About 1½ miles north of this spot stood Old St. John's, one of the first towns established in Dakota County. The townsite was settled on June 2, 1856, by the Father Trecy Colony, sixty people with eighteen ox-drawn covered wagons, and it was surveyed and platted on June 24, 1856. It was named St. John's in honor of St. John the Baptist. Led by Father Jeremiah Trecy, a young Catholic priest from the Garryowen Parish near Dubuque, Iowa, the colony consisted mostly of Irish immigrants and formed the first Catholic parish in Nebraska. St. John's grew rapidly and by 1858 had two hundred inhabitants. In 1860 Father Trecy went to Washington seeking permission to establish a mission among the Ponca Indians, but when the Civil War began he became an army chaplain and never returned to the colony. In the early sixties the Missouri River began to threaten St. John's, and the people moved their buildings to the new town of Jackson. By 1866 all the buildings were gone and the townsite was abandoned. The site of St. John's endures as a symbol of courage, hope, and religious faith.