USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The story of the Irish in Boston, together with biographical sketches of representative men and noted women > Part 12
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The parish of the Holy Trinity, for German Catholics, -- until very recently the only German Catholic parish in all New England, - was also organized under Bishop Fenwick's administration, and so was the first Catholic parish in East Boston. Perhaps the greatest work of Bishop Fenwick's episcopate was the founding of Holy Cross College of the Jesuits, at Worcester, in 1843. Its first presi- dent was Father "Tom" Mulledy, famous in old Georgetown's annals.
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Bishop Fenwick was a Jesuit himself, having received the habit at Georgetown College, D.C., with his brother, Enoch Fenwick, and John McElroy, - the last a name subsequently so dear to Boston Catholics, - immediately on the restoration of the Society in the United States in 1806. In 1844 the Rt. Rev. John Bernard Fitzpatrick was made Coadjutor to Bishop Fenwick. The same year a new dio- cese-Hartford, then comprising the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island - was erected in New England, with the Rt. Rev. William Tyler, D.D., as its first Bishop. Bishop Fenwick died Aug. II, 1846. We quote from a tender eulogium passed upon him by Dr. Brownson : " It will be long before we look upon his like again ; but he has been ours ; he has left his light along our pathway ; he has blessed us all by his pure example and his labor of love, and we are thank- ful." In the diocese, which had but two churches and two priests at his coming, he left fifty churches and as many priests, a college, an orphanage, and numerous schools. He was buried, as he desired, at his beloved Worcester College.
We have not touched on the great sorrow of Bishop Fenwick's life, the Know-nothing uprising and the destruction of the Ursuline Convent at Charlestown, which are treated of fully elsewhere in this volume.
Let us pass now to one of the brightest pages of the history of the Church in New England, and to perhaps the dearest name in her annals, John Bernard Fitzpatrick.
He was born in Boston, of Irish parents, Nov. 1, 1812. His family were prominent members of the Cathedral parish, and Bishop Cheverus and Father Matignon were present at his christening. He made his first studies at the Adams and Boylston Schools, winning the Franklin medals at the public exhibitions of each. In 1826 he entered the Boston Latin School, and through his exemplary conduct, talents, and application became a favorite with masters and pupils. In a poem for the reunion, in 1885, of an old class of the Latin School, Dr. T. W. Parsons, who had been his fellow-student, grows tenderly reminiscent of " blessed John Fitz- patrick." His vocation early manifested itself, to the great delight
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of Bishop Fenwick, and in 1829 he entered the Montreal College, completing, 1837, with immense success and brilliancy, his eight years' course.
Young Fitzpatrick, on his return to Boston, was the recipient of many distinguished attentions. George F. Haskins, then a Protestant, and an Overseer of the Poor for the city of Boston, later a convert to the Faith, a priest, and the founder of the House of the Angel Guardian, Roxbury, is quoted by Dr. R. H. Clarke, in his " Deceased Bishops of the United States," in an interesting sketch of the young Catholic student's reception at the annual school dinner in Faneuil Hall, Aug. 24, 1837. Among the guests were the Hon. Edward Everett, then Governor of the Commonwealth; Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Mayor of the city; President Quincy, of Harvard University; and Adjutant-General Dearborn. Major Benjamin Russell introduced Mr. Fitzpatrick in a most flattering speech. The response of the young man thus distinguished was, as Father Haskins tells us, modest, manly, dignified, and graceful. It was frequently interrupted by applause. The following month he went to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, where he was the only American student. His genius and virtue made him the subject of admiring interest. Says Dr. Clarke: "The Rt. Rev. Dr. De Goesbriand, Bishop of Burlington, Vt., who was one of his companions at St. Sulpice, has stated that the venerable Superior of the Sulpicians then predicted that young Fitzpatrick would one day rise to a high position in the Church of God, and become an ornament to its hierarchy." The prediction was speedily fulfilled.
He was ordained priest June 13, 1840. In November of the same year he returned to Boston. His first mission - an arduous one -was at the Cathedral. He was at the same time assistant pastor of St. Mary's, North End. In September, 1843, he was ap- pointed pastor of the just-completed St. John's Church, East Cam- bridge. In 1844, being then only in his thirty-second year, he was made Coadjutor-bishop of Boston, - Rome concurring in Bishop Fen- wick's own choice. His consecration took place in the chapel of the Monastery of the Visitation Nuns, Georgetown, D.C., on Sunday,
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March 4, 1844. Bishop Fenwick was consecrator; Bishop Whelan, then of Richmond, Va., and Bishop Tyler, of Hartford, Conn., assistant consecrators. He at once relieved Bishop Fenwick of the more laborious duties of his office; and no priest outrivalled the young Coadjutor-bishop in his devotion to the Cathedral parish work. His sermons attracted vast congregations, which always included many Protestants.
It has been noticed that while the Church in Boston was poor and a stranger, it drew within its shelter so many men and women of personal distinction or of old and eminent families. After the Rev. John Thayer came Orestes A. Brownson, the Rev. George F. Has- kins (already referred to), the Rev. Joseph Coolidge Shaw and the Rev. Edward H. Welch (these two became Jesuits), Captain Chandler, besides representatives of the Dwights, Carys, Danas, Metcalfs, Lymans, Warrens, etc. One day in August, 1844, Bishop Fitzpatrick confirmed sixty persons, nearly half of whom were native converts.
In 1846 Bishop Fenwick died, and the whole responsibility of the great diocese fell upon the young Coadjutor. At this time Bishop Fitzpatrick had these priests to assist him in Boston: at the Cathedral, the Revs. P. F. Lyndon, Ambrose Manahan, D.D., and John J. Williams, -the last named now the revered Archbishop of Boston; at St. Mary's, the Revs. P. Flood and James O'Reilly; at SS. Peter and Paul's, South Boston, the Rev. Terence Fitzsimons; at St. Patrick's, the Rev. Thomas Lynch; at St. John the Baptist, the Rev. George F. Haskins; at the Holy Trinity, the Rev. Alexander Martin, O.S.F .; at St. Nicholas, the Rev. Nicholas O'Brien; at Roxbury, the Rev. P. O'Beirne. St. Augustine's, South Boston, was vacant; and the church in Charlestown, which was not then within the city limits, was served by a convert priest, the Rev. George J. Goodwin, who was assisted by the Rev. M. M'Grath.
In October, 1847, at the invitation of Bishop Fitzpatrick, Jesuit Fathers, headed by the Rev. John McElroy, S.J., took charge of St. Mary's parish, North End. Father McElroy was born in Enniskillen, Ireland, in 1782, and came to America in 1803. He became a
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Jesuit, studied for the priesthood at Georgetown College, D.C., was ordained there in 1817, and at one time held the responsible office of procurator of that institution. He was chaplain in the United States Army during the Mexican War, and was greatly beloved by the sol- diers. Settled in Boston, he took early thought for the educational needs of his parish, opened a parochial school for girls, and brought on a colony of Sisters of Notre Dame, from their mother-house in Cincinnati, to take charge of it.
The Sisterhood of Notre Dame is one of the numerous com- munities of women which sprang up in France soon after the Revo- lution. Founded at Amiens in 1805, by Mother Julie Billiart, its present seat of government is at Namur, Belgium. The community is devoted exclusively to teaching. It has had an enormous devel- opment in the United States, most of all, perhaps, in New England. Besides the well-known academies of Notre Dame, Berkeley street, and Notre Dame, Roxbury, where a second generation of Boston's Catholic young womanhood is receiving a liberal education, the parochial schools under these Sisters' care, in the city and its neigh- borhood, have now a pupilage not far short of ten thousand. So rapid and vigorous was the growth of the Sisterhood of Notre Dame in these parts, and so numerous the applications of New Eng- land girls for admission to it, that it became necessary to open a. novitiate here, which is now attached to the academy on Berkeley street. The present Provincial of the Sisterhood, Superior Julia, makes this house her headquarters during six months of every year, while she is visiting the numerous convents in her charge in New England. This lady is of Irish parentage, as are also an immense number of the religious whom she governs, and was the first pupil of the Academy of Notre Dame in Cincinnati.
Father McElroy was succeeded at St. Mary's by the well-re- membered Father Wiget, who founded the boys' school, and the first sodalities in the city for young and old men. After him came, suc- cessively, Father Bannister, Father Brady, Father O'Kane, then Father Brady again, with orders to build a new church. The work was well under way when, in 1877, Father Brady was appointed Pro-
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vincial of the New York-Maryland Province of the Jesuits; and the Rev. William H. Duncan, S.J., took his place as pastor of St. Mary's. Father Duncan completed the new church, a large and splendid edifice, which cost about $250,000; the pastoral residence; the new schools, which now have an average attendance of fifteen hundred boys and girls; and the parochial hall. One incident will suffi- ciently indicate the spirit of the congregation. Over twenty-two hundred young men, largely of the working people, followed the exercises of a retreat recently given in St. Mary's.
Father McElroy's greatest work for Catholic education was the founding of Boston College. He built, also, the beautiful granite Church of the Immaculate Conception on Harrison avenue. The college started in 1860, and was incorporated in 1863, with power " to confer such degrees as are usually conferred by. colleges in the Commonwealth, except medical degrees." Names prominently asso- ciated with Boston College are those of the late Father John Bapst, S.J., and Father Robert Fulton, S.J. The story of Father Bapst and the "Ellsworth Outrage," in 1854, are doubtless well known to all our readers, and do not, moreover, come properly within the scope of this sketch. An extended sketch of Father Fulton is given elsewhere in this volume. His successor in the presidency of Boston College, in 1881, was the Rev. Jeremiah J. O'Connor, S.J., now rector of St. Lawrence's Church, New York City. Then came the Rev. Edward V. Boursaud, S.J., now English secretary to the General of the Jesuits in Rome; then the lamented Father Robert S. Stack, S.J., who died during his first month in office; then the Rev. Nicholas Russo, S.J., now at St. Francis Xavier's, New York. The college has begun its second quarter of a century, with Father Fulton again at its head. Work has already begun on a large addition to the college proper, a building for the Young Men's Catholic Association of Boston College (founded in 1875 by Father Fulton), and a Catholic High School, which will be open to boys who have completed their course in schools of the parochial or grammar school grade. The venerable founder of Boston College, Father John McElroy, died Sept. 12, 1877, at the great age of ninety-six years.
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But we must return and revert briefly to other events in the episcopate of Bishop Fitzpatrick. He dedicated the German Church of the Holy Trinity, Oct. 25, 1846, and placed it in charge of a Franciscan Father, the Rev. Alexander Martin. The parish subse- quently was given in care to the Jesuits, who built the present fine church and schools on Shawmut avenue.
The establishment of the Church in East Boston, though begun in the last years of Bishop Fenwick's lifetime, may properly be adverted to here. Soon after the formation of the East Boston Company, in 1833, Irish Catholics began to settle on the island. The names of Mr. Daniel Crowley, Messrs. McManus, Cummiskey, Lavery, etc., are among the first of the permanent householders. In 1844 the Catholics bought the meeting-house of the Maverick Congregational Society. It was remodelled for Catholic use, and dedicated under the patronage of St. Nicholas, the Rev. Nicholas J. A. O'Brien being its first pastor. He was replaced in 1847 by the Rev. Charles McCallion ; and he, in 1851, by the Rev. William Wiley, who, dying in 1855, was succeeded by the Rev. James Fitton. Father Wiley, a few months before his death, projected the present beautiful parish church, which was built by his successor, and dedi- cated as the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer.
Father Fitton was born in Boston in 1803. His father was a native of Lancashire, Eng., his mother a native of Wales, and both were members of the first Catholic congregation in Boston. He began his education in the parochial school established by Dr. Matignon. Before his ordination he was a teacher in the seminary attached to the old Cathedral on Franklin street, and the present Archbishop of Boston, the Most Rev. John J. Williams, was one of his pupils. He was ordained by Bishop Fenwick, Dec. 23, 1827. In 1828 he was missioned to the Passamaquoddy Indians in Maine, and exercised among them with great fruit the twofold office of priest and teacher. The following year he had also charge of the scattered Catholics of New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1830 he had charge of the mission extending from Boston to Long Island, N.Y., with Hartford, Conn., as a central point. In Hartford he
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founded and personally conducted the first Catholic newspaper in the United States, the "Catholic Press," and made about eighty converts. In 1832 he purchased the property on Mt. St. James, Worcester, Mass., and established a school, which subsequently de- veloped into the College of the Holy Cross. After notable services on the missions of Rhode Island and Western Massachusetts, he was sent to East Boston, in 1855. Some faint idea of his missionary labors may be gathered from his "Sketches," already referred to; but he keeps himself so well out of sight, that in reading the beginnings of Catholicity in New England one hardly realizes that the writer is often of necessity chronicling his own life and labors. In East Boston he founded four parishes,-the Most Holy Redeemer, St. Mary's, Star of the Sea, the Sacred Heart and the Assumption ; also, as early as 1858, a fine school for girls, under the Sisters of Notre Dame. His last work was the establishment, in his own parish, the Holy Redeemer, of a society for young men, now properly known as the Fitton Insti- tute. Father Fitton celebrated the golden jubilee of his priesthood Dec. 23, 1877. The day was kept with great honor in his own parish, and was made the subject of a splendid religious celebration in the Cathedral the following week, in which the Archbishop and all the priests of the diocese joined. Father Fitton died Sept. 15, 1881.
The limitations of space forbid more than a brief advertence to the celebrated school controversy of 1859. Rules had been made in the public schools - though these were then, as now, professedly non-sectarian - enforcing on all the children the use of the Protestant version of the Bible, the reciting of the Ten Commandments in their Protestant form, the chanting of the Lord's Prayer in its Protestant form, and other religious chants in unison. A Catholic boy was severely punished in the Eliot School for his conscientious refusal to obey these rules; several hundred of his comrades joined him in open resistance, and a season of intense, angry, and illogical excitement against all things Catholic pervaded Boston. The boys were suspended, and their parents notified that the indispensable condition of reinstatement was conformity to the objectionable rules.
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Moreover, they would, by staying out of school, be liable to arrest and imprisonment for truancy. In the latter case they would be sent to the city penitentiary, where they would be wholly at the mercy of the officers and teachers, who were all Protestants, and known to be of a proselytizing spirit. Bishop Fitzpatrick, to avoid the worse evil, advised the parents to direct the boys to submit, under protest, while he addressed a temperate and courteous letter to the School Board, wherein he set forth clearly why Catholics could not in conscience obey said rules, and made so manly and forcible an appeal for the citizen-rights of Catholics in the schools that he pierced through the prejudices to the reason of the Board; the obnoxious rules were repealed; and within the year, for the first time in the history of Boston, a Catholic priest and several Catholic laymen were elected members of the School Board.
Hard work and heavy cares now began to tell on Bishop Fitz- patrick. He never had a secretary till 1855, nor a Vicar-General till 1857. No wonder that with the almost incredible increase of the Catholic population of New England, and the corresponding mul- tiplication of churches, schools, and beneficent institutions, the strength of the overworked bishop waned, and that hardly had he reached his prime till his end was in sight. Though at his petition before the National Council in Baltimore, in 1853, his diocese was again subdivided and the new Sees of Burlington, Vt., and Portland, Me., erected; still, at his death, in 1866, he left in the diocese of Boston, then comprising the State of Massachusetts over a hundred priests and as many churches, to say nothing of schools and chari- table institutions.
In 1854 Bishop Fitzpatrick had paid his regular ad limina visit to Rome. He was then in the very bloom of manly beauty and strength. Ten years later he went abroad again; this time in a vain search for health. He always dearly loved the land of his ancestry ; and while in Brussels, having heard of the sufferings of the Irish people, he wrote from his sick-bed an urgent entreaty to his Boston flock to send help to Ireland. Needless to state that his appeal brought out a generous response.
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But Bishop Fitzpatrick was first of all an American. His fer- vent patriotism was known and honored of all men. From an ap- preciative tribute by a non-Catholic pen in the Boston " Gazette " we glean the following : -
When the news came of the firing on Sumter, though a sick man, - he died five years after, - he was the first to order that all the churches be kept open for prayers for the Union. A gentleman tells me that during the first preparations for war, when people were talking of three-months' enlistments, as the war would surely be over before that, the Bishop said to him : " Urge people to make no such hasty calculations ; this thing has been long maturing ; they have more ammunition than we realize, and they have the advantage of territory and intense homogeneous in- terests. We will be lucky to see it ended in five years ; "- a bit of prescience that turned out almost exact.
Sincerity, firmness, patience, and faith were the strong points in this great bishop's character. Of his faith, the Rev. George F. Haskins said that it was not only strong, but simple and reliant. " Hence," continued Father Haskins, " his solicitude in supplying the spiritual wants of his vast flock by sending them learned and good priests. Hence his earnest instructions to erect large and com- modious rather than ornamental and costly churches. Hence his deep concern for the training of little children; his zeal in visiting personally every church and congregation, as long and as often as his health permitted; his kind and considerate bearing towards Protestants of whatever sect; his uniform affability, that made all men, even the humblest, regard him as a friend."
Some years before his death, Bishop Fitzpatrick had fixed his desire on the Rev. John J. Williams, then pastor of St. James' Church, Boston, as his successor in the episcopate; and it was one of the great joys of his fading days when he learned that Pope Pius IX. had ratified his choice. Bishop Fitzpatrick died Feb. 13, 1866. All Boston united in mourning his loss and honoring his memory. As his body was carried to the Cathedral, and again during the funeral, the bells of the city were tolled by order of the mayor. Ten bishops, one hundred and forty priests, the Governor of Massa- chusetts, the Mayor of Boston, State and city officials, political and
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literary celebrities, and a concourse of people of every form of belief, attended the funeral of the beloved bishop.
Bishop Williams was consecrated at St. James' Church, of which he had been rector, March 11, 1866, and went to reside at the Cathedral house on April 2 following. He was succeeded at St. James' by the Rev. James A. Healy. The Rev. William Byrne, now Vicar-General and rector of St. Joseph's, West End, Boston, was made Chancellor of the diocese. In the same year the Rev. Thomas Ma- gennis, now rector of the Church of St. Thomas, Jamaica Plain, was ordained.
Bishop Williams gave early attention to a work which had been very near the heart of his predecessor, - the building of the new Cathedral. The old Cathedral lands on Franklin street had been transferred to Mr. Isaac Rich, in 1859. On Sunday, Sept. 16, 1860, Mass was celebrated for the last time in the venerable old building, reminiscent of the apostolate of a Matignon, a Cheverus, and a Fenwick. The site of the present Cathedral was acquired in two parcels, in October, 1860, and January, 1861. Ground was broken for the foundations April 27, 1866, and Bishop Williams laid the corner-stone June 25 following. Meantime the congregation worshipped in the Castle-street Church, bought from Harvard Col- lege in 1861, and dedicated the same year as a Pro-Cathedral. Mass is still celebrated in this church on Sundays, for the accommodation of the people in its vicinity. The grand new Cathedral was dedicated Dec. 8, 1875. Archbishop Williams - Boston had been made a Metropolitan See early in the year - officiated. Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, S.C., preached. This Cathedral is unsurpassed for size and beauty in the United States, except by the Cathedral of New York City.
In 1867 the Nuns of the Good Shepherd - an order devoted to the reformation of fallen women - made their first establishment in Boston. They have now a splendid brick convent on Tremont street, near Brookline, and in the twenty-two years of their existence here have reclaimed, or preserved from danger, about four thousand young women. The Boston house was erected into a mother-house
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about two years ago, and the new convent and chapel dedicated with imposing ceremonies. Several young ladies have since taken the veil here. A Magdalen convent has also been opened within the same enclosure; and here the penitent who desires to become a nun may enter, for no penitent, however thoroughly reformed, can be received into the order of the Good Shepherd. The whole institu- tion is now under the charge of Mother Mary of St. Aloysius. She is aided by about sixty nuns, who have under their charge close on three hundred penitents and children of the preservation classes. The house is maintained by the labor of the inmates and the offerings of the charitable.
In 1870 the Little Sisters of the Poor made their first foundation in Boston. This community, one of the youngest in the Church, is of French origin, and is devoted to the aged poor of both sexes, without distinction of race or creed. They have now a large house on Dudley street, in which over two hundred old people are cared for. About six years ago they opened another house in Charles- town, and are preparing to found still another in Somerville, Mass.
The Rev. T. Magennis, appointed in 1869 rector of the new parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica Plain, founded schools for boys and girls, directly his church was completed, and in 1873 brought on as teachers, the Sisters of St. Joseph, from Flushing, L.I. These Sisters were later given the parochial schools of the Gate of Heaven parish, South Boston, by the rector, the Rev. M. F. Higgins, and have also flourishing schools in Stoughton, Amesbury, and Haverhill. Their novitiate was transferred a few years ago from Jamaica Plain to Fresh Pond, Cambridge. The buildings on this erstwhile well-known pleasure resort have been adapted to conventual and academic pur- poses, and the place is known as Mt. St. Joseph's. The Sisterhood of St. Joseph was introduced into the United States from France in 1836, and is now numerically the strongest of all the communities of women in this country. It had, at latest estimates, a membership of 2,213, with 58,553 pupils in its academies and parochial schools.
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