LEADER: Born a slave in Brush Creek, near Hannibal, Missouri in 1862,

Augustus Tolton was baptized a Catholic — the faith of his owners. His own

family of slaves tried to escape through the woods, with Confederate slave

catchers breathing down their necks. They hid in bushes as they ran, and finally Tolton’s mother, Martha, got them into a boat at the shoreline and began to row across the wide, muddy Mississippi. Each time the paddle entered the water to push them closer to freedom, she prayed, “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.