USA > Maryland > Old Catholic Maryland and its early Jesuit missionaries > Part 9
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So galling were the Penal enactments enforced in Fa- ther Atwood's days that he and a great number of prominent Catholic gentlemen conceived the plan of flying from persecution to one of the French settlements. This was what their fathers had done before them when they sailed away from England, when they hastily passed down by the Lizzard Rocks on the coast of their native land. "Charles Carroll and his brother James were at the head of the movement, and among those who in- tended to join it we find the names of Henry Darnall, Henry Darnall, Jr., William Diggs, John Diggs, Benja- min Hall, Clement Hall, William Fitz Redmond, Henry Wharton, Charles Diggs, Major Nicholas Sewell, and Richard Bennett."
On Christmas Day, 1734, Father Atwood, being Su- perior of the Mission, while notes of gladness filled the earth, and our churches, in Catholic countries, at least, rang with the " Gloria in Excelsis," yielded up his faith- ful soul to God in one of the chambers of the Newtown Manor.
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On the 5th of January of the same year, one of the young Fathers died on the Maryland Mission, and very probably at Newtown. This was Father John Fleetwood. This Father was a native of London, and was born in the year 1703. He was, perhaps, one of the Fleetwoods of Drury Lane. This was the favorite haunt of the Catholics during the Penal Times. In a very old work I find: "The Provincial of the English Jesuits often stayed at Mrs. Fleetwood's house, in Drury Lane."
After his priesthood our youthful missionary labored with courage and zeal at Broughton Hall, County York, England. This was the seat of the ancient family of Tempest, and was a chaplaincy and mission of the Resi- dence ,of St. Michael the Archangel. We may easily imagine how Broughton Hall was watched by spies, and considered a dangerous post for a missionary, when we remember that Father Nicholas Tempest had been one of Oates' victims.
Father John was probably the brother of Father Wal- ter Fleetwood, a distinguished English missionary, and one whom we find at Liege in the time of Father Jenkins and others of the Maryland Fathers. Father Walter Fleetwood " is named in a curious old pamphlet, entitled The Present State of Popery in England (1733), as having kept the Catholic school at Twyford, Hants, where Pope, the poet, passed some part of his youth. The school is represented as containing upwards of one hundred schol- ars at that time (1733), and was chiefly under the care and direction of one Father Fleetwood. Dr. Husenbeth states that this 'Fleetwood left Twyford about the year 1732, and, after living a short time at Paynsley, went to
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Liége, and became a Jesuit.' 'He was, I presume, of the Fleetwood family of Calwich, County Stafford.'"
Father John Fleetwood came to Maryland in 1733. The days of his toils and pains were not long on that mission. He had not labored many months here before God in His Infinite Wisdom saw fit to call him to receive his eternal reward. Fleetwood Joannes is inscribed on one of the Newtown Library books. In a former chap- ter we said that most of the missionaries were distin- guished students. Is it not a touching fact that the only epitaphs written for them were written by their own hands when they wrote their names upon the books they loved and studied in their youth ? In the library, and not on marble monuments in the graveyard, we find the names of the missionaries written.
One hundred years after the Act of Toleration was passed a young Irish Jesuit, Father James Carroll, came to Maryland to fulfil in part the Mission of the Irish race. With all the zeal of a generous and faithful soul who had seen the sufferings of Mother Church both in England and in Ireland, he set out upon his missionary labors. With the fire and eloquence of an apostle he preached the sublime doctrine of " Jesus, and Him Cru- cified." But he did not last long. After about seven years on the Maryland Mission he had a holy end at Newtown.
About two years before Father Carroll's death he was joined in his labors by Father Michael Murphy, also a native of Ireland. This Father was born on the 18th of September, 1725. Having made a great part of his studies in the " Island of Saints and Doctors," and hav- ing witnessed the desecration and profanation of sacred
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vessels and holy altars; having seen the pillage and the burning of grey abbeys and ivied convents, he left his native land and became a member of the English Prov- ince. This was on the 7th day of September, 1745. On the very same day, and probably at the same moment, another young Irish student entered the Novitiate at Watten. This youth's name was John Butler. Father John Butler, who became, on the death of his brother, the tenth Lord Cahir, was the son of Thomas, eighth Lord Cahir, and his wife Frances, daughter of Sir Theo- bald Butler. He was born on the 8th of August, 1727, and received his education at St. Omer's. After his or- dination he took charge of the Mission of Hereford. In 1778- he was almost universally nominated by the Pre- lates of Ireland to fill the vacant See of Limerick, and the nomination was actually confirmed by the Holy See, and the bulls had arrived in Ireland; but Father Butler, who had protested from the first against the violence done to his humility and the retirement he so much loved, resolutely refused to accept the dignity, and died in his holy obscurity at Hereford.
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Nine years after his entrance into the Society Father Murphy was sent on the Maryland Mission. On July the 8th, 1759, he peacefully expired at the Newtown Manor. His missionary life though brief, was very suc- cessful, and full of merit.
From the Newtown Note-Book I learn that Father Wappeler was on Britton's Neck in May, 1744. Wil- helm Wappeler was a native of Numan Sigmaringen, Westphalia, and was the worthy uncle of the Rev. Her- man Kemper, " one of the ablest scholars and most val- uable members of the English Province." Wappeler was
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born January the 22d, 1711. Twenty-seven years after he assumed the habit of St. Ignatius.
" In 1741," says a distinguished writer, "two German Jesuits were sent to Pennsylvania for the instruction and conversion of German emigrants, who from many parts of Germany had come into that Province. Under great hardships and poverty they began their laborious under- taking, which has since been followed by great benedic- tions. Their names were Father Schneider, from Bavaria, and Father Wappeler, from the Lower Rhine. They were both men of much learning and unbounded zeal. Mr. Schneider, moreover, was a person of great dex- terity in business, consummate prudence, and undaunted magnanimity. Mr. Wappeler having remained about eight years in America, and converted and reclaimed many to the Faith of Christ, was forced by bad health to return to Europe. He was the person who made the first settlement of the place called Conewago."
The first Catholic Church built at Conewago is thu's described by a recent writer : " It was a small log church with two rooms attached, in or near the site of the pres- ent edifice. The style of the architecture gave the build- ing the appearance of a private dwelling; and it was chosen to conform to and not to violate the letter, if not the spirit of the stringent Penal Laws then in force in the colonies."
In 1754, and for some years later, we find Father Wappeler as Prefect of St. Omer's College. He after- wards labored on the English Mission in the Yorkshire District and at Liverpool. He spent some time at Ghent and Bruges. He died in the latter city, and was there interred amid the ringing of "sweet cathedral bells."
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On his death Bishop Carroll wrote : " Father Wappeler's candor and artless disposition of heart always endeared him to me."
Father Wappeler had been at Ghent during the sup- pression of the College in 1773, and was examined before the Commissioners. In the Life of St. Thomas of Here- ford, written by Father Constantine Susysken, the Bol- landist, we find a letter of this Father, on "the Relick of St. Thomas." As many of the missionaries of Mary- land spent some time in Ghent before beginning their apostolate in the New World, it may be interesting to the reader to learn something about the Jesuit house there. It is the writer's impression that this building still stands, and was pointed out to him some few years past.
"The (English) House of the Third Probation was opened about the middle of the month of August, 1621 (at Ghent). It was founded by the pious bounty of Anne Dacre, Countess of Arundel and Surrey, a warm and sincere friend of the Society of Jesus. She was widow of Philip, Earl of Arundel, who died in the Tower of London, October 19th, 1595, a martyr for the Catholic Faith, after an imprisonment of ten years and a half, not without suspicion of having been poisoned. Hither the veterans often retired to prepare themselves for the last passage into eternity. Dodd observes: 'About these times also, in 1622, the Jesuits purchased a house in Ghent, which was to be a place of residence for such of their Fathers as were disabled either through age or in- firmity, or any other way rendered unserviceable for the mission.'"
The principal object, however, of the College, was for
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the use of the Fathers" making their third year's pro- bation, after completing their studies and course of teach- ing, before the solemn professions of the last vows of religion.
In 1767-8 the Novitiate, or House of First Probation, was removed from Watten to Ghent, which then became the House of the First and Third Year's Probation.
At the suppression in 1773 it shared in the fate of the other Continental Colleges.
" In a letter from Ghent for 1624, we find: " The Fathers in the third year's probation added to other duties (as in former years) the hearing the confessions of English, Irish, and Scotch soldiers, whether of those escaped from Holland, or of the Spanish auxil- iary camp in the neighborhood. About ten English gentlemen, some of them of high families, made retreats here with much fruit, especially in the case of three who decided upon leaving the world and entering upon a religious life."
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CHAPTER VIII.
It seems likely that Father Robert Harding spent some time at Newtown. At all events, I found his name on one of the books there. Father Harding was born on the 6th of October, 1701. Having pursued his studies in one of the English Colleges on the Continent he caught the flame of the apostolic fire that burned and glowed around him. In his twenty-first year he became a fervent novice of the Society of Jesus. About eleven years afterwards he was sent on the Maryland Mission. He became distinguished as a missionary in Pennsyl- vania. . He succeeded Father Greaton as Pastor of the old church in Philadelphia. Under his patronage, and through his exertions, St. Mary's Church was built. He was untiring in his labors in behalf of his little flock. " In the meanwhile," says a Philadelphia writer, " Father Harding was not idle at old St. Joseph's. He instructed the faithful and buried his beloved dead in the little ' God's Acre' west of the Church, whose humble mounds were shaded by two gigantic Walnut trees. It was rather the increasing demand for resting places for those who ' sleep in the Lord,' than the increased number of those 'fighting the combat' that induced Father Hard- ing, in 1763, to employ the money of Father Greaton in purchasing 'St. Mary's Burying Ground'-and building that Church, which, in 1810, was enlarged to its present
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noble dimensions. Father Harding also assisted Father Farmer in his missionary duties, and so arduous were his labors that he died at St. Joseph's, Philadelphia, on the Ist of September, 1771, beloved by all and keenly, bitterly, and affectionately remembered."
Father Harding certainly labored at St. Thomas, Charles County, and likewise in Prince George's, Mary- land. Archbishop Carroll refers to Father Harding as one "whose memory remains in great veneration."
The following are the opening words in Mr. Harding's Will: "First, I bequeath my soul to God, hoping through the infinite merits of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, to obtain life everlasting, and my body to be decently interred."
In the Newtown Library I find on a copy of the New Testament, published in 1582-" Jacobus Breadnall, 1769, Societatis Jesu." Father Breadnall was born on the 8th of April, 1718. In his twenty-first year he en- tered the Society. He was enrolled among the Professed Fathers eighteen years later on. In 1749 he was at St. Thomas'. From the very foundation of the Maryland Mission up to the present time it has been customary for the Fathers to say Mass in private houses. This is to enable all, even those persons who live at a great distance from any church, to assist at the Holy Sacrifice. In times of persecution, when all the churches were closed, or in the hands of our enemies, of course it was abso- lutely necessary, if the people were to hear Mass at all, that the missionaries should celebrate in some farm- house or manor. This they usually did. What a · beautiful picture it is to see the priest in some neat little room, surrounded by a band of pious and faithful wor-
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shippers, offering up the Immaculate Lamb to the greater glory of God, and for the atonement of the sins of mankind. It seems that in Father Breadnall's time this pious practice of celebrating in private houses was forbidden by the bigots of Maryland. Indeed, we read that he was indicted for saying Mass in this manner. He was also tried for endeavoring " to bring over a non- juror person to the Romish persuasion." With regard to the charge of saying Mass he was acquitted, as he proved that he was allowed to offer up the Holy Sacri- fice "by an order issued by her Majesty, Queen Anne, dated at Whitehall, January 3d, 1705-6." As the second charge was not proved, he was set free. Father Bread- nall died in Maryland on the 9th of April, 1772.
Father John Lewis* was a native of Northamptonshire, born September the 19th, 1721. He made his humanity studies at the famous College of St. Omer's, that illus- trious home of confessors, scholars, and martyrs. On September 7th, 1740, he entered the Society at Watten. He was professed of the four vows, February 2d, 1758. In the same year he was sent to Maryland. He labored in different parts of that Mission with great success. In 1753 he was engaged in missionary work at Bohemia. He was at Bohemia also in 1758. In 1765 he labored
* During the Revolutionary War, in 1778, the " General Monk," a British sloop of war, anchored off St. Inigoes, fired a ball through the house, which was near killing the Rev. Mr. Lewis, who had just left his bed, over which the ball passed. The fracture of the wall, produced by the ball in its passage through, may be seen at the present day, near the corner of the northwest chamber on the BISHOP FENWICK.
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at White Marsh .* In 1769 he was at St. Inigoes. On an old and torn sheet of paper we find-" Appendix to y" first page." On this paper may be read the following address : "To the Rev" Mr. John Lewis, at Newtown, in St. Mary's County." Near the address we read: " To be put in ye Post-office at Annapolis and forwarded with care and speed." The reason why the letter was sent from Annapolis and not from Bohemia is told in the let- ter itself in a P. S .: " You rather send ye letter to Mr. Mosley if you write to me; for if you write by ye Post ye letter in all probability will be intercepted. I have reason to suspect it, because they would not let this letter go with ye Post, but was obliged to take it home again, and to try another channel." It is evident from the tone of the letter that at the precise time it was written Father Lewis was Superior. Father Manners begs of him to write regarding the business on hand as soon as possible, and adds : "be sure your order shall be punctually ob- served, and complied with to a tittle." He reminds. Father Lewis to write Warwick legibly, otherwise, he says, "ye letter will go to Frederick Town and be put into ye office, where it may lie for half a year, as it happened in Mr. Harding's time; for they never will send it except they meet with an accidental opportunity." In Father Mosley's "Day Book " for 1764, I find the following references to Father Lewis : " 1764, Aug' 11th, I arrived at Bohemia with Mr. Lewis:" "Aug' 14th, Mr. Lewis returned." From the same Book we learn that Father
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* White Marsh is situated about midway between Annapolis and Washington, in Prince George's County, Md. It came into the possession of the Society in 1760. It is a place of deep his- toric interest.
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Lewis was at Bohemia from the 17th of November, 1764 to the 21st of the said month. The following entries by Father Lewis are found in Mosley's " Ordo :" " 5th June, 1787 : Buried Jenny Parks at St. Joseph's. Eodem die, R. Jos. Mosley in ye Chapel. R. I. Pace .- J. Lewis."
From the year 1634 to a date nearly 150 years nearer our time, the English Province continued to send learned and zealous missionaries to Maryland. Though engaged in a continual and deadly fight with error and corruption in England, though persecuted and bleeding from every pore, still she generously spared some of her tried and devoted sons for the arduous and, at times, perilous Mission on the borders of the Chesapeake. She sent to Maryland apostolic men like White, Altham, Morgan, Copley, Sewall, Hartwell, Chamberlain, Casey, Cooper, Roels, Carteret, Lawson, O'Reilly, Diderick, De Ritter, Geisler, Phillips, Beeston, Brown, Harrison, and Scaris- brick. Despite hardships and persecutions, these true sons of St. Ignatius heroically kept the Banner of the Cross triumphantly waving. While some of them labored among the settlers and slaves and red men of the Eastern and Western Shores of Maryland, others preached in Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York. Their motto was-" To The Greater Glory Of God." They preached Jesus and Him Crucified. Like the Crusaders of old they cried out in chorus-" Not to us, O Lord, give glory, but to Thy Name." Dwelling in the forests with the red men, occupied in the " quarters " of the poor colored slaves, they knew little of the evils in store for them. They knew, it is true, that the princes and the
. mighty ones of the earth stood in judgment against them. They knew that the French philosophers and
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Jansenists hated them with a relentless hatred. They knew that their brothers in France were accused of regicide and immorality by Le Pelletier de St. Fargean and Chauvelin. They knew that they had bitter ene- mies in D'Aranda, Choiseul and Pombal ; in Manuel de Roda, Campomanes, Grimaldi, Moñino, and the Duke of Alva ; but in the innocence and purity of their conscience they feared not. Judge then of their sorrow when they learned of the total suppression of the entire Society throughout the world. Picture to yourselves their grief when they received the Papal Brief and the following letter that came in a small ship from the coast of Eng- land :
"To Messrs. the Missioners in Maryland and Pennsyl- vania :
To obey the orders I have received from above, I notify to you by this the Breve, of the total dissolution of the Society of Jesus; and send withal a form of de- claration of your obedience and submission, to which you are all to subscribe as your brethren have done here; and send me back the formula with the subscrip- tions of you all, as I am to send them up to Rome.
Ever Yours,
RICHARD DEBOREN, V. Ap."
" October 6th, 1773."
Like true followers of Ignatius they bowed their heads in perfect submission. Like their Brethren of Europe, of Asia, and of Africa, they bent in reverence before the . decree of the Vicar of Christ. They urged not their
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innocence ; they pointed not to their labors. They heard and obeyed.
The following note is so pertinent to the present sub-' ject that I think it well to give it here :
" The Brief of Suppression was ordered into execution in such a way that it was to take effect only when it had been communicated by the Bishop to the local Superior within his jurisdiction. As the Mission of Maryland formed a part of the London District, it devolved upon Bishop Challoner to notify Father John Lewis, Superior in 1773, of the Suppression. After the dissolution of . the Society, Father Lewis was appointed Vicar-General, and continued to govern the Mission in America for the English Bishop, during the seven years of the Revolu- tionary struggle. * * After the termination of the war, Father Lewis was unanimously chosen Superior at a meeting of the clergy of the Southern District of Maryland, held at Newtown September 23d, 1783. At this meeting were present Benedict Neale, Ignatius Mat- thews, James Walton, Peter Morris, John Bolton, John Boarman, and Augustine Jenkins; Mr. Matthews col- lected also the votes of Benjamin Roels and Leonard ' Neale, who were absent."
At the time of the Suppression there were twenty Fathers working zealously in various parts of the Mis- sion. These Fathers were John Ashton, Thomas Digges, James Framback, Ferdinand Farmer, Lucas Geisler, George Hunter, John Lewis, John Lucas, Mat- thias Manners, Ignatius Matthews, Peter Morris, Joseph Mosley, Benedict Neale, James Pellentz, Lewis Roels, Bernard Rich (Diderick), J. B. Ritter (de), James Wal- ton, John Bolton. and Robert Molyneux. Besides these
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the Mission had some subjects pursuing their studies in Europe at the time of the Suppression. From the Bea- dle's Diary, lately published in the Letters and Notices, we learn that on the suppression of the College at Liége some of the. Fathers and scholastics almost immediately left that city. Ignatius Brooke left Liége, on Monday, September 27th ; Charles Neale, Francis Beeston, and Joseph Boone, September 29th ; Charles Boarman, Sep- tember 30th.
From an old document we learn that Father Lewis died at Bohemia, March 24th, 1788.
Father Joseph Mosley, alias Joseph Framback, was the brother of Father Michael, who was for some time Superior of the Residence of St. Winifred, and who died at Holy Well. He was born in Lincolnshire, in 1730, and studied his humanities at St. Omer's College. He entered the Society in his eighteenth year. Early in 1759 he was a missioner at Bromley, in the College of the
Holy Apostles. Though the Collectanea says he was sent to Maryland about 1764, we know from unquestion- able sources that he came here at least five years before that time. From his own writings I know that he spent the Easter of 1759 at St. Joseph's Forest in Maryland. In his Ordo Baptizatorum, which was kindly sent us from the Archives of the Maryland Province, we find the date 1760. Some may think that he brought this "Ordo " from England, but on the first page we read : "St. Jo- seph's, St. Mary's County, Christenings of Jos. Mosley, 1760." Besides, I find in an old Catalogue : " 1760, Joseph Mosley at Newtown." Mr. George Johnston, the historian of Cecil County, says that Mosley was at Bo- hemia in 1760. This is a mistake. He himself says in
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his " Day Book," as we noted elsewhere, that he arrived at Bohemia, August 11th, 1764, in company with Father John Lewis. There is also the authority of an old cata- logue for saying that he did not arrive at Bohemia before that year. From his " Day Book" we learn that on the 3Ist of August, 1764, he began his "journey and Mis- sion in Queen Ann's and Talbot County." On Septem- ber 2d he " first kept Church in Queen Ann's Cty." On the 9th of the same month he " first kept Church in Tal- bot Cty." On the 5th of October he received a visit " from Mr. Harding, who arriv'd from Philadelphia." . On the 15th of October Mr. Harding returned to Philadel- phia and he accompanied him thither. On that occasion he received from " Mr. Manners 46 cur. for Paint for y" House." On the 21st of October he " preached at Phil- adelphia in ye old chapel." On the 23d of October he left Philadelphia in company with Mr. Harding. On the next day, having parted with Mr. Harding on the way, he arrived at Bohemia. In 1765, he settled at St. Jo-
seph's, Talbot County. The precise day was the 18th of March. On the 2d of February, 1766, he had the hap- piness of making his religious profession to Father Far- mer. In a catalogue we find "Joseph Mosley, 1769, at St. Joseph's, E. S.". On the 15th of June, 1775, he had the sad privilege of burying Father Matthias Manners, who died at Peace with God and man, at Bohemia. Fa- ther Mosley himself died at St. Joseph's Station, June 3d, 1787, aged fifty-six years. He was interred in the chapel which he himself had erected.
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