Engelhardt, Zephyrin — Azione Romana

ENGELHARDT, ZEPHYRIN. - Franciscan missionary, born at Bilshausen (Hanover) in Germany on 13 Nov. 1851, died at Santa Barbara (California) on 27 Apr. 1934. Having emigrated in 1852 with his parents to America, to Covington (Kentucky), in 1872 he took the Franciscan habit and in 1878 was ordained a priest. From 1880 to 1887 he was sent as a missionary among the Menominee Indians (Wisconsin) and from 1894 to 1900 to the

Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, in whose languages he wrote various pamphlets and edited a magazine. From 1887 to 1896 and from 1900 until his death, he spent his life in California, devoting himself above all to the history of those missions.

At Santa Barbara, his residence, he gathered an enormous body of documentary material from all of North America and worked on many publications. His principal work was: The Missions and Missionaries of California (4 vols., San Francisco 1908-16). A seeker of truth to the point of scrupulousness, he also had in view the aim of dispelling many false accusations and interpretations of Catholic missionary activity.

BIBL.: sources

anon., Z. Engelhardt, Nerologia, in Acta Ord. Fratrum Minorum, 33 (1934), pp. 265-67; H. Lemay, La p. Zephyrin E. O.F.M. (1851-1937). Notes bibliographiques, in Arch. Franc. Hist., 27 (1934), pp. 313-18. Alberto Ghinato

@incollection{ec5_engelhardt_zephyrin, author = {Ghinato, Alberto}, title = {Engelhardt, zephyrin}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {361--362}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/engelhardt-zephyrin} }

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