Old Jesuit church is excavated from the clay

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) - The Jesuits staked their claim in Shreveport in 1902, bringing education, religion and a new sense of community to the city.

Now, more than a century later, the remains of one of their first churches is being uncovered from the clay.

The excavation of the former St. Johns Church started in May, headed by leadership from the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans and the history department of LSU- Shreveport.

Since then, the archaeology team has uncovered from the Texas Avenue site several artifacts and structural supports - including the cornerstone, a pillar of the eastern foundation and the center aisle of the old church.

Cheryl White, an associate professor of history at LSU-Shreveport, helped determine the site’s location using software to compare current and former city maps and old photographs.

She said the project coincides with the upcoming publication of a book about the parish’s history, planned for this fall.

“That was what started the conversation,” said White, who also is a parishioner at St. John Berchmans.

One of the earliest tasks was obtaining permission to explore the land from the property’s owner, Shreveport resident Jodie Glorioso.

White initially approached Glorioso with the idea of placing an historical marker on the site. But when the history professor pinpointed that the plot might contain the actual foundation of the church, she upgraded her request for permission to dig.

That was fine with Glorioso, whose family has owned the land since the 1940s or the 1950s. She, along with her siblings, had been baptized in and attended the old Jesuit high school.

“It was important for us and we really had no idea what would be, so we were as excited about the find as they were,” Glorioso said. “I love historical digging. You never know what you might find.”

White said she and Marty Loschen, the Spring Street museum curator, headed to the site with a shovel to see if they could find the cornerstone.

White had done measurements. She directed the digging. Within minutes, Loschen’s shovel hit brick.

“We came within inches of the front door on the first day,” White said. “I knew on that first day that we were going to find it.”

White had done measurements. She directed the digging. Within minutes, Loschen’s shovel hit brick.

“We came within inches of the front door on the first day,” White said. “I knew on that first day that we were going to find it.”

On May 9, the team uncovered the foundations of the original St. John’s College and Church on Texas Avenue. Since then, they also have uncovered part of the east foundation and center aisle of the church, part of a chimney and several artifacts, including 19th- and 20th-century ceramics, iron hardware, religious artifacts, coins, bottles and glass.

Members of the excavation team besides White and Loschen: Father Peter Mangum, head rector of the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans; Gary Joiner, associate professor and director of the LSUS history and social sciences department; Jason Brown, a Bossier City attorney and trained archaeologist; and John Michael Giglio, of JMG Plumbing & Contracting.

“The church and college were located on a major thoroughfare from Shreveport to Texas, a route used since before Shreveport was incorporated as a city,” Mangum wrote in an emailed statement. “Many people did not know that there was an original site of St. John’s and now they realize that their ancestors would have worship at that site and gone to that school.”

The team has been working biweekly to see what else they can uncover, White said -with the goal of exposing and preserving the old church’s foundations and also placing the historical marker by the site.

The digging is classified as an “open excavation of a known location,” White said. The diggers aren’t required to “grid” the location, but White catalogs everything the team finds.

“We know anything below a certain point belongs to the church, which helps a lot,” she said.

Glorioso said she trusts the archaeological team to properly uncover and preserve any artifacts they find. She said she was “thrilled” at the team’s interest and how they’re making their findings known to the community through a Facebook site.

Glorioso knows the project’s end date is not yet in sight.

“It makes me curious to know what else is under there,” she said. “It would be wonderful for them to do some kind of shrine, and my family would be willing to work with them on that. There’s quite a number of people whose lives have been touched by the Jesuits.”

The archaeological team hopes the uncovered artifacts can be displayed at the Spring Street Museum along with an introduction to the history of the church and the Jesuits’ impact on the city.

Mangum said he also has the original journals of the founding priests and their successors, which provide an historical account of the events and people involved in the creation, operation and activities of St. Johns’ church and college.

He also has other “documentary evidence,” including correspondence, wills, deeds, photographic records and newspaper articles from that period.

“Such documentary evidence provides only a limited view of the many past experiences, varied personalities, and dynamics of social and religious life which revolved around this place in times past,” Mangum wrote in an email. “One of my hopes is that we will obtain additional data from other sources and also inspire people to look to their past and discover their roots here in our city.”

Mangum said in an early Facebook posting that the excavation is “uncovering the past of our church as well as of our community.”

“It’s been quite an experience. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and the interest in our parish and community has been so great,” Mangum said.

White said each day at the dig site is meaningful and inspiring.

“This is the sort of thing you hope you get to work on,” she said. “This morphed into something bigger than all of us. This really is a story about the church, their identity and their history.”

But White said there’s also a larger story told by the artifacts.

“If we can help people understand we exist on a continuum, that our lives are the result of building on someone else’s work and life, it expands our idea of what it is to be alive,” she said, “to know that my life is connected to something bigger.