Schoolboy John Hogan played hooky with friends

Our new book, On the Mission in Missouri & Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir, contains both of Bishop Hogan's personal memoirs.

In Fifty Years Ago, this “engaging Irish storyteller,” recounts a lively and entertaining childhood in County Limerick, Ireland in the 1830s and ‘40s. He recalls every school he attended, his teachers, many of his childhood friends, quite a few adventures and occasional encounters with authority. In the following selection, young John, playing hooky from school, recounts how he and his comrades–in-truancy passed their stolen hours, before being unceremoniously caught and returned to face the music:

Ah, how much pleasanter it was to a gang of truant boys to be in hiding under bushes than to be too conveniently near the tip end of the master's cat-o’-nine-tails! The covert in which we hid was thickly set with tall pine trees, to which the furze was an undergrowth. There we climbed trees, looked for birds’ nests, ran races, played hide and seek, masqueraded grand Turk and Indian chief, our heads turbaned with pine plumes and rushes. Our biggest boy, the most stalwart fellow amongst us, we threw down on the ground on his face and hands, then we stretched him lengthwise across a steep water-drain, and on his long back enjoyed ourselves, chasing each other over and hither, as in the picture in our books we saw squirrels running on a log.

But our hey-day was soon to come to an end. We had been missed from school. Search was made for us. Ah, the mean scouts that betrayed us! Like snakes, they crawled on the grass and hid behind bushes until they spied us. Then they went and told the master. A posse comitatus of big boys from the school was sent to gather us in. We were surrounded, trapped, captured, and marched ignominiously into the master's presence. Without formalities, we were sentenced to die the death. I began to make a speech from the dock. Before a word was out of my mouth, I was grasped, as in a vise, by the rough hands of the biggest boy in school. That fellow’s back was the common gallows, on which truant boys paid the penalty for their misdeeds, and when the execution was over, it was considerable time before the felon that died the death showed himself anyway lively again

Irish Wilderness - companion volume now available

Just in time for the holidays … the companion volume to Mystery of the Irish Wilderness has arrived from the printer.  ON THE MISSION IN MISSOURI & FIFTY YEARS AGO: Two Irish-American Classics includes both John Joseph Hogan’s personal memoirs. The young priest-become-bishop cherished his days on the Missouri frontier, recounting Civil War adventures, near-death experiences, a rousing childhood in County Limerick, Ireland in the 1830s and '40s, Daniel O'Connell rallies, and his clipper ship voyage to America.

Yellowing newspaper articles, handwritten accounts of historical events, and personal letters found in files cabinets revealed a very appealing personality – so we’ve added chapters on his life, family history and his later career in Kansas City in the booming years of the late 19^th century. 

As Jo Schaper said in her review in River Hills Traveler:

... why would a non-Catholic want to read this book? For the same reason a non-geologist reads Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's journal: as a primary source for nineteenth century life, told by a reliable witness. And besides - who can resist an engaging Irish storyteller?

On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago

Lens & Pen Press’s Newest Title Wins Gold Medal

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness Wins Gold Medal in Regional Non-Fiction

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness by Leland and Crystal Payton has received a gold medal. Lens & Pen Press’s newest title received the competitive award in Regional Non-Fiction at the 13th Annual Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY). Winners were recently announced at a ceremony held during BookExpo America weekend in New York City.

More than 4,000 books were entered; only 110 gold medals were selected in all categories. The competition is open to independent book producers, university presses, and divisions of major publishers that release 50 or fewer books a year. Yale University Press led the medal count with five, followed by Indiana University Press with four.

“This award is especially gratifying as it confirms our mission to tell stories with a regional focus in books with the highest level of design, layout and production,” said Crystal Payton.

The Paytons delved into rare primary historical sources including diocesan archives, Bureau of Land Management records, antique maps pinpointing the brief colony. Their research sheds light on a little known episode in Irish American history, the Trans-Mississippi Civil War, the boom-and-bust timber business of the nineteenth century, and environmental policies of the twentieth century.

The settlers disappeared after the Civil War but their sojourn on the Ozark frontier is forever enshrined in the name “Irish Wilderness.” Today that name denotes part of the area in the Ozarks where they briefly settled, which is now a 16,500-acre unit of the National Wilderness System.

The book has received favorable reviews from national experts on Irish American history as well as regional and Civil War historians.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness, a 128-page, all-color book, retails for $18.95. Available at many bookstores or through www.amazon.com Copies can also be ordered from the publisher, postage paid.

For more information on this and other Lens & Pen books visit www.beautifulozarks.com.
$18.95 paper
7x10 inches 128 pages
80 color plates
ISBN: 978-0-9673925-4-7

Book Signing at Barnes & Noble -

The Saturday before Thanksgiving was a beautiful day, and a busy one on Kansas City's Country Club Plaza. We had a good time, saw friends, met new folks and sold some books. A good time was had by all.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness - THE VIDEO!

Leland's script combined with Ross's editing expertise created this video .... enjoy!

Book Signing in Kansas City, Missouri November 22

Leland and I will be signing books at Barnes & Noble on the Country Club Plaza next Saturday - November 22 - from 1 - 3 p.m. The store is at 420 W. 47th St. Kansas City, Missouri


This is our first book signing event and we're curious to see who might come and what aspects of our books generate the most interest. The new book, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness (which by the way is non-fiction), begins in the pre-Civil War era, with Irish Famine immigrants, and follows 150 years of land use policies and personalities as they affect the area the Irish settled. It also follows the life of the intrepid young priest who led the colony: John Joseph Hogan. He became the first bishop of Kansas City and much of our research was done here in the archives of the Diocese.


Of course, See the Ozarks and Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks will be available as well!

Picking up where I left off

A lot has happened since Ross and I were redesigning the Lens & Pen website. Nearly a year after that first experimental post, the website has taken shape and our newest book has arrived from the printer in Singapore. In that year, we finalized the book's design, proofed and re-proofed the text, burned the DVDs, wrote the check and sent it off. A few months later, a couple of hundred cartons of books passed through customs in St. Louis and were trucked to Springfield. (Note to anyone considering printing a book overseas - shipping costs from St. Louis to Springfield were higher than the charges for the slow boat from Singapore to St. Louis. But I digress...)

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan's Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness was itself a long time in coming. In the late '70s, when environmentalists in Missouri pushed to have 16,500 acres between the Eleven Point and Current rivers included in the national wilderness system, Leland wrote a letter of support. That was my first brush with the legend that still lingered in the hills of southern Missouri.

It wasn't until we found John Hogan's two memoirs in the rare books section of the Springfield Library that we really were captured by the story itself and the personality of the adventurous young priest who led the settlement. On the Mission in Missouri: 1857-1868 tells of his missionary years before and during the Civil War, most of his time spent in north Missouri. His writing made real what frontier Missouri was like, who the people were that ventured west and how they lived. And the territory was so familiar. Our years of photographing all parts of the state, scouting for antiques in the most out of the way shops - we and he covered the same landscape, crossed the same streams and railroads.

We were intrigued, but the story - as it was known then - had such a downer ending ... hopeful settlers driven from their wilderness farms by a war they were not a part of. So it lingered as a publishing project until my day job (FEMA Public Affairs) brought me to Kansas City where the adventurous young priest later became the first bishop. With the permission of the diocese archivist, I spent many a Saturday going through the Bishop's files. There the story of the man and his mission began to take shape.