Westport (Massachusetts) History

Mission of the Holy Spirit

It is always well to know where you are. I learned this some seventeen years ago when I decided at last to look for a vacation or summer house. My mother�s family stemmed from John Dyer Rd. in Adamsville, RI, so it was there that I began my search. I was first shown a wonderful five-acre lot overlooking Adamsville without a house on it; and then a newly built and tastefully decorated house with views of the river. Neither appealed to me because I did not want to build a new house and did not want a �finer home�. The real estate agent apologized for the next property, but took me to see it anyway. We drove up a winding dirt lane and into a clearing where we came upon a tumble-down but most attractive old house. I was hooked and bought it, even though I knew that it would require considerable fixing up. (In fact my architect told me my best course was to flatten it.)

It was during the negotiations attendant upon buying the property that I received my first surprise: I was buying a house in Westport, MA, and not in Adamsville, RI. I had barely had time to recover from this surprise when I received the second, this in the form of a ramshackle automobile that came up the drive and stopped just before coming onto my property. From this vehicle emerged some six to eight francophone people, three or four adults and several children. They asked if it was all right with me if they had a look around. They were members of a French-Canadian religious group that had been located for a number of years in this area, and wanted to view its former home.

I had heard that such a group existed, and that the apartment house on the road below my house � the Eurila apartments (pronounced Yurilla) � had housed a religious group that had disintegrated some time before my arrival. The name of the apartments consists of the first syllables of the name of the group's leader: Eu(gene) Ri(cher) La(Fleche). I of course had no objection to having these people look around, and did not inquire of them much about their history. They told me of the former location of trees, and were most interested in changes and continuities on the property.
Several years later an Old Testament figure appeared, a man with a white flowing beard who had lived on the property and who then resided in Bourne, MA. He informed me that we were living on holy ground; that the Messiah had lived in the house we occupy; and that he was taking legal steps to regain the property. He assured us, however, that we would not be evicted or inconvenienced. He left, and only one man and his wife have appeared on the property since then. This couple had vacationed in the area for some years, and had done a certain amount of research into the group, and wanted to investigate the property farther up the hill. My wife, having heard of such, opined that they were after buried treasure. Buried treasure, so far as I know, there is not. A good deal of rubbish, yes, but no treasure. If ever there was any, it either had long since been found, or left the premises without ever being buried.

There is treasure, of course. Human treasure. The group still exists in Montreal and on the west coast, and is known as the Mission of the Holy Spirit. Its religious beliefs are still unknown to me in detail, but the bearded prophet told me that the �Third Person of the Holy Trinity� resided in that old house that I had purchased in 1986 (from two lawyers). One authority, a member of the Mission (Gustave Robitaille) writes (in an English version of what must originally have been in French): �Jesus having promised in turn, like Jehovah, the forthcoming of a Consoler, the unique and true Consecrator, in order to reveal to the world the secret of his own birth, Christ�s birth, here it is now that after twenty centuries of Darkness and of Mortality appears, at last, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Saviour of mankind proven by his deeds and his Doctrine and recognized in the most august Majesty of the Lord-Master, EUGENE RICHER DIT LA FLECHE, whose wisdom and Word unsealed to us the EUGENISM as much spiritual as carnal in the unique and wholesome manner to be born CHILD OF GOD by the MINISTRY of the HOLY SPIRIT applied to the womb of the Procreator.�

The group was not well understood, and were known locally as Holy Rollers. They had houses on Great Island in the west branch of the Westport River, as well as the house I bought; it became more widely known in 1925. I quote the caption under a picture of the island from the Fall River Herald of Tuesday, March 17, 1925: �This picture shows the more prominent buildings in the somewhat mysterious Holy Ghost colony established for some time on Goat [sic, it is Great] Island in the west branch of the Westport River, which can be seen from the road leading from Adamsville to Westport Harbor. Adelard Giasson, known as the apostle of the colony, has been arrested on a charge of conspiracy and search is being made for Eugene Richer, said to be the founder and self-styled Holy Ghost. Some Fall River men residing in the eastern section of the city have lost considerable money through the operation of the colony, it is said, and it is on their complaints that the police have finally acted, after long investigation.

(to be continued) W. F. Wyatt