USA > Maryland > Old Catholic Maryland and its early Jesuit missionaries > Part 8
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least it is certain that we cannot arrive at any degree of perfection, or be in any degree acceptable and agreeable to our Divine Master, without this uninterrupted recol- lection of spirit, this uninterrupted sanctifying presence of God."
Father Henry Poulton labored zealously for some time at Newtown. This good religious belonged to a family distinguished alike in Church and State. No less than twelve of his kinsmen enrolled themselves under the standard of St. Ignatius. His ancestors were gallant knights who came from Normandy in the reign of Will- iam the Conqueror. One of his blood was Thomas Poulton, Bishop of Worcester, another was Philip Poul- ton, Archdeacon of Gloucester. John Poulton of Des- borough married Jane, daughter and heiress of Richard, Lord of Desborough. It is indeed extremely probable that had it not been for their attachment to the faith they professed, some of the members of this branch of the . family would have been advanced to high honors; for in addition to being one of the oldest families in the king- dom-descended, according to a pedigree in the College of Arms, from old Norman Princes-the family estates were very extensive, comprising, in addition to the lord- ship of Desborough and other less important possessions, manors and lands in Cransley, Kelmarsh, Broughton, and Hargrave. The Poultons of Desborough were staunch Catholics. At the commencement of the Civil War they ranged themselves on the side of Charles I., although in his reign, as well as in the reign of James I., they suffered severely for their attachment to their reli- gion, as a reference to the State Papers of those days abundantly testifies. They were indeed supposed to have
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been implicated in the Gunpowder Plot; and to this day a cottage at Desborough is shown as the place where this nefarious scheme was concocted. Concocted . at Desborough, and at the house of a tenant of John Poul- ton, it may have been; but that he was privy thereto was disproved by his subsequent conduct in sacrificing his fortune, and venturing his life in defence of his sov- ereign. As has been said, no family in England suffered more on account of religion and loyalty. In the reigns of James I., and of Charles I., their estates were sequest- ered, and they themselves repeatedly fined ; notwithstand- ing which, throughout the Civil War, they (with perhaps one notable exception) fought for their King, barely escaping with their lives. At the Restoration in 1661 it might therefore naturally have been supposed that such devoted loyalty as was shown by the Desborough Poul- tons would have met with some sort of recognition, or at least that they would have been free from further per- secutions. This, however, was not the case, and under such circumstances as those herein briefly described, the wonder is, not that the family estates at last passed into other hands, but that they remained in the possession of the same family-from father to son-for so long a period as three hundred and seventy-five years.
The Poultons were connected by marriage with the Palmers, Thimelbys, Coniers, and many other families of influence and position of the same faith as themselves. Giles Poulton, the yougest son of Giles Poulton of Des- borough, married Alice, elder daughter and co-heiress of Thomas More, of Burton, in the parish of Bucking- ham, of the same family as the martyred Lord Chan-
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' cellor, Sir Thomas More. Of this marriage was born Ferdinando Poulton, the eminent lawyer.
Father Henry Poulton was the son of Ferdinand Poul- ton, of Desborough, Esq., and Juliana, daughter of Rob- ert Garter, of the County of Northampton. He was born in Northamptonshire, in 1679. While still young .. he was sent to St. Omer's College, where he made his humanity studies. This college was one of the most celebrated of all the schools opened during the Penal Days for the instruction of the Catholic youth of the British Empire who were denied the rights of education at home. To it flocked the scions of the noblest Cath- olic families of England and Ireland. In the streets of the old town of St. Omer could be seen some of the no- blest and bravest of the defenders of the faith in these countries. Besides the secular college for the education of youth there were at St. Omer a college for students preparing for the priesthood and destined for the English mission, a house for Irish students, and, likewise, a Jesuit one, destined for members of the Society alone. We may rest assured that young Poulton profited by his stay at St. Omer's. We feel satisfied that he often felt his heart inflamed with love for the old religion when he heard in his foreign home of her terrible sufferings, when he was exhorted by confessors and exiles for the faith of his forefathers to love her with his whole heart, and, if nec- essary, to shed his blood for her holy cause. "In the College of St. Omer," says an old Protestant writer, “a city in the Archduke's country, there be one hundred and forty scholars, most of them gentlemen's sons of great worship. And I have heard say for a truth amongst those there be not six that ever were at any of our
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churches in England, and many of them be about twenty years of age." The reader will here recall the fact that by one of the Penal Laws all were obliged to appear publicly at the services of the English Established Church. The violation of this law was the cause of the complaint made by the bigoted writer just cited.
As Henry Poulton advanced in years and knowledge so also did he advance in piety. Before having tasted of the false pleasures of the world he learned to despise them. Just when he had attained the strength and years of manhood he heard the low, sweet voice of the Spirit of Love calling him to a life of perfection. His generous soul yielded to grace, and he put on the poor habit of the sons of St. Ignatius. His choice of a state of life, when we recall the mission of death before him in Eng- land, must be considered in every respect heroic. No doubt he longed in his soul for the fate of the gentle Robert Southwell, for the fate of him who was allied to him by noble blood, Sir Thomas More.
After Father Poulton's studies and ordination he re- turned to England. But we believe he was not allowed to remain long in that country for we soon find him en- gaged on the Maryland Mission. Of the missionary labors of Father Poulton we have found no record. But we can easily imagine with what zeal he labored when we call to mind the sacrifices he made on entering religion, the careful training he had received in fervent St. Omer's, and the generosity with which he had left his friends and his native land far behind him. God saw fit not to prolong his trials in Maryland, for being ripe for heaven, He called him to receive his eternal inherit- ance on the 27th of September, 1712. lle died in the
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flower of his age at the Newtown Station. He sleeps with those good Fathers above whose graves arise no tomb, whose very epitaphs have been left unwritten. Still, in the Desborough Church, the church of his ancestors, there stood a monument which bore the following in- scription : "Sacred to the memory of the honorable family of the Poultons, who for fourteen generations were lords of this town of Desburgh or Desborough. Descended from princely, most noble, illustrious and holy progenitors of this kingdom. Besides this lordship they possessed manors and lands in Cransley, Kelmarsh, Broughton, and Hargrave, in this county."
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Father Poulton had three brothers in the Society, namely, Charles, Thomas, and Giles, Jun. The latter held several important positions in the Jesuit Order, and was usually called, on account of his virtues and meek- ness of character, " The Angel."
Father Thomas, like Henry, was sent at an early age to St. Omer's. There he found a vocation to religion. Having completed his nineteenth year he entered a Jesuit Novitiate. He was afterwards engaged in different offices in St. Omer's. In 1730 we find him acting as Prefect at that College. Having left St. Omer he proceeded to the Eternal City. It was there that he made his solemn Profession of the four vows. This was in 1734. Four years later on he was sent to Maryland to work in that field in which his brother had found an early grave. He labored successfully for the good of souls in Charles, Cecil, and St. Mary's Counties. He was Superior of the Mission for some years. In 1746 he had twelve Fathers and one lay-brother to assist him. In January, 1749, he sank from his labors at Newtown. His body was laid
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beside that of his cherished brother, Henry. "Even in death they were not divided." There is something pa- thetic in the thought of these worthy scions of an ancient, princely family reposing side by side in the little grave- yard of Newtown.
Nearly every country in Europe had at one time or another one of its missionaries in Southern Maryland. 'England, Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland sent some of their children to work in that chosen vineyard of the Lord. Wales, too, gave it one of her brave sons in the person of Fr. Francis Floyd. This devoted missionary was born in the land of St. David on the 17th of November, 1692. He entered the Society in his eighteenth year, the day being the 7th of September. He was sent on the Maryland Mission in 1724. Four years later, being distinguished by learning and virtue, he was professed of the four vows. He labored zealously for some time at Newtown, where he died on the 13th of November, 1729, at the age of thirty-seven.
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CHAPTER VII.
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Father Thomas Hodgson was a native of Yorkshire, England, and was born on the 2d of November, 1682. He became a Jesuit September 3d, 1703, and was sent on the Maryland Mission in IZII. He departed this life December 14th, 1726.
Father John Bennet, alias or vere Gosling, was a native of London, and was born March 17th, 1692. He entered the Society of Jesus September 7th, 1710. He arrived in Maryland about the year 1724, and labored in that Mission for some years. About the year 1750 he was a missioner at Lytham, County Lancaster. He died at Highfield, near Wigan, April 2d, 175 1, at the age of fifty- nine.
Father Joseph or Josiah Greaton was born in London on the 2d of February, 1679. On July the 5th, 1708, he entered a Jesuit Novitiate. According to a paper in the Jesuit Archives he was sent to Maryland in 1721. " Oli- ver calls Father Greaton the Apostle of Pennsylvania, as he toiled in that State for nearly twenty years before going to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He was the founder of Catholicity in Philadelphia ; at first his con- gregation numbered eleven persons. This is said on the authority of Mr. Westcott. St. Joseph's Church, together with the residence in Willing's Alley, was built by Father Greaton in 1733."
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Archbishop Carroll thus refers to Father Greaton : " About the year 1730, or rather later, Father Greaton, a Jesuit (for none but Jesuits had yet ventured into the English Colonies), went from Maryland to Philadelphia, and laid the foundations of that congregation, now so flourishing ; he lived there till the year 1750, long before which he had succeeded in building the old chapel, which is still contiguous to the presbytery of that town, and in assembling a numerous congregation which, at his first going thither, did not consist of more than ten or twelve persons. I remember to have seen this vener- able man at the head of his flock in 1748."
The first Jesuits who labored in Pennsylvania came from the Maryland Mission. Though there was much work to be done on the banks of the Patuxent, Potomac, and Elk Rivers, still the missionaries at Newtown, St. Inigoes, and especially Bohemia, a little later on, could not neglect altogether the souls of those of the House- hold of Faith who dwelt on the shores of the Delaware and on the wooded mountains of Penn's Plantation. Though no Proprietary invited them, though no Gov- ernor encouraged them, still the Jesuits of Maryland often penetrated the stronghold of Quakerism, disguised and in secret, and ministered to the wants of the few scattered Catholics of Pennsylvania, who had as yet 'no resident priest among them. During the few short years that New York possessed English Jesuits, it is almost certain that the Philadelphia Catholics were visited by missionaries from the banks of the Hudson. But it was years after the death of Harvey, Harrison, and Gage that · the first Jesuit residence was built in the City of Brotherly Love.
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"Previous to the year 1733," says an old paper before me, "the few Catholics who then resided in Philadelphia, held meetings for religious worship in a private dwelling; for the public exercise of the Catholic religion was not permitted, according to the laws of England, which pre- vailed in America at that epoch. In the above year, the Rev. Mr. Greaton, a priest of the Order of Jesuits, pur- chased lots near Fourth Street, between Walnut and Willing's Alley, and erected thereon a small chapel, ded- icated to St. Joseph, which has since been enlarged."
We lately found an interesting paper relating to the first visit of Father Joseph Greaton to Philadelphia. On this paper we find the following note : "This I have heard from Archbishop Neale, the 4th of December, 1815, the first day he was Archbishop of Baltimore." The document itself is as follows: "Mr. Greaton, one of the Jesuits of Maryland, being informed that in Phila- delphia there was a great number of Catholics, resolved to try to establish a mission for their spiritual comfort. In order to succeed the better he went first to Lancaster where he had an acquaintance by the name of Mr. Doyle. The object of his journey was to know from his friend the name of some respectable Catholic in Philadel- phia, to whom he could address himself, and by whom he could be seconded in his laudable exertions to found there a mission. Mr. Doyle directed him to an old lady, very respectable for her wealth, and still more for her attachment to the Catholic Religion. Father Greaton on his arrival at Philadelphia presented himself dressed like a Quaker to the lady, and after the usual compliments, he turned his conversation on the great number of sectaries who were in that city. The lady
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made a long enumeration of them-Quakers, Presby- terians, Lutherans, Church of England members, Baptists; etc., etc. The Father then asked her: 'Pray, madam, are there here any of those who are called Papists ?'
' Yes,' she replied, ' there is a good number.'
'Are you one ?' asked the Father.
The lady stopped a little, and then acknowledged that she was.
' I am one too,' added the priest.
This gave rise to many other questions, among which was the following: 'Have the Catholics any Church ?' The lady answered : 'No, they have none.'
'Do you think that they would be glad to have one ?' continued Father Greaton.
' Most certainly, sir, but the great difficulty is to find a priest.' :
' Are there no priests in America ?'
' Yes, there are some in Maryland, but it would be impossible to get priests from that quarter.'
'No, not impossible,' said the missionary, 'I myself am one at your service.'
' Is it true !' asked the lady with warm interest, 'is it true that you are a priest !'
' Yes, madam, I assure you I am a priest.'
" The good lady could not contain her joy to see after so many years a Catholic priest, and like the Samaritan woman who, having found our Lord Jesus Christ, ran to announce it to the citizens of Samaria, she went through the neighborhood and invited her Catholic acquaintances to come and see a Catholic priest in her house. This was soon filled with Catholics, for the most part Ger- mans. Then Father Greaton began to expose to them
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the object of his journey. At that very meeting a sub- scription was opened to raise sufficient funds to buy lots, and build a Catholic church. All willingly contributed to this good work. They bought lots and a house of their hostess, who acted in a very generous manner."
Father Greaton died on the 19th of August, 1753. From an old catalogue I learn that Father John Lewis " officiated at his funeral."
Father Thomas Mansell, alias Harding, was born in Oxfordshire in the year 1669. Having studied human- ities at St. Omer's College, he entered the Jesuit Order on the 7th of September, 1686. In 1700, having been ordained priest some time previous, he was sent on the Maryland Mission. Father Mansell's name is closely interwoven with the history of the mission of Bohemia, Cecil County, Md. . The following passages from an able article on Bohemia, in the Woodstock Letters, will not, therefore, be out of place :
The Fathers of St. Mary's were ever on the alert to seize any opportunity of spreading the Gospel. Re- strained by unjust laws which, on occasions, were almost as inflexible as those of the penal code in England, they nevertheless were untiring in their efforts in the midst of hardships and dangers. Their bitter foes of the Established Church, the Puritans no less hostile, false brethren, who, be it said, were by God's grace, very few, might pass still severer laws against the faith, but they could not quench the zeal of the sons of St. Ignatius. Crippled in resources, doubly taxed to support the Established Church and the government, the Fathers found means to keep alive their enterprises, and to bring the word to many souls in danger of losing
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the faith. In 1704, Father William Hunter, the Superior of the Maryland Mission, determined to found a new centre of apostolic work in Cecil County, on a part of what was called Bohemia Manor. He had been led to take this step by the needs of some Irish families, who had settled there, of whom some unhappily had fallen into heresy. Catholics from St. Mary's County or from England, who had also taken up their abode near Bohemia, claimed the attention of the Superior ; and he was most willing to help them, though at the time there were but nine Fathers in the Mission which embraced all the counties then formed on the Western Shore of the State. No doubt, the faithful in Cecil County had been visited now and then by the Jesuits of St. Mary's County. But the Indian tribes offered special attractions to the zealous missionaries.
Father Thomas Mansell was chosen to undertake the work. The Superior had made a good choice. Father Mansell was a man of learning, having just made his profession in February of this year (1704) ; he was well acquainted with the Mission, in which he had labored for four years, and knew the toil and sacrifice expected of him. Moreover, great zeal for souls, in which he imitated his brother, Father William, and the vigor of age attracted the eyes of the Superior towards him. Leaving St. Mary's in 1704, Father Mansell sailed to the Chesapeake and up this inland sea to Elk River, turning a few miles above its mouth into Bohemia River. A short sail now brought him to Little Bohemia creek, and to the landing not far from the present residence. Here he founded the first Mission for the Eastern Shore of the State. " It is highly probable," says 'Mr. Johnston,
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" that he brought with him the ancient cross, which has been at Bohemia ever since. This cross is about five feet high and is said to have been brought to St. Mary's by the first settlers who came there from England. It is made of wrought iron and certainly looks ancient enough to have been brought over by the Pilgrims, who came in the Ark and the Dove."
Father Mansell must have had his dwelling in what is now the kitchen of the residence. The first chapel was close by ; it was torn down and enlarged at the end of the last century.
Oliver says that Father Mansell " zealously cultivated the Maryland Mission until his death, on the 18th of March, 1724."
The name of Peter Atwood is written on the pages of several books in the Newtown Library. Father Atwood came from Worcestershire, England. He was born in 1682, on the 18th of October. His mother was Wini- fred Petre, of Belhouse, near Kelvedon, the seat of the Stanford Rivers branch of the Petre family. On his mother's side he was of noble descent, and was con- nected not only with some of the most distinguished Priests of England, but also with several illustrious members of the laity who suffered for the Catholic Faith in the black Tower of London. His father was George Atwood of Beverie, near Worcester. The Atwoods suffered much on account of their constancy in the Faith. One of them, a Dominican priest, was put upon the hurdle because he held fast to the doctrine handed down from the Apostles.
Our young missionary made his humanities at St. Omer's College. Being called to a religious life he
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entered the Society in September, 1703. He made his novitiate amid the deep solitude that reigned around the Watten House. No doubt he was one of those novices who gave instructions to the children of the neighboring rural districts. About the time that he was making his theological studies at Liége we learn that great zeal for the salvation of souls animated the students in that city. Some of them spent all their free time in instructing and preparing for confession many heretical English, Irish, and Scotch soldiers, and would bring them when ready to a confessor in the Church. Before he left, it is said, that the Fathers devoted their chief care to the sick and wounded English soldiers, besides visiting those in good health, of whom they brought many into the Church, and assisted numbers at death, while quartered here. Many general confessions were heard, but the greatest praise and highest success of the College of Liége was its own progress towards perfection, in peace, union, fervor, and regular religious observance, combined with the care, labor, and industry of the professors towards all.
Father Atwood left the quiet and peace of his Liége room and entered upon his missionary life in Maryland in 1711. He labored zealously in Charles County, and also in Cecil County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He seems to have succeeded Father Thomas Mansell, as Superior of Bohemia Manor. "In 1732," writes Mr. Johnston in his History of Cecil County, " Peter Atwood, who is then said to be of St. Mary's County, purchased another tract of land called 'Askmore,' from Vachel Denton. This tract was supposed to contain 550 acres, and had been granted to John Browning and Henry
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Denton in 1668. Denton claimed it by right of. sur- vivorship, and from him it descended to his son, Vachel Denton, who as before stated, sold it to Atwood."
The Annual Letter for 1728, informs us that Father Atwood was then Superior of the Mission with eleven Fathers and three lay-brothers to assist him. The Fathers were scattered throughout an immense tract of country and strenuously labored in protecting and propagating the Catholic Faith. The temporal coadjutors attended to domestic affairs, and the cultivation of the land, the product of which supported the missioners. Besides the land, there was no other source of support belonging to the mission. On this subject Arch- bishop Carroll wrote : "Catholics contributed nothing to the support of Religion or its ministers; the whole charge of its maintenance, of furnishing the altars, of traveling expenses, fell on the priests themselves ; and no compensation was ever offered for any service per- formed by them ; nor did they require any, so long as the produce of their lands was sufficient to answer their demands. But it must have been foreseen, that if religion should make considerable progress, this could not always be the case."
During Father Atwood's missionary life in Maryland many cruel and despotic laws were made in that Province against all professing the Catholic Faith. £100 reward was offered to any one who should " apprehend and take a Popish Bishop, Priest or Jesuit, and prosecute him until convicted of saying Mass, or of exercising any other part of the office or function of a Popish Bishop or Priest." Catholics were forbidden the rights of education at home, and they were not allowed
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under heavy penalties to send their children to the Catholic schools of the Old Continent. One of the stanzas in the poem of Thomas Davis on the Penal Days in Ireland, with very slight modification, would naturally find a place here :
" They bribed the flock, they bribed the son, To sell the priest and rob the sire ; Their dogs were taught alike to run Upon the scent of wolf and friar. Among the poor, Or on the moor, Were hid the pious and the true."
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