USA > Maryland > A Century of Growth [electronic resource] or, the history of the Church in Western Maryland > Part 14
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his opinions regarding Church affairs, but he under- stood perfectly his rights, and was straightforward in giving his views in his own province. This is clear from a very well remembered incident which happened at Cumberland. At the death of Very Rev. Edward Brennan, the late Monsignor McColgan, Vicar-General of the archdiocese, came to Cumberland to attend the funeral. After returning from the cemetery, he began to cast his eyes around to see how the parish affairs stood. He thought he would take a look at the books, when Mr. Walsh frankly informed the Vicar-General, " It's a penitentiary offense, sir, to open that safe," meaning, of course, before all the legal formalities were complied with.
A few days before his death, Mr. Walsh was in conversation with a priest, and, in the course of his remarks, he gave utterance to a truth which is worthy of profound consideration. "My experience," he said, " has convinced me that the darkness which prevents most worldly-minded men from seeing God's truth is moral rather than intellectual. 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God,' has a far deeper meaning than many men imagine." That is certainly a noble thought, and all the more worthy of our re- flection because it comes from a man who knew human nature well, and knew the truths of Catholic teach- ing well.
. To sum up briefly: Hon. William Walsh, a model worthy of imitation of every Catholic youth, born in Ireland, bereft of his father almost before he knew a
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father's love, battled with the world in the harvest field, learned men in a grocery store, books at the old Mountain College, in a Catholic atmosphere, law at a university, in a non-Catholic atmosphere, without his faith being tainted or his religious sentiments im- paired; twice elected to Congress, declined higher political honors; a lawyer, deep-read and thorough ; an orator, combining, in an unusual degree, massive- ness of thought, logical development, brilliancy of an- tithesis, a passion of conviction sweeping everything before it; a man of gigantic intellect, united with unsurpassed skill in debate; and, over all, the sim- plicity of a docile and obedient child in scrupu- lously observing the minutest details of his religion ; and, finally, "as the ripe, mellow fruit falls in due season to the ground, as the flower hangs its head and droops, as the sun, at evening's close, sinks calmly into its ocean bed, leaving tracks of glory behind, so did he quit this world with a pious prayer, which a loving mother had taught him, trembling on his lips, the Christian hope of heavenly rest in his heart, and the sweet thought of the mercy of Jesus, whom he had loved and served during his life, hovering like an angel over his departing spirit."
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CHAPTER III.
GARRETT COUNTY.
G ARRETT is the extreme western county of Mary- land. Until the year 1872 it formed a part of Allegany. The Church of Garrett County is also, in a sense, the offspring of the Church of Alle- gany, because the same missionary priests that made the history of Allegany are, to a great extent, the history-makers of the Church of Garrett. But this being said, the similarity between the two counties ceases ; in fact, in passing from Allegany County to Garrett, so different are the conditions confronting us that it seems like passing into an entirely different country. The resources of Allegany County have been marvelously developed, whilst Garrett is still in the primeval state, comparatively little having been done to develop its manifold resources.
"There's a dance of leaves in the aspen bower, There's a titter of winds in the beechen tree ; There's a smile on the fruit and a smile of the flower, And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea." 242
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An honest, intelligent, hard-working yeomanry form the vast majority of Garrett's population. Few of the inhabitants are wealthy, though many of them are in comfortable circumstances. The land is of the limestone variety, rich, retentive of moisture, and well adapted to raise all kinds of farm produce. During the last twenty five years, orchards have proved pay- ing investments. The county is rich in fire-clay, iron- ore, coal and other minerals. Every now and then, more or less excitement is raised by the assertion that precious metals have been discovered in Garrett County. It is confidently believed that both gold and silver exist along the waters of the Savage River; it may be doubted, however, as to whether they exist in paying quantities, and it is more than probable that they do not. No systematic efforts have yet been made to develop the mineral resources of Garrett County, because the timber of the forests has been found a source of great wealth; and while the county continues dotted with saw-mills, the minerals will be allowed to slumber untouched.
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ARTICLE I.
ST. MARY'S CHURCH, BLOOMING ROSE.
The first Catholic mission of Garrett County was St. Mary's mission, of Blooming Rose. With the exception of old St. Mary's Church, of Cumberland, and the Arnold Settlement Church, Blooming Rose is the oldest Maryland mission west of Hagerstown ; but the Blooming Rose mission is unique, from the fact that it alone could boast of having at least a small number of Indian communicants.
It is historically settled that the first white men that came to dwell in Garrett County were John Friend and his six sons, in the year 1760. They built a cabin somewhere along the Youghiogheny River. Two of the young men soon tired of the wilderness and enlisted in the British army. Both were killed in battle during the French and Indian war. John Friend, Jr., and his brother, Charles, moved up the river and established themselves at what is now Sang Run. Paul De Witt and William Coddington were the next settlers. It is certain that none of these were Catholics, although some of the De Witts and Coddingtons became Catholics later.
After the defeat of Gen. St. Clair by the Miami Confederated Indians, in 1791, about forty families moved to Blooming Rose; most of them were soldiers
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who had grown tired of fighting Indians in Ohio. Finding themselves settled in a fertile country, they at once erected cabins and began to cultivate the soil. James McGuffin, one of the settlers, was a staunch Catholic; he married a Protestant wife, of Pennsyl- vania Dutch extraction. Mrs. McGuffin soon ex- pressed a wish to become a Catholic, but, unfortunately, there was no priest nearer than Loretto, Pennsylvania, to baptize her. In 1799, tradition says James McGuffin and his wife, Wilhelmina, set out on horseback for Loretto, where Mrs. McGuffin was instructed and baptized by Rev. D. A. Galitzin. This is the first record we have of the existence of even a shadow of Catholicity in Blooming Rose.
Meshack Browning, the famous hunter, came to Garrett County towards the close of the eighteenth century. He was born in Frederick County in 1781. He was the son of an English officer, who left the British army after Braddock's defeat. Mr. Browning was not a Catholic when he came to the county, but he became a devout Catholic later in life.
Very early in the present century, the Edwards family, from Southern Maryland, settled in Blooming Rose. Mrs. Edwards' maiden name was Anna E. Mudd; she was a member of one of the oldest Catho- lic families of Southern Maryland. They were soon followed by the Jamison family, from near Bryan- town, Maryland, and as early as 1815, a Catholic family named Bevans had been added to the little congregation. Many of the very first settlers, being
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soldiers and adventurers, soon abandoned the Settle- ment, and Blooming Rose, as early as 1820, had taken on the appearance of a practically Catholic colony, with a peculiarly Catholic atmosphere.
The Rev. James Redmond, of St. Mary's Church, Cumberland, visited Blooming Rose regularly as early as 1819, and offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the · Mass. Father Redmond is probably the first priest that said Mass at Blooming Rose; he is certainly the first that attended the mission regularly. There is an erroneous notion among Western Maryland Catholics that Cumberland was once a mission of Blooming Rose. There is not even a shadow of foundation for the assertion, because there was a church in Cumberland when Blooming Rose was still a trackless wilderness.
According to the records contained in an old Missal in possession of the Edwards family, Blooming Rose was attended from 1819 to 1822 by the Dominican Fathers from St. Joseph, Perry County, Ohio. Father Young went to Cumberland, and Father Fenwick ad- ministered to the Blooming Rose Catholics.
It is worthy of note that Father Fenwick was born in St. Mary's County, Md., and, inasmuch as nearly all the Garrett County Catholics were immigrants from that section, it is probable that friendship as well as zeal had something to do with his love for. the mission in the wilderness. Father Fenwick at- tended the little parish until he was consecrated Bishop of Cincinnati in 1822. He is not to be con-
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founded with Father Fenwick, the Jesuit, who after- wards became the second Bishop of Boston.
Of our Bishop Fenwick, Dr. Shea says: "Edward D. Fenwick was born in St. Mary's County, Md., in 1768. Having been sent, at the age of sixteen, to. the Dominican College, Bornheim, in Flanders, he went through his studies with distinction, and, feeling called to the religious life, entered the Order of St. Dominic as a novice. When the armies of revolu- tionary France overran the low countries, the convent was seized, and Father Fenwick and his brethren were thrown into prison as Englishmen. Procuring his release as an American citizen, he joined the Dominicans of his province in England; but, as he was desirous of laboring in his native land, he obtained from the Very Rev. General of the Order permission to conduct a colony of Friars Preachers to the United States. He was chosen Superior of the new mission and sailed for this country with three Fathers. Bishop Carroll welcomed them and assigned them to duty in Kentucky. Their mission soon ex- tended to Ohio, where many scattered Catholics were found. January 13, 1822, he was consecrated the first Bishop of Cincinnati. While devotedly perform- . ing the duty of the good shepherd, he was stricken down by cholera, but rallied sufficiently to continue his journey. He was soon again seized by his old enemy, and died September 26, 1832, at Wooster, Ohio."
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" He, the young and strong, who cherished Noble longings for the strife,. By the roadside fell and perished, Weary with the march of life."
It is during the visits of Father Fenwick to Bloom- ing Rose that a few Indians were instructed and baptized. This mission at one time numbered prob- ably ten or fifteen Indian communicants. That we may fully understand how this occurred, we must turn for a moment to profane history. It is his- torically settled that "the Indians who roamed over the upper section of Maryland belonged to the Shaw- anese tribe, a subdivision of the Algonquin group. In 1682, when William Penn made his treaty with the Indians, in the neighborhood of the present city of Philadelphia, the Shawanese were a party to the treaty, in common with the other tribes, who com- posed the great nation of Algonquins."
In 1854, the remnant of the Shawanese tribe in the Indian Territory had dwindled down to about nine hundred. It may be surprising to many that the Indians were still roaming in the extreme west- ern portion of Maryland when Cumberland and Mt. Savage had already grown to good-sized, industrial towns. The reason of this is very simple. After the close of the French and Indian war, by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, a large territory was ceded to England. On April 16, 1764, instructions were issued to the land office that the Proprietary was desirous
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of having ten thousand acres of land reserved as a manor or national park, to be located west of Fort Cumberland. As a consequence of these instructions, the land was not appropriated by white men until it was divided into military lots long after the Revo- lutionary war. The Indians were consequently per- mitted to roam unmolested over this vast mountain territory. There are a few men and women still living in Garrett County who remember meeting wandering Indians in the mountains, and to them the departure of the red man seems only as of yesterday.
The Indian converts of Blooming Rose were not of the most hope-inspiring class. Tradition says that when they went to church, they were nearly always late, and, as a rule, they fell asleep during Mass. It should be said, however, in charity to the red man, that these faults are by no means confined to Indian Catholics.
In 1823, Rev. Thomas Heyden, of Bedford, Pa., paid a visit to Blooming Rose; this is to be understood as a mere friendly visit to the Edwards family, to whom he was related. Father Heyden baptized a number of children ; tradition says that one evening he baptized ten, ranging from three days to three years old. He preached nearly every evening during his visit, his pulpit being the steps of the Edwards farm-house; the men, in the meantime, made them- selves comfortable lying on the grass, and they showed their appreciation of the eloquence of the
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young preacher by frequent shouts of uproarious applause.
Father Heyden was ordained priest at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, by Rt. Rev. Bishop Conwell, of Philadelphia, in 1821. He was looked upon as one of the leading priests of his day in Western Pennsyl- vania. He was a bosom friend of the Rev. Prince Galitzin, whose life and labor he has sketched in a graphic and charming biography. We have the authority of the learned Church historian, John Gil- mary Shea, for asserting that Father Heyden was named Bishop of Natchez, but declined the honor. Tradition says he was a charming character.
Rev. Timothy Ryan visited Blooming Rose and preached a mission during the year 1824. He was pastor of Hagerstown, Cumberland, Mt. Savage and Blooming Rose. This is the only remembered visit of Father Ryan to the Garrett County mission.
In 1825, Rev. Charles Constantine Pise visited Bloom- ing Rose, and remained probably two months or more. It was about this time that the little congre- gation began to arrange for the building of their new church.
Father Pise was born at Annapolis, Md., November 22, 1801. As a young man, he joined the Society of Jesus, and was sent to Rome to finish his studies of theology, but, on account of his father's death, he was compelled to return home. He soon afterwards entered St. Mary's Seminary, of Baltimore, where he was ordained priest by Archbishop Marechal in 1825.
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He was appointed assistant priest at the Baltimore Cathedral, and it is while he filled this position that Father Pise visited Blooming Rose. Later he was appointed to St. Matthew's Church, Washington, where he was elected chaplain of the United States Senate. He died May 26, 1858, as pastor of St. Charles' Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Father Pise was a prolific writer, an accomplished linguist, a polished gentleman. He published an ex- tensive essay on the History of the Church in This Country. He was a notoriously ardent American, and has given lasting expression to his patriotism in a number of poems, the best known of which is as follows :
THE AMERICAN FLAG.
" They say I do not love thee, Flag of my native land,
Whose meteor-folds above me To the free breeze expand ; Thy broad stripes proudly streaming, And thy stars so brightly gleaming.
They say I would forsake thee Should some dark crisis lower ; That, recreant, I should make thee Crouch to a foreign power; Seduced by license ample, On thee, blest flag, to trample.
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False are the words they utter, Ungenerous their brand, And rash the oaths they mutter, Flag of my native land ; While still, in hope, above me, Thou wavest, and I love thee !
They say that bolts of thunder, Hurled by the Pontiff's hand, May rive and bring thee under, Flag of my native land, And with one blow dissever My heart from thee forever.
God's is my first love's duty, To whose eternal Name Be praise for all thy beauty, Thy grandeur and thy fame; But ever have I reckoned Thine, native flag, its second.
Woe to the foe or stranger Whose sacrilegious hand Would touch thee or endanger, Flag of my native land ! Though some would fain discard me, Mine should be raised to guard thee.
Then wave, thou first of banners, And in thy genial shade Let creeds, opinions, manners, In love and peace be laid ; And there, all discord ended, Our hearts and souls be blended."
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During the year 1826, the people were visited by the Rev. Father Francis Roloff, who seems to have given much of his time to the Blooming Rose mission. He spent nearly all the summer months with the Edwards family. From Garrett County he was moved to Wheeling, W. Va., and thus became the first priest attending the mission, which has since become the Wheeling Cathedral parish.
During the five years following, Rev. Francis X. Marshall attended the missions. Father Marshall has the honor of building the first Catholic church erected in Garrett County. The church was finished in the autumn of 1827. There is no record of the laying of the corner-stone, no record of the dedication, no record of the sermon, no word of the music; tradition simply says "that the people were glad that they had at last a decent church." But this much we know, without a written record, that the little church of Blooming Rose nestled amid nature's rarest beauty, amid a variety of autumnal colors defying the brush of painter. Ruby-tinted and sombre-leafed vines, grand old maples, plumed in sunset glow, grouped in relief against the deep-shaded, green pines, were the frame for this first little Catholic chapel. We are certain, too, that the good priest and his little congregation had no opportunity to have their picture taken, be- cause the daguerreotype was not known until ten years later, and photographs were not printed until twenty years afterwards. The music, probably, was not grand, because, at that time, there was not an
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organ or piano in the county. There were few, if any, letters written to describe the opening of the new church, because nearly all the congregation were illiterate and goose-quills were the only pens known. The newspapers said nothing about the great event, because the salutatory of the Glades Star, Garrett County's first journal, was not written until forty years afterwards; and yet everything Catholic was there in the modest-looking little church. The candles glim- mered at the altar; the shadow of the sanctuary lamp fell, night after night, on the rough walls; the autumn breezes wafted the incense of the dying flowers; the faithful people said the same old fervent prayers that apostles had recited amid the rattle of their chains and martyrs had sung above burning fire; and when Father Marshall's voice was heard in the sweet old language of Church, "Domine, non sum dignus," the few adorers approached the rude wooden altar to re- ceive Holy Communion, making up, by redoubled fervor, for the absence of ceremony and splendor.
In the summer of 1828, the Sacrament of Confirma- tion was administered at Blooming Rose for the first time, and the confirming pontiff was the illustrious, self-sacrificing, pioneer bishop of the West, Rt. Rev. Benedict Joseph Flaget, of Bardstown, Ky. The visit of Bishop Flaget is well remembered; he baptized Israel Garlitz, of Avilton, Garrett County, and Father Marshall stood as godfather. Mr. Garlitz was very proud of the circumstances in which he was engrafted on Christ, and he was, of course, fond of speaking of
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"Bishop" Fla-gette, "the first bishop." There is a tradition among the people that the holy bishop blessed the boiling spring near McHenry. It does not seem at all strange that Bishop Flaget should have confirmed at Blooming Rose during the summer of 1828, because he made two journeys over the National Pike when he was going to Baltimore to `consecrate Archbishop Whitfield, and when returning to his diocese of Bardstown. Bishop Flaget was sixty-five years of age. The journey from Baltimore to Bardstown in a stage-coach was at best a tiresome one, and a short stop at Blooming Rose was both rest and recreation for the grand old missionary. It is said that Bishop Flaget again visited the mission in 1829. It is probable that he was on his way to Balti- more to attend the First Provincial Council, or on his way home from Baltimore.
Dr. Shea says of this saintly bishop: "Benedict Joseph Flaget was born November 7, 1763, at Con- tournat, France, of a family of pious farmers; his father died before his birth, and his mother did not long survive. Trained by a good aunt, young Flaget entered college at Billom, and in time passed to the University of Clermont to study for the priesthood, as his elder brother had already done. The famous Seminary of St. Sulpice attracted him, and, com- pleting a thorough course there, Benedict Joseph was ordained priest and joined the community. He was for some years professor of dogmatic and subsequently of moral theology in the Seminary of Nantes till the
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French Revolution broke up all institutions of the kind. The good priest then sought refuge with his family at Billom, but he felt called to the American missions, and, with the consent of his Superior, Rev. Mr. Emery, sailed for Baltimore in 1792. Bishop Carroll wel- comed the learned clergyman and sent him to Vin- cennes, where a French priest was needed. Journeying by wagon and flat-boat, performing missionary duty wherever he could on the route, Rev. Mr. Flaget reached Vincennes December 21, 1792. Religion had declined so that, with all his exhortations, only twelve received Holy Communion on Christmas Day. He labored earnestly to revive religion at Vincennes and other little centres of population, where the people had for years been deprived of all spiritual succor.
In 1798, he visited Cuba with the view of estab- lishing a house of the Sulpitian body on that island, but this design being frustrated, he returned to Balti- more with a number of Cubans who desired to enter St. Mary's College. The next eight years were spent as professor in the college or in mission duties con- nected with the church and parish attached to it. The arrival of the Trappists in America awakened in his heart a desire to fly from the world and all its vicissitudes and seek peace in the silent cloisters of that austere Order, but he never attained his wish. When the diocese of Baltimore, which originally em- braced all the thirteen United States, was divided in 1807, and new Sees erected, Bishop Carroll recom- mended the Rev. Mr. Flaget for the See of Bards-
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town, Kentucky. The good priest at once begged Archbishop Carroll to obtain his release from the dreadful burden, and, failing to do so, went to Europe for the same object. Yielding at last to the will of the Sovereign Pontiff, he was consecrated in the Cathedral, Baltimore, by Archbishop Carroll, assisted by Bishops Cheverus and Eagan, on November 4, 1810. Friends made up means to enable the Bishop, apos- tolic in his poverty, to reach the diocese for which he had been consecrated. It comprised the State of Kentucky, then containing a thousand Catholics, with ten churches and three priests; Indiana and Michigan, with Tennessee, were also confided to his care. . He took up his residence in a log-cabin sixteen feet square, and began his labors. The congregations in the diocese were frequently visited, a seminary was begun, Confirmation given.
On the night of February 10, 1850, he became rest- less and slightly delirious. At noon the next day, Bishop Spalding, attended by the eleven priests of the city, administered the Holy Viaticum and Extreme Unction to the venerable prelate, who was in full pos- session of his faculties. He followed the profession of faith, read by his secretary, and, after a few words expressing his ardent attachment to his clergy, re- ligious and people, he gave his last solemn episcopal benediction. After this his lips moved in prayer, he pressed the crucifix to his lips, and, at half-past five in the evening of the 11th, calmly expired without a struggle.
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