USA > Maryland > Old Catholic Maryland and its early Jesuit missionaries > Part 10
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Father Mosley kept a very faithful record of all mar- riages, burials, baptisms, and conversions. He also took note of the numbers of confessions he heard, and the
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number of times he distributed the Holy Eucharist. In his Note-Book we find : "Confessions received at Easter and Communicants from ye year 1759 to A. D. 1787." During the Easter-time of the year 1759, in St. Joseph's Forest, he heard 1078 confessions. Out of this number 945 were communicants. At Easter, 1760 and 1761, the number of confessions and communions was nearly the same as in 1759. It seems that in 1762 he was no longer in St. Joseph's Forest, for in that year he states that he heard 955 confessions " in Sakia and New- port." In 1763, and up to August in 1764, he continued to labor with much fruit at Sakia and Newport.
If the zeal of Father Mosley was great while among the Catholics of St. Mary's County, it burst into a bright and all-consuming flame on his arrival on the Eastern Shore. Here he found few members of the true fold. And sad it is to relate, that some who had been brought up in the. Catholic Faith had grown cold, and others, alas, had fallen away altogether from the Church. One of the principal causes of these losses was the lack of priests and Catholic teachers, Persecution, too, had much to do with them. "There is reason to believe," writes the historian of Cecil County, " that the Protest- ants of Sassafras Neck, Middle Neck, and Bohemia Manor petitioned the legislature at the session of 1756, praying that stringent measures might be taken against the Jesuits. At all events the lower house at this'session was about to pass a very stringent bill prohibiting the importation of Irish Papists via Delaware, under a pen- alty of £20 each, and denouncing any Jesuit or Popish · priest as a traitor who tampered with any of his Majes- ty's subjects in the colony.", It is true, that, owing to
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the governor's " having prorogued the legislature shortly after it was introduced," the bill did not pass; but still private, petty, harassing, cunning persecutions went on everywhere in Cecil County. It is no wonder then that' · under the bonnet of a Quaker lady could be seen the meek face of a little Rachel Murphy ; it is no wonder that one sometimes met a gentleman with a broad- brimmed hat who was known to his neighbors as Eph- raim O'Keefe. Among the converts made by Father Mosley I find a Rachel McGonigal. Among the con- verts made by Father John Bolton, after the death of Mosley, I find Mary O'Keefe, Jonathan Callahan, and "an Irish woman at Mr. Summer's, called Catharine Murphy."
Father James Farrar was enrolled among the sons of St. Ignatius in 1725. His name occurs for the first time in old catalogues for the Maryland Mission in the year 1733. He was in Newtown in 1742. I find his name mentioned in that year in the Newtown Day Book. He was professed of the four vows in 1743. He returned to England, probably in 1747. According to Oliver he died at Hooton in Cheshire, on the 18th day of July, 1753, at the age of fifty-seven. He was buried in the Chancel of Eastham.
Father James Ashby, alias Middlehurst, was born in Lancashire on the 18th of October, 1714. He made his noviceship at Watten, that favorite home of religious fervor. Four years after his entrance into the Society, he was probably a priest before becoming a Jesuit, we find him on the Maryland Mission laboring with Fathers Richard Molyneux, Bennet Neale, James Farrar, and Thomas Poulton. During his missionary life in South-
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ern Maryland he was stationed in various places. At one time we find him laboring zealously at St. Inigoes ; again we find him at St. Thomas', and again at Newtown. In the Catalogue for 1758 we find "James Ashby, late of Newtown." Father Ashby spent several years at this latter place, and to his labors the people there are in- debted for the present Newtown Church. He also built a house at St. Inigoes for the Fathers. This structure was of solid brick and contained twelve rooms. It was unfortunately burned down some years ago, and in its destruction were lost many documents and books which would help to throw much light upon St. Inigoes' his- toric Residence.
Father Ashby died at Newtown on the 23d of Septem- ber, 1767. . He lies beside the church he had labored so hard to build. His name, it is sad to say, is forgotten in Britton's Neck, though he it was who gave that con- gregation the church in which they have for many gen- erations knelt to worship God. To Father George Fenwick's notes I am indebted for the knowledge that Father Ashby was the builder of the present church at Newtown.
In the old Newtown Note-Book I find the name of George Thorold. This was one of the most laborious of all the missionaries of Southern Maryland. He toiled faithfully and ardently in the Mission for the space of forty-two years.
Father George Thorold was born of a wealthy family in Berks, February 11th, 1670. Having reached his twenty-first year he renounced the world, and all worldly advantages, and consecrated himself to religion by enter- ing the Society of Jesus. Before coming to America he
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had been chaplain at Michaelgate, Bar Convent, York. The missioners of the Yorkshire District lived in per- petual danger. "After London," it is said, "York was more deeply dyed in the blood of English martyrs than any city in England." From this we can deduce what manner of life Father Thorold led while on the English Mission. It was in York Castle that the martyred Fa- ther Nicholas Postgate, while a prisoner, composed the touching and beautiful verses beginning with the stanza :
" O gracious God, O Savious meek, O Jesus, think of me, And suffer me to kiss Thy feet, Though late I come to Thee."
The hymn is still used in the wild moorlands of Ug- thorpe. We wonder if Father Thorold did not teach it to his people on the banks of St. Mary's River or down by St. Clement's Bay? Towards the end of his long missionary life how appropriate this verse would be on the lips of the venerable priest himself :
"My wearied wings, sweet Jesus, mark, And when thou thinkest best, Stretch forth Thy hand out of the ark, And take me to Thy rest."
We may reasonably suppose that there was scarcely a congregation in Southern Maryland which did not enjoy the care and zeal of Father Thorold. In 1725 he was appointed Superior of the Mission. This position he held for about nine years. He died, crowned with labors and merits, on the 15th of November, 1742.
Father George was probably brother to Edmund or
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Epiphanius Thorold, alias Turner, who was distinguished in the home missions, and who was for a time Superior of the Mission of Market Rasen, in the College of St. Hugh.
I find also the name of James Whitgreave in the old Newtown Note-Book. Father James Whitgreave was the son of Thomas Whitgreave, Esq., of Mosley, County Stafford, and his wife Isabella, daughter of William Turville, Esq., of Aston-Flamville. His father's second wife was Isabella, daughter and co-heir of Sir Aston Cokayne, Kt., of Pooley, County Warwick. On his maternal side Father Whitgreave had several kinsmen who were distinguished and holy members of the Society of Jesus.
Moseley, the birthplace of James Whitgreave, was a hamlet near Wolverhampton. " The original abode of the Whitgreave family was at Whitgreave near Stafford, where in the time of Henry II. ' Clemens Filius Huberti de Whitgreave ' gave to the Priory of St Thomas, on the river Sow, eight acres of land in the territory of Whit- greave. The family continued at Whitgreave till the . time of Henry IV., when William de Whitgreave who had married Joan, granddaughter and heiress of David de Malplas, was appointed bailiff of Stafford, to which town he removed. Robert, one of the younger sons, became an officer in the royal Exchequer, and Escheator of the County of Stafford, and in the former capacity accompanied Henry V. into France. He bought the Manors of Burton and Bridgford, with other estates in the county of Stafford, as also the manor of Longford in Shropshire, and settled at Burton near Stafford. His grandson, another Robert, in the time of Henry VIII.,
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received the manor of Bridgford for his portion as a second son, and married Dorothy Noel of Hilcott, in the county of Stafford. Their fourth son, Thomas, by his marriage in the time of James I., with Alice, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Pitt, a ' merchant of the Staple ' acquired the estate of Moseley, which passed to his only son, Thomas. This gentleman became an officer in the royal army during the Civil Wars, and had the honor of sheltering in his house Charles II., after the battle of Worcester. On the Restoration he received a pension from the King, and was appointed gentleman Usher to the Queen, Catharine of Braganza. His only surviving son, Thomas, married Isabel Turville, and had besides other children, Thomas and James, who became priests of the Society of Jesus. The present Henry Whit- greave, Esq., of Moseley, his brothers and sisters are the great, great, great-grandchildren of Thomas Whitgreave above mentioned, who saved the life of his Sovereign. The old house at Moseley (built in the time of Elizabeth) in which Charles was sheltered, and the priest's hiding- place there in which he took refuge, when his life was endangered by a threatened search from the Puritans, still exist.
" The mission at Moseley was served by the Fathers of the Society till its suppression, and to them the family is indebted for the consolations of religion during the darkest days of persecution in England."
The story of how the grandfather of Father Whit- greave saved the life of King Charles is very romantic. As it will help to throw some light upon the early home of our missionary in old England we shall give it in as few words as possible : After the defeat of the royal army
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at Worcester, the King was obliged to fly for his life to the woods and fields. Searches were made for him by the Puritans on all sides. For a time the royal fugitive, with his hair cut short, and wearing "an old green woodriff's coat, and a white steeple crown hat," labored in the woods with a peasant, and concealed himself at night in a tree, which was long afterwards known as the Royal Oak. The friends of his Majesty soon sought out for him a more suitable dwelling-place. This was the house of Thomas Whitgreave upon whose loyalty and fidelity the King could fully depend. Charles rode up to Whitgreave's on a mill horse. He was received respectfully by that gentleman and Mr. Hudleston, "a priest of the Holy Order of St. Bennet," who resided at Moseley House.
"For the better security of his Majesty's retreat, Mr. Whitgreave sent all his servants betimes in the morning, each to their several employments abroad, except one cook maid, a Catholic, who dressed their diet ; and it was farther pretended Mr. Hudleston had a cavalier friend or relation, newly escaped from Worcester, who lay pri- vately in his chamber unwilling to be seen. So that this grand secret was imparted to none in the house but Mr. Whitgreave's mother, whom my Lord Wilmot presented to the King, and whom his Majesty graciously saluted and confided in. At that time Mr. Hudleston had with him at Mosely under his tuition, young Sir John Preston, and two other youths, Mr. Thomas Palin and Mr. Francis Reynolds, nephews to Mr. Whitgreave. These he placed at several windows in the garrets from whence they had a prospect of all the passages from all parts to the house, with strict charge given them to
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bring timely notice of any, whether soldiers or others that came near the house, and herein the boys were as exact and vigilant as any sentinel could be on his guard." While the king was engaged in eating, which he did in the Priest's Room, he was waited on by Mr. Hudleston and Mr. Whitgreave, while " old Mistress Whitgreave was called in and commanded to sit down and carve," for her royal guest.
Mistress Whitgreave seems to have been a lady of great benevolence. Many of the poor soldiers who were maimed and wounded at Worcester sought relief at her door, and these she took into her house, and with great tenderness and charity washed and dressed their bleeding scars. During the King's concealment " he was pleased to inquire how Roman Catholics lived under the present usurped Government ; Mr. Hudleston told him they were persecuted on account of their religion and loyalty, yet his Majesty should see they did not neglect the duties of their Church; hereupon he carried him upstairs, and showed him the Chapel, little, but neat and decent. The King, looking respectfully upon the altar, and regarding the crucifix, and silver candlesticks upon it, said : 'He had an altar, crucifix, and silver candlesticks of his own, till my Lord of Holland broke them, which (added the King) he hath now paid for."
One afternoon a party of the rebels unexpectedly came to search Moseley for Mr. Whitgreave; their approach was timely discovered and a servant came running up stairs towards the chamber where the King lay, and cried out-" Soldiers, soldiers are coming !" Upon this the King was immediately conveyed by Mr. Whitgreave into the private place or receptacle before mentioned,
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which always stood open and ready in case of contin- gencies for his Majesty's retreat. And Mr. Whitgreave, to prevent further search, and thereby secure the King from hazard of discovery, generously went down and exposed himself to the sight and fury of the soldiers, who violently seized upon him and would have hurried him to prison as a person engaged for the King in Wor- cester fight, but he assured them that he had been a long time sick and infirm at home, and called in the neighbors to attest the same; wherefore, after much dispute, they at length let him go and departed. When they had quitted the town, and not before, Mr. Whitgreave re- turned, and with Mr. Hudleston, helped the King out of his confinement, and attended him in his chamber. Mr. Hudleston knew the King was acquainted with his char- acter and function, and consequently also of his being obnoxious to the sanguinary laws, and therefore said : "Your Majesty is in some sort in the same condition with me now, liable. to dangers and perils, but I hope God, that brought you hither, will preserve you here, and that you will be safe in this place as in any castle of your dominions." The King addressing himself both to Mr. Whitgreave and Mr. Hudleston, replied : " If it please God I come to my crown, both you and all of your per- suasion shall have as much liberty as any of my sub- jects."
How badly King Charles kept his promise is well known to all who are acquainted with English history.
Father James Whitgreave was born March the 14th, 1698. His humanities were made at St. Omer's, and his novitiate, which he began in his seventeenth year, at the Jesuit House at Watten. He came to Maryland in his
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twenty-sixth year, and labored strenuously in that Mis- sion for the space of fourteen years. A part of this time he spent at Bohemia Manor. In 1738 he returned to England and became a missioner in the College of St. Chad (his native County of Stafford), being declared its Rector in 1743. The ancient town of Wolverhampton, it is stated, was the headquarters of St. Chad's College or District. In the year 996 a monastery was founded there by Wulfrana, sister of King Edgar, and widow of Aldhelm, Duke of Northampton, in honor of whom this town, previously called Hampton, received the appelation of Wulfranis-Hampton, of which its present name is a corruption. The monastery continued until the year I200, when it was surrendered to Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, and was subsequently annexed by Edward IV. to the Deanery of Windsor. On the revival of reli- gion on the accession of James II., the English Jesuits had a flourishing College, and a large residence and chapel at this town. In fact, Wolverhampton was called the Little Rome on account of the great number of Cath- olics there. It was also the seat of the long -lived labors of Father William Atkins, who died a martyr for the Faith in Stafford gaol, 17th of March, 1681, at the age of eighty years, being under sentence of death; and Wolverhampton also had for its missioner for some years the blessed Martyr, Father John Gavin, who suffered at Tyburn.
Father James Whitgreave, after having passed through many dangers and hardships, both in Maryland and in England, passed to a better life- at Moseley, on the 26th day of July, 1750. As already intimated, he had a brother in the Society. This Father labored un-
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ceasingly in the Missions of Salden, of Oxford, and of St. Chad.
Father Joseph Hattersty was born in London on the 15th of October, 1735. He was the son of Joseph Hattersty and Elizabeth Grogan, both fervent Catholics. He entered the English College at Rome as an alumnus in 1749. Four years later on, in company with Father Anthony Lowe, who was afterwards imprisoned by the Revolutionists who had taken Dunkirk, he was admitted to the Society. "After his ordination," says Oliver, " he offered himself with a good and willing mind, and generous heart, for the American Mission." He arrived in Maryland July 12th, 1762. He was working on the Newtown Mission during the years 1768 and 1769. On May the 8th, 1771, he died at Philadelphia, at the early age of thirty-five. The Catalogue, after mentioning his death, adds that he was "a most holy and zealous mis- sioner."
Father Hattersty was one of those zealous Jesuit mis- sionaries who were accustomed to go from St. Joseph's, Philadelphia, into the Southern part of New Jersey. He paid visits to the scattered Catholics of Gloucester and Salem Counties, and no doubt did much good wherever he went.
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CHAPTER IX.
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Father Vincent Phillips was for some time at New- town. I find his name in a few places in the old Note- Book of that house. He was a native of Worcestershire and was born on the 23d of September, 1698. His noviceship was made at Watten. This he began in his nineteenth year. After his ordination he was sent from the Continent back to England and served the Missions in the London and Suffolk Districts. Probably no district of the English Province of the Society suffered so severely as the College of St. Ignatius, or the London District .. It contained within its limits the very seat of the persecuting government, with its judicial courts and State prisons, which at one period formed the principal residences of the Fathers, while Tyburn was witness of the deaths of seventeen and St. Paul's Churchyard of one of its martyrs for the Faith, to say nothing of the numbers who died within its prison-walls, noble con- fessors in the same cause. So bitter was the hatred the Puritans bore everything loved and cherished by Cath- olics that they even tore down the old Signs of Redemp- tion that had been raised in the public ways of London during the days of living faith. From an old absurd paper we learn that the Golden Cross in Cheapside was torn down in 1642, and with infamous irreverence carried in funeral procession. More than ordinary
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courage was needed by the missionaries who served in the London District, and this no doubt Father Phillips possessed. While in the Suffolk District this Father was Chaplain at Gifford's Hall, once the seat of the religious Mannock family. This mission was not with- out its dangers, and a very amusing story is told of an Anglican clergyman there who was once mistaken for a Jesuit and nearly stoned to death by an excited mob.
Oliver says that Father Phillips was professed while serving the Maryland Mission, in 1735. About nineteen years afterwards he returned to England and became a missioner in the Oxford District.
Father Phillips died at the home prepared for " veter- ans," at Ghent, in 1760.
Father James Walton was one of the missionaries of Newtown. He is marked in the old catalogues as being in that residence in 1778 and 1780. Father Walton was an humble man, and most zealous in working for the salvation of his neighbor. He seemed to have nothing so much at heart as the advancement in perfection of his spiritual children. Archbishop Carroll, in one of his letters, says that Father Walton was indefatigable in his labors in behalf of those committed to his care. The journey of Father Walton from St. Mary's County to Frederick, where he began to " live alone " on the 27th of June, 1768, must have been indeed a trying one .*
* Father John Williams, a native of Flintshire, Wales, had been at Frederick before the year 1768. On Father Walton's arrival in that town, Father Williams returned to England, where he died, in Monmouthshire, in 1793, or as some say in 1801. Father James Pellentz, who spent ten years at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was at Frederick for eighteen months.
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Mounted on his horse, and in disguise, he had to ride through many a hamlet hostile to Catholics, and espe- cially to Jesuits. To a kind Providence alone he had to trust for food and for shelter, when night came down upon his way. He passed upon his dangerous route many a one who was ready to imbrue his hands in the blood of every Papist priest in the land. But, thanks to God, the holy missionary arrived safely at his place of destination, there to work without tiring for the glory of his Creator and Redeemer.
Father Walton was engaged in missionary work at St. Inigoes for some time. He was the successor of Father Ignatius Matthews. in that residence. He sank from his labors at this last-named place in 1803. His loss was severely felt in the Mission .*
In one of the books of the Newtown. Library I find the name of John Boone. This Father belonged to a fine old Catholic family in Maryland which gave many of its members to the service of the Church. Father John had a cousin and a brother who were members of the Society of Jesus. . Father Joseph, his cousin, was the son of Henry Boone and Miss Spalding, his wife, of Charles County, Maryland. Joseph accompanied his half-sister, Rachel, to Fränce, and went himself to St. Omer's College, and was there educated, ordained, and finally died. Father Edward Boone, Father John's bro- ther, labored zealously on the English Mission, and died
* Bishop Leonard Neale announced Father Walton's death in a letter to Father Marmaduke Stone, Superior in England. In this letter the Bishop says : " The Rev. Mr. Walton is gone to a better life to receive the reward of his faithful and laborious exertions. His loss is severely felt."
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happily at Danby, Yorkshire. Nor were the Boone family wanting in patriotism. One of them, John, was a Lieutenant in the Maryland Line during the Revolution- ary War. Another of the Boones was elected High Sheriff of Maryland. Father John Boone, being ordained, was sent on the Maryland Mission in 1765. About five years later he returned to England and there labored with much fruit for fourteen years. In 1784 he again returned to his beloved Mission. At the meeting of the "Select Body of the Catholic Clergy," held at White Marsh in 1794, he was present. About one year after- wards he yielded up his faithful soul into the hands of his Creator.
It would have been difficult for the English Province to supply its Mission with priests during the Penal Days if God had not called many young Americans, chiefly Marylanders, to work in His vineyard on this side of the Atlantic: The priest of whom we are just going to speak, like the Boarmans, the Sewalls, and the Fenwicks, was a native of Maryland. Ignatius Matthews, being already ordained priest, entered the Society at Watten on the 7th of September, 1763. After his noviceship, and some studies, he was sent, in 1766, to the Maryland Mission. . He was at St. Inigoes 29th March, 1784. He died at Newtown, May the 1 1th, 1790, at the age of sixty. I have been informed that there is a fair picture of this Father in a private residence at Washington. It is in India ink, and is the work of Ethelbert Cecil, a young artist, whose great talent was lost for want of encourage- ment and proper cultivation. The artist represents Fa- ther Matthews as a venerable, yet hale man. He is in
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the act of delivering a sermon to his congregation in the Newtown Church.
Father Ralph Falkner was a native of Maryland. It is likely that he made his humanities at the school opened by the Jesuits at Bohemia in 1745 or 1746. It may be well to remark here that it was in this school that Archbishop Carroll made a part of his studies. It is also probable that his cousin, Charles Carroll, of Car- rollton, also studied here for some time.
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