The Franciscan mission of Oldenburg in southern Indiana's Franklin County was only one of the numerous Catholic settlements by Germans in the river counties and eastern counties of the state. The number of Catholics grew fast in Indiana, and the immigration from Europe was the most impressive source of this growth. In 1850 some 52.8 per cent of Indiana's foreign born were German.[5]  The Covington Altar Building Stock Company worked at a feverish pace between 1863 and 1870 on church decorations in this area of the Midwest.

    Near Oldenburg in the small town of Brookville, Indiana, the Company erected three altars for the local St. Michael church, and Johann Schmitt painted the altarpieces. In the 1995 sesquicentennial history of St. Michael parish, we read that Father Meinrad Fleischmann, a native of Lachen in Switzerland and a graduate of St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana, was named pastor of St. Michael in 1866. A few years later "he commissioned the beautiful altars in the church".[6] When the church was redecorated in 1962, the nineteenth century Gothic altars were removed. Their whereabouts are not known, but a search of the attic in the Brookville convent house of the Sisters of St. Francis, yielded the five altar paintings by Johann Schmitt. They had apparently been stored there after the old altars were replaced. This is a rare success story in the annals of nineteenth century German-American church art. Unfortunately the majority of the old art works have been lost.

     For the high altar at St. Michael church, Johann Schmitt painted the archangel and patron of the parish, as he is described in the Book of Revelation, which includes the visions experienced and written down by St. John, the favorite disciple of Christ, after he had been exiled to the Greek island of Patmos. One of the visions was a war in heaven between God's angels and the followers of Satan, who is described as a dragon with seven heads and ten horns. It was the archangel Michael, who overcame Satan with a flaming sword and cast him out of the heavenly realm forever. (Figure 63, Johann Schmitt, St. Michael slaying Lucifer). The German-American church artist Schmitt depicted St. Michael with the sword of fire in his right hand and a small pair of scales in his left. Throughout the ages St. Michael has been venerated as the protector of soldiers and the recipient of souls on Judgment Day. He weighs the souls to determine their final destination, be it heaven or hell.[7] Schmitt's St. Michael wears a metallic gray armor and helmet. A golden mantle is loosely draped around his body, and a pair of large, feathery wings are attached to his back. The curious touch of this image is the spiked helmet, which closely resembles nineteenth century German army headgear. However, the painter has substituted a cross for the spike. Schmitt decorated the side altars of Brookville's St. Michael church with portrayals of St. Catherine (Figure 64) and St. Aloysius  (Figure 65).  The legend of St. Catherine is one of the most dramatic in the hierarchy of Catholic saints. It relates that Catherine was a beautiful maiden in the ancient city of Alexandria. She defied the Roman Emperor Maxentius' order to give up her Christian faith and marry him. He imprisoned her, and she was tortured on a spiked wheel that broke apart and did not harm her. She was then beheaded, and her body was carried by angels to Mount Sinai.  Johann Schmitt portrayed Catherine as a young, dark haired woman. She wears the crown of martyrs and holds the martyr's palm in her left hand. The wheel with a broken spike rests against her body.

     Six miles southeast of Brookville, in Franklin County, and thirty-six miles northwest of Cincinnati, the Holy Guardian Angel church dominates the small town of Cedar Grove. The town is situated in the valley of the White Water River. Canal boat building was formerly carried on quite extensively here, and many boats used in the White Water Canal were built as early as 1842. During the early nineteenth century the state of Indiana launched three major canal projects, since the success of New York's Erie Canal, completed in 1825, sparked a canal boom in the Old Northwest territory.[8]  In Indiana the need arose to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio River along the Wabash trade route. The White Water Canal in the southeastern part of the state was meant to link the National Road with the Ohio River. By 1839, at the time of a financial panic and depression, canal workers had finished ninety miles on the Wabash and Erie and thirty miles on the White Water. The latter was completed in 1846 and contributed to the profits of farmers in the area surrounding Brookville.[9] The present day small, sleepy Indiana towns along the White Water Canal are picturesque reminders of earlier waterway traffic.

     In Cedar Grove the red brick Gothic revival church dates from 1896. The parish was established in 1872. The church sanctuary still contains the original Gothic high altar with white and gold carvings. It closely resembles the Holy Family church altars in Oldenburg. A painting above the high altar depicts an adolescent Jesus, surrounded by a white light, gazing up toward heaven, where God the Father spreads his arms in a gesture of blessing. Mary and Joseph stand behind Jesus. The painting is signed "E. Humbrecht", and its style closely resembles that of Johann Schmitt. (Figure 66). The name of E. Humbrecht appears in the membership list of Cincinnati's Society of Christian Art.

     Erasmus Humbrecht was born in the Alsace-Lorraine in 1849. He studied painting in Switzerland and lived in Paris and Ireland before embarking for the United States in October of 1871. He arrived in New Orleans in January, 1872 and was hired the following year to paint murals in the city's St. Louis Cathedral. He also decorated Holy Trinity church in New Orleans with murals in 1874. Although he maintained a residence in New Orleans for most of his life, he traveled to many locations in the Mississippi Valley to fulfill church contracts, such as St. Mary's Cathedral in Natchez. His church paintings may also be found in Ohio and Illinois. He died in Cincinnati in 1901. Fortunately a great number of his works may still be admired. By far the most impressive mural by Erasmus Humbrecht is the large scale, 40-foot painting behind the main altar of New Orleans' Cathedral. It depicts the French king Louis XI calling for the seventh crusade and demonstrates the superior artistic gift of this important German-American church artist. The author had been unaware of the extent of Humbrecht's church decorations until his descendants provided detailed information. The family's pride in his accomplishments is heartwarming and much appreciated.

     Another German parish in Franklin County, Indiana, was founded in the 1830's and given the name of St. Peter. In those days, the entire region was a vast stretch of wild virgin forest, and the newly arrived settlers from the small Bavarian town of Grosswallstadt had to clear the land and build log houses for their families. Their first log church was constructed in 1835. A German priest visited once a month to minister to the parish members. In 1853 a Neo-Gothic brick church was erected and still stands today in great splendor. In 1864 a high altar was purchased and installed. The Altar Building Stock Company was in charge of the design and installation. In 1867 Johann Schmitt painted St. Peter receiving the keys to the kingdom from Christ over the high altar (Figure 67). Among the fifty-eight drawings by Cosmas Wolf at the St. Vincent Archabbey archives, the author discovered the design of an altar for St. Peter's church in Indiana dated 1864.  Johann Schmitt's depiction of Christ delivering the keys of the kingdom to St. Peter is clearly recognizable in Cosmas' drawing. (Figure 68).  This raises several questions: Did Cosmas Wolf not only plan the structure of his Neo-Gothic altars but also determine the scheme of the paintings to grace them? Did Cosmas create the drawings of his altars after they had been built and the altar paintings had been installed? And finally, was Cosmas Wolf the arbiter of the subject matter for a church painting, outlining the arrangement of the figures and settings for the painters? Such questions probably can never be answered with any certainty. Yet the fact remains that it is a thrill for the researcher to be able to connect an original design of the nineteenth century to the finished art work in a twentieth century house of worship. However, a visitor expecting to view the original altar, will be greatly disappointed. A longtime member of the St. Peter parish told the author that a 1998 decision by the church restoration committee had led to the removal of much Neo-Gothic tracery and carvings on the elaborate white and gold wooden altar. It was declared too old-fashioned by a majority of members. Fortunately Schmitt's painting was left untouched. Its theme was a recurrent one in the artist's output and may be admired in a number of nineteenth century German-American churches.