Hoecken, Christian, an early Catholic missionary, came to what is now the State of Kansas as a missionary to the Kickapoo Indians some time prior to the year 1837. In the fall of that year he founded the Pottawatomie mission on Sugar creek, in what is now Miami county, near the eastern line of the state. He accompanied one of the first parties to the new mission and reservation on the Kansas river in 1847. Here he continued his labors until 1851, when he joined Father De Smet for missionary work among the Indian tribes farther up the Missouri river. While on board the steamboat St. Ange, bound for his new field, he was attacked by cholera and died on June 19, 1851. His body was encased in a cottonwood log, which had been hollowed out for the purpose, the seams being hermetically sealed with pitch, and buried on the bank of the river. On the return trip the rude coffin was exhumed and taken to St. Louis, where the body was interred according to the rites of the Jesuit fathers.