USA > Maryland > Old Catholic Maryland and its early Jesuit missionaries > Part 6
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* These schools have probably the honor of being the first of their kind established in Maryland.
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The following graphic description of Father Fitzher- bert's journey to Maryland may prove interesting :
" 1654. This year Father Francis Fitzherbert, destined for Maryland, at the first intimation of our Superior, entered without a single companion, but with great mag- nanimity and alacrity, upon an arduous expedition, and a long and laborious journey among strangers differing wholly in morals and religion. Nor, during his entire expedition, did he lack an abundant harvest of merit, through his confidence in God and his extraordinary patience. Four ships sailed together from England, but were overtaken by a fearful storm as they were passing the Western Isles, and the ship which carried the Father was so shattered that, springing a leak in battling with the continued violence of the sea, the pump became almost useless. Four men at a time, not only from the ship's crew, but from among the passengers also, were kept constantly working at the great pump, each one in turn day and night.
" Having changed the course, their intention was to make sail towards Barbadoes, but no art or labor could accomplish this, and so they decided on abandoning the ship and committing themselves with their wares to the long boat. As, however, the swelling sea and huge waves prevented this also, many a form of death presented itself to their minds and the habit of terror, now grown a familiar thought, had almost excluded the particular fear of death. The tempest lasted in all two months, whence the opinion arose that it did not come from the storm of sea or sky, but was occasioned by the malevolence of demons. Forthwith they seized a little old woman sus- pected of sorcery, and after examining her with the
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strictest severity, they killed her, whether guilty or not guilty, as the suspected cause of all the evil. The corpse and whatever belonged to her they cast into the sea. However, the winds did not in consequence abate their violence, nor did the raging sea smooth. its threatening billows. To the troubles of the storm sickness was added next, which attacked almost every person and carried off not a few. The Father himself escaped untouched by the disease, but in working at the pump somewhat too laboriously, he contracted a slight fever of a few days' continuance. Having passed through multiplied dan- gers, at length, by the favor of God, the ship reached the port of Maryland."
A regular chapel was probably built in the time of Father Fitzherbert, at Newtown. In the trial of this Father at St. Leonard's Creek, the 5th of October, 1658, one of the charges brought against him was that he tried to force Dr. Thomas Gerrard, the proprietor of St. Cle- ment's Manor, Bedlam Neck, to go to church on Sun- days. Father Fitzherbert seems to have been a very zealous missionary. This is proved by the very charges * brought against him by the enemies of religion in his time. He was a man of courage and resolve, and we owe him a debt of deep gratitude, on account of the noble course he pursued during his famous trial. Being accused, among other things, of preaching and teaching at Newtown and Chaptico, he neither denied nor acknow-
* We learn from the indictment of Father. Fitzherbert that he was fond of preaching to his people, and that he was not unwilling to address even Protestant audiences. He was very zealous in spreading Catholic books and Catechisms all around him. Henry Coursey accuses him of saying that " he must be directed by his conscience more than by the law of any country."
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ledged the charge, but defended himself under the plea that " by the very first law of this country, Holy Church, within this province, shall have and enjoy all her rights, liberties, and franchises, wholly and without blemish, amongst which that of preaching and teaching is not the least. Neither imports it what church is there meant ; as by the true intent of the Act concerning religion, every church professing to believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is accounted Holy Church here. Because by the act entitled 'An Act Concerning Religion,' it is provided that no person whatsoever, professing.to believe in Jesus Christ shall be molested for or in respect of his or her religion, or the free exercise thereof. And undoubtedly preaching and teaching is the free exercise of every churchman's religion. And upon this I crave judgment."
The decision of the court was favorable to Father Fitzherbert. It is given in the following terms: "The opinion of the Board is, that it is neither rebellion nor mutiny to utter such words alledged in the 4th article, if it were proved." 1
In 1658 Father Thomas Payton came to labor on the Maryland Mission. This Father was a native of Lin- colnshire, England, and was born in the year 1607. He entered the Society in 1630. His first priestly labors, we believe, were as camp missioner in Belgium. In 1649 he was employed in the London District, and six years later on we find him employed as missioner in the Hants District. Having spent one year and a half of zealous toils in Maryland, he was obliged on account of special business to return to England. Returning again to his Maryland Mission he died on the voyage, January the 12th, 1660.
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CHAPTER IV.
In 1661, that is about twelve years before Father Mar- quette floated down the Mississippi in his birch-bark canoe, and about twenty-one years before La Salle made his way to the Gulf of Mexico, Father Henry Warren,* alias Pelham, completed with distinction his fourth year of theology in one of the English Colleges on the Euro- pean Continent. Immediately afterwards he was sent on the "happy Mission of Maryland." On his arrival, accord- ing to some old documents, he obtained a conveyance of all Church property from Mr. Fenwick to himself, "Mr. Copley's successor." On October the 6th, 1662, he pro- cured the Patent of St. Thomas' Manor from Dr. Thomas Matthews.
Henry Warren was a native of "brave old Kent," in England. He was born in 1635, and was of good family. He was probably the brother of Father William, who, at the age of nineteen, was converted to the Catholic Faith by a priest in England. William was not a Jesuit, as Oliver erroneously states, but a pious and devoted sec- ular priest. It was to him that Father Barton referred when he said: " Father Warren was a man who never sinned in Adam."
* Father Warren was the son of William Warren and his wife Anne Downes. He entered the Society in 1652, being then about seventeen years of age.
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Henry, having arrived at his seventeenth year, en- tered the Society. In February, 1670, he was professed of the four vows. Ile was in Maryland at the time of his profession, as we find him named Superior of the Mission in 1665. After laboring for some years in Mary- land he was recalled to England. During the remainder of his life he was obliged to live in the midst of dangers and hardships. He lived in the midst of persecution. The old block that is now on exhibition in London Tower was then red and wet with the blood of his breth- ren. He was the minister of a proscribed creed, and went on his duties with a price set upon his head. He was in England during the bloody Revolution of 1688. Just before this unhappy event great efforts were made to gain a firm footing at Oxford for the Fathers. If this could be done great hopes might be entertained of stem- ming the flood of heresy and corruption that deluged the fair garden of the Church in England. Father War- ren was one of the Fathers chosen for this difficult, dan- gerous, and important task. Among the distinguished Catholics at that time in Oxford were William Joyner, the uncle of Father Thomas Phillips, an author of repute, and John Dryden, who but a short period before had written of the Church as
" A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged."
The arrival of William of Orange in England quickly dashed the hopes of the Catholics to the ground. The Revolutionary storm burst forth, and Persecution once more drew its merciless and blood-stained sword. Throughout all England, but especially in Oxford, the
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Catholics were hunted down and trampled upon. The following letter from Father Warren, written some time after, will help to give us an idea of the state of things around him. The letter was sent to the Provincial, Fa- ther John Clare (Sir John Warner, Bart.), and is couched in disguised terms for prudence' sake :
OXFORD, 2d May, 1690.
HON. SIR :- You are desirous to know how things are with us in these troublesome times, since trade (religion) is so much decayed. I can only say that in the general decline of trade we have had our share. For, before this turn, we were in a very hopeful way, for we had three public shops (chapels) open in Oxford. One did wholly belong to us, and good custom we had, viz : the Univer- sity (University College Chapel) ; but now it's shut up ; the master was taken, and ever since in prison, and the rest forced to abscond. In Mag. (Magdalen College) we had one good man in a good station, and in time might have had more concern ; but now, all is blown over, and our master, Thomas Beckett, one evening was thrown down in the kennel, trampled upon, and had been killed, had not one, upon the noise, come up with a candle. In Christ Church, though we had no man, yet the mas- ter was reconciled by us, and in a short time would have taken one (of the Society), but now he is fled, and the shop shut up. In other places all were forced to fly, and ever since to hide for fear of the law. Mr. Luson (Father Edward Levison) was so closely pursued, that , he was forced to quit his horse, and by ways full of water and dirt to walk in his boots, twenty-two hours together, sometimes up to the middle, so that before he could reach
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any place to rest in security, the blood was settled in his feet. No rents are paid, and worse things we expect, if some better settlement be not soon found out ; of which we are still in some hope. Thus, in short, I have sent you what I know, and am, honoured sir,
Your very humble servant,
HENRY PELHAM.
To be a priest in those times, to be a priest who was faithful to his God, required no ordinary courage. He, who, like Father Warren, was true to his vocation during the Penal Days, "that dark time of cruel wrong," was undoubtedly a hero, an apostle, a noble soldier of the Cross. In 1701 we find Father Warren still laboring in the Oxfordshire District. The Catholics at that period who claimed his ministrations were not numerous, but they were far apart, and he was obliged to serve them in secret, and at the peril of his life.
The Superior of St. Mary's Residence, the headquart- ers of Father Warren, and from which he sallied forth under the cover of night, and in disguise, to attend his persecuted flock, was Father Francis Hildesley, a man "who admirably administered the duties of his office." His co-laborers were Fathers John Alcock, alias Gage, Charles Collingwood, Edward Levison, John Mostyn, and Thomas Poulton.
Father Warren was not only a good religious and a fervent missionary, but was also a man of great business capacity. Like Father Copley, he attended to the tem- poral affairs of the Mission, and like him he was prudent and far-seeing. After a long life of constant toils and sufferings, he crowned his days with a peaceful and
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happy death in the scene of his last labors on June the 7th, 1702, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
The name of Father Peter Manners appears in the Catalogue for 1664.
I will here take the liberty of citing some extracts from the Maryland Annual Letters :
1669. Two Fathers have charge of the Maryland Mission ; a third, Father Peter Manners, was suddenly taken from amongst us in the beginning of his fruitful labors, no less to the regret than to the loss of the in- habitants. To repair our deficiency, two priests and a temporal coadjutor were sent over this autumn, so that the Mission now comprises four priests and three tem- . poral coadjutors.
Father Peter Manners, vere Pelcon, who was one of the most zealous of the missionary Fathers, was unhap- pily drowned in crossing a river. The Provincial, Fa- ther Joseph Simeon, has left us the following description of him :
Father Peter Manners was a native of Norfolk, thirty- eight years of age. He spent twelve years in the So- ciety, most of them in the Maryland Mission, with great zeal and fruit. He ended his days on Wednesday in tlie Easter week of this year (April 24th, 1669), by a sudden but not an unprovided death. Obedience directed him to it, and charity consummated his course, even amidst the waters, which could not extinguish his charity, though they did extinguish his life. For having been summoned to a distant call of duty, whilst crossing a rapid mill- stream, which had become unusually swollen by the rains, lie, together with his horse, was carried away by
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the torrent . and drowned. He was deeply regretted by his people.
John Pennington was born in 1647 in the city of Lon- don. Of the Jesuits that he saw in his youthful days he could tell many a strange story. The terrible fate that had befallen many of them whom young Pennington had met did not deter him from following their example. It rather incited him the more to enter their ranks in the hope of one day attaining the martyr's crown. Perse- cution only adds to the courage and generosity of every true child of the Church. So in his nineteenth year, John Pennington put on bravely and cheerfully the pro- scribed mantle of the Jesuit, in the Novitiate of Watten.
Watten* is about two leagues distant from St. Omer. In 1625 the English Jesuit Novitiate was removed from Liége to that place. In 1702, Clementia, Countess of Flanders, founded a church at Watten in honor of the Blessed .Virgin, St. Nicholas, and St. Richerius; and to this was subsequently attached a College of Regular Canons. On its dissolution, St. Pius V. annexed it to the newly-founded See of St. Omer. With the consent of the Dean and Chapter, and of the Court of Brussels, the Church and Manor, with a revenue of three thousand florins, were conveyed in perpetuity by the Bishop, James
* A report for 1705 observes : Although this house (Watten No- vitiate), buried in the remote solitude of the mountain, would seem to be rather devoted to the study of the interior life alone, never- theless the novices once a week gave catechism and Christian doctrine in the villages to the distance of two or three German miles. On the greater feasts one thousand, and often one thou- sand two hundred from these villages flocked to the church to re- ceive the holy sacraments, which might well be styled the sanctu- ary of those rural districts.
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Blase, O. S. F., for the Novitiate of the English Jesuits. This grant was ratified by the Father-General Aquaviva in 1612.
At Watten our youth learned to deny himself, to fly from worldly grandeur, and to pant after the glory of God. He was carefully exercised in humble offices that he might learn more thoroughly to understand the virtue of humility of spirit. His hours were chiefly spent in pious reading, and in close communion with his Maker by means of mental prayer.
After leaving Watten Father Pennington was sent to Liége to study his theology at the celebrated Jesuit Col- lege in that city. In 1678 he was employed in mission- ary duty in the College* of the Immaculate Conception (Derby District). From England he was sent out to help the missionaries in Maryland, who stood very much in need of fellow-laborers. During the time he was in Maryland some of the Fathers, to their other duties, added that of teaching. In 1677 a school for humanities was opened by the Society, in the centre of the country. It was directed by two of the Fathers. The Annual Letters say : The native youth, applying themselves assiduously to study, make good progress. Maryland and the recently established school sent two boys to St. Omer, who yielded in abilities to few Europeans when
* About thirty-eight years before Father Pennington's time, Fa- ther Henry Wilkinson, in this same residence, was arrested, then committed to prison, and arraigned at the bar, but no sufficient evidence of the priesthood appearing against him, the heretical oath of allegiance was tendered to him, and upon his refusing to take it, he was condemned to the penalty of premunire. After three year's imprisonment he was liberated by some soldiers.
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competing for the honour of being first in their class. So that not gold, nor silver, nor the other products of the earth alone, but men also, are gathered from thence to bring those regions, which foreigners have unjustly called ferocious, to a higher state of virtue and cultivation. Two of the Society were sent out to Maryland this year to assist the laborers in that most ample vineyard of our Lord.
Father John Pennington did not last long amid the fatigues and hardships of the Maryland Mission. He departed this life on the 18th of October, 1685, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. I find him named in some documents as "Mr. John Pennington of St. Clement's Bay." This is sufficient proof that he resided for some time at Newtown. .
The name of Father John Matthews appears in the Catalogue for 1691. This Father was born in London, 1658, and entered the Society on the 9th of October, 1677. After having served the Maryland Mission with fidelity and zeal, he died at Newtown on the 8th of De- cember, 1694, at the age of thirty-six years.
Father William Hunter came to Maryland in 1692, and became Superior of the Mission four years later on. Father Hunter was a native of Yorkshire, and was born in 1659. He entered the Society in his twentieth year. After his ordination he spent one year in missionary labors in England. He died in Maryland, August the 15th, 1723.
Father John Hall, another of the missionaries, came to Maryland in 1692. In 1696 we find him named as Procurator. Before 1698 he returned to Europe and appears as Minister and Professor of Casuistry at Ghent
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for the years 1700 and 1701. Father Hall died at Ghent on the 9th of July, 1703, aged thirty-nine years.
Father James Gonent, a native of Artois, born in 1653, was not destined by Providence to work in the Maryland Mission. This good Father died on the voyage to Am- erica in 1698.
The name of Rev. James Haddock appears in the Catalogue for 1699. His name is also found in some of the old books of the Newtown Library. He belonged to the Order of Minorites of Strict Observance.
Father Matthew Brooke was born in Maryland in 1672. Being already a priest, he entered the Society in 1699. In the Catalogue for 1701 he is mentioned as being at Liége preparing for his examination. He served for a short time in Charles County, and died at St. Thomas Manor in 1702.
Father William Wood came to Maryland in 1700. He was born in Surrey in February, 1671. He entered the Society in 1689, and was professed of the four vows. He took the name of Guillick as his alias. Father Wood spent twenty years in the Maryland Mission, in which he died in August, 1720.
Father Richard Kirkham, alias Latham, came to Ma- ryland in 1703. This missionary was born in Lancashire on the 31st of July, 1671. He entered the Society in 1691, as Richard Latham, vere Kirkham. He is named in the Diary of Mr. Blundell, of Crosby. " Dr. Richard Latham came hither to show the petition which was presented to the Queen by Bernard Howard on behalf of the said Dr. Latham, Mr. Hagerston, etc., March 29th, 1703, and Latham went hence to Liverpool in hopes to take shipping to Virginia, January 29th, 1703. I went
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with Mr. Richard Latham to Liverpool and helped him to buy goods." Father Richard died on his return voy- age to England from Maryland in 1 708.
The name of Father Thomas Percy, a native of Shrop- shire, appears in the Roman Catalogue for 1682. This Father soon after returned to England, and died in Ghent January 25th, 1685.
Father Henry Cattaway, who also came to Maryland in 1703, was born in Suffolk in September, 1675. He entered the Society in 1693. After spending about three years in the Maryland Mission he returned to England and served the mission in the College of St. Chad, Staf- ford District, until 1710, when he was sent to the College of the Immaculate Conception, Derby District, and died probably in the same College, March 13th, 1718, aged forty-three years.
Father Thomas Havers appears in the Catalogue for 1705. This Father was a native of Thelton, County Cambridge, born February 28th, 1668. He entered the Society at Watten, September 7th, 1688. In 1701 he was Prefect at St. Omer's College. This Father was of a delicate constitution, and as the Catalogue for 1730 observes, extremely infirm. He died at Watten, May the 16th, 1737.
Father Thomas Hodgson was a native of Yorkshire, born on the 2d of November, 1682. He entered the Society in September, 1703. In 1711 he was sent to the Maryland Mission. He died at Bohemia Manor, Cecil County, Maryland, on the 14th of December, 1726.
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CHAPTER V.
In Br. Henry Foley's Collectanca we have the follow- ing account of another carly missionary : Father Edward Tidder, alias Edward Ingleby, was a native of Suffolk, born 1630; entered the Society September 7th, 1652, and was professed of the four vows (under the name of Edward Ingleby, according to a list of professions in the archives, but as Edward Tidder, in the Catalogue of the Province), on February 2d, 1672. Being ordained priest April 16th, 1661, he was sent soon afterwards to the Maryland Mission, where he is traced from 1663 till 1667. In 1669 he was missioner, and Procurator or Superior in the College of the Holy Apostles (Suffolk District). In
1679 he succeeded the martyred Procurator of the Prov- ince, Father William Ireland, and retained that office for some years, and is named Edward Ingleby in a letter from Father Warner (alias Clare), the Provincial, to the Father-General, dated St. Omer's College, June 15th, . 1690. (Anglia, Stonyhurst MSS., vol. v., n. 110.) The temporal affairs of the Province had been nearly brought to ruin by the persecution in the Oates Plot, and espe- cially by means of a traitor agent, and Fathers Edward Petre and Tidder made great efforts to gather up the scattered fragments. Great difficulty is expressed in the above letter of finding means to support the members of the Province, who were either lying in prisons, or had no
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patrons to whom to resort, for many of the noblemen and gentry who formerly retained a chaplain, were then afraid or unable to do so, both on account of their reduced means and of the dangerous times. August, 1678-91, he retired for a short time in concealment, and ventured back again in November following, as the Provincial expresses in a letter to the Father-General, November 7th, 1679. (Father John Warner's Note and Letter- Book.) In September, 1679, he was appointed Vice- Rector of St. Ignatius' College, London (Id.). He is mentioned in several other letters of the Provincial in the same Note and Letter-Book. He went to reside at the New College in the Savoy, Strand, May 24th, 1687. (See Records S. J., vol. v., p. 265.) He was Vice-Pro- vincial in England in 1690, and his death is recorded in the Necrology of the Province, in the name of Edward Ingleby, in London, January 2d, 1699.
Father George Pole appears in Maryland in 1668. This Father was a native of Derbyshire, and was born in 1628. He entered the Society in 1656. In 1658 he was missioner in the Yorkshire District, and during 1665 in the adjoining Residence of St. John (the Durham Dis- trict). He died in the Maryland Mission on the 31st of October, 1669.
We will give here the copy of a letter from Father Joseph Simeons, Provincial, to the Very Rev. Father- General, recounting the death of Father Pole :
VERY REV. FATHER IN CHRIST, PAX CHRISTI :
On the 3Ist of October, 1669, died in Maryland, Fr. Geo. Pole. He volunteered himself two years before for that arduous Mission in America, having in the preced-
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ing year, when the plague raged in London, heroically devoted himself to the service of the afflicted. If any- thing else in his praise can be collected, it shall later on be put into the form of a eulogy. In the meantime, I humbly beg your Paternity to be pleased to order the usual suffrages for the repose of his soul. Since the Superior of Maryland writes word that Ours, on account of their fewness in numbers, are worn out with over- work, the sick even, as was the case with Father George Pole, being obliged to assist the dying, I humbly ask your Paternity to allow the Provincial to send there some who have finished their studies.
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