Rev. Father Chas. Neirninckx was one of the most notable among the early missionary priests in Nelson county. He came to Kentucky in 1805 and was a co-worker with Father Badin. Father Neirinckx was a native of Belgium and was aged 45 years when he came to this State. He was instrumental in having erected a number of Catholic churches in Kentucky, some of which he almost built with his own hands. In beginning to prepare to build a place of worship he made different persons subscribe one or two logs, hewn and of prescribed dimensions, and deliver them on the ground. Then all of them assembled with him for a "house-raising," as it was called. The fitting of the prepared logs was the work of one or more days. Father Neirinckx was able to lift against two men opposite to him at the handspike. As the people had great veneration for him, and were ever in awe of his spirit, he could accomplish anything he undertook with them. He was of average height, but heavily and compactly built. Anecdotes of his great physical strength are quite numerous. On one occasion he reprimanded sharply a group of young men who were boisterous during divine services. One of them took offense at the reprimand and vowed vengeance against the priest. He was a stalwart fellow and not a little of a bully, and he waylaid the good man intending to give him a good drubbing. Before Father Neirinckx was aware of the man's motive, he had seized the bridle of his horse and with his knife cut one of the stirrup-leathers that hung from his saddle flaps. To the young man's demand that he should dismount and engage with him in a fist fight the priest answered mildly that he had not intended personal offense by the language he had used, and he begged him to remember that he was a minister of the gospel, and that it would be wholly becoming in him to accept his challenge. The bully would not be put off, and the priest was forced to dismount. Avoiding the blow struck at him by the infuriated man, Father Neirinckx clasped him in his arms and with more of gentleness than the occasion demanded laid him flat on the ground. The fellow did not care to experiment further with a man whose hug was equal to a bear's, and upon his promise to behave himself in the future, he was permitted to rise and go about his business. Another exhibition of his great physical strength was at a rail-splitting on the farm of Basil Mattingly. In rail-making, as is known by woodmen, the first insertion into the log of the iron wedge used for splitting it apart, can ordinarily be accomplished only by gentle taps of the maul, delivered upon the head of the wedge. Father Neirinckx who had never seen any rails split, before and Continued on fourth page [but there is no fourth page]

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