of buying new seed grain for the next year. However, the grasshoppers came back again for round three and once again took out all of the crops in the southwest part of the state.

Neighbors began to help each other in making up for the losses that most of them suffered. The government continued to pitch in by appropriating $100,000 for the destruction. Even the governor of the time, John S. Pillsbury invested $10,000 of his own money to help destroy the grasshoppers.

The farmers began to fight back, using "hopperdozers," large sheets of tar-covered metal nailed to runners that were drug over the fields to trap the grasshoppers in the tar. Other farmers used large, hooped burlap bags in which as much as 18 bushels of grasshoppers (at 100,000 insects per bushel) from a ten acre field.

By the time 1877 rolled around, the state's entomologist reported that grasshopper eggs covered about 50,000 of the state's 80,000 square miles, which was about two-thirds of the state. The people decided that extreme action needed to take place in order to prevent further damage and devastation. Governor Pillsbury met the request and proclaimed a statewide Day of Prayer. His proclamation declared: "... I do hereby, in recognition of our dependence upon the power and wisdom of Almighty God, appoint Thursday the 26 day of April 1877, instant, to be observed for such purpose throughout the state; and I invite the people, on the day thus set apart, to withdraw from their ordinary pursuits, and in their homes and places of public worship, with contrite hearts, to beseech the mercy of God for the sins of the past and His blessings upon the worthier aims of the future." The governor was both praised and ridiculed for his bold proclamation and national attention was attracted to the situation.

April 26, 1877 came as a sunny day, but by midnight the sky clouded up and rain began to fall, soon turning into a snow storm that raged through the next day and ended by midday of April 28. The farmers rejoiced, for the storm obliterated the grasshoppers and their unhatched eggs.

Under the leadership of Fr. Leo Winter, OSB, the people of Cold Spring, MN, built a chapel in thanksgiving of the end of their irritating problem.

The chapel was named Maria Hilf (Mary's help) and the promise to celebrate Mass there every Saturday to ask Mary to intercede in keeping the grasshoppers at bay was made. The chapel still stands east of Cold Springs on a hill about the Sauk River and Highway 23.

Join Sr. Margaret McHugh, diocesan Director of the Office of Youth Ministry on a pilgrimage to the “Grasshopper Chapel” in Cold Springs, MN, on Sunday, May 20, 2007. For more information, call Sister Margaret at the Diocesan Pastoral Center, (507) 233-5327; email: mmchugh@dnu.org

Samantha Schommer is a contributing writer to The Prairie Catholic. She is a Junior at Holy Trinity High School, Winsted, daughter of Pat and Lisa Schommer, a Diocesan Youth Council member, and an active member of TEC.