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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
WILLIAM LEO LUCEY S.J.
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DIOCESE OF
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
THE BISHOPS OF THE DIOCESE OF PORTLAND
DAVID W. BACON 1855 - 1874
JAMES A. HEALY 1875 - 1900
WILLIAM H. O'CONNELL 1901 - 1906
LOUIS S. WALSH 1906 - 1924
PORTLAND
JOHN G. MURRAY 1925 - 1931
1855
JOSEPH E. MCCARTHY 1932 - 1955
1955
DANIEL J. FEENEY 1955 -
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
by WILLIAM LEO LUCEY, S.J.
m
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY Publishers Francestown New Hampshire
0 THE TRUSTEES OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS IN THE CITY OF WORCESTER 1957
Printed in the United States of America
TO THE MANY PIONEER MEN AND WOMEN OF MAINE whose contributions to the diocese will not be found in human chronicles, but have been recorded by the angels.
1970682
$10.00 goodspeed Oct 18-1977908278
PREFACE
THE OBSE HE OBSERVANCE of the centenary of the diocese of Portland was formally opened by a letter dated January 20, 1955 to the Catholics of Maine from Bishop Daniel J. Feeney. He told them that he hoped all would be acquainted before the year had passed with the marvellous growth of the diocese from humble beginnings to its present populous and flourish- ing condition. The Catholic history of Maine, he reminded them, "did not begin in 1855. Its roots go back to 1613." He appointed a Centenary Committee to arrange the details of the celebration and he named his Vicar-General, the Right Reverend George P. Johnson, S.T.D., general chairman of the committee.
As the first step in recalling the heritage of the Catholic Church in Maine, concise histories of the parishes were pre- pared and published in the diocesan weekly. Later, on the eve of the civic celebration in the Portland City Hall, a pictorial brochure, with a beautiful sketch of the Cathedral of the Im- maculate Conception on the cover, was published as a supple- ment of the Portland Sunday Telegram of November 6, 1955. This ably edited publication reached thousands and went a long way in acquainting them with the Catholic Church in Maine. But the committee desired a more complete and per- manent record of the diocese, and Monsignor Johnson ap- proached me on the subject. This volume is the result.
I need not add that a complete history of the Catholic Church in Maine will not be found in this volume. One could not write that in a single book. The first task, then, was one of selection. I have selected and described what appeared to me and to others the salient features of Maine's Catholic history. Much has been omitted; some events and persons have been slighted. Even the salient features have not been accorded an equal treatment. Where others have written well and at length
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PREFACE
on events and persons, I have summarized and stressed the continuity; where the literature was scant and scattered, I have described at length as the sources and space permitted. I hoped thereby to fill in the gaps and lacunae in the history of the Church in Maine and to pay tribute to persons whose con- tributions to that history have not received as yet the recogni- tion they warrant. This approach has resulted in some uneven chapters, but will, I hope, give the reader, especially the younger generation in Maine, a better understanding of their rich heritage. Readers who prefer footnotes with their reading will be disappointed; they have been reduced to a minimum. But a bibliographical note at the end of the volume indicates the sources used in each chapter.
This book would never have been completed without the help of many persons and the services of many libraries. It is a pleasure, then, to express my debt and thanks to the staffs of the Bangor Public Library, Boston Public Library, Cheverus High School Library, Creagh Research Library of St. John's Seminary, Dinand Library of Holy Cross College, Maine His- torical Society, Portland Public Library and Woodstock College Archives. I am grateful to the many persons who have assisted me in so many ways: Bishop Daniel J. Feeney for his encourag- ing words and personal interviews; Monsignor George P. John- son for his suggestions and the loan of material; Monsignor P. E. Desjardins for the use of notes gathered during many years; Monsignor Edward C. O'Leary and the Reverend Vin- cent A. Tatarczuk for their help in the use of the Portland Diocesan Archives; Monsignor Clarence Coughlan and Judge Francis W. Sullivan who kindly found time for personal inter- views; Joseph Ward of Portland, James F. Bresnahan, S.J., of Cheverus High School, and Jean Simonds of the staff of the Boston Athenaeum whose researches were so helpful; James J. Hennesey, S.J., who arranged for the photostating of the letters of John Bapst, S.J., in the Maryland Province Archives at Wood- stock College; Gerald Brassard, A.A., of Assumption College, who has so ably provided the readers with a map to follow the
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PREFACE
journeys of missionaries and bishops, of priests and pioneers. I am deeply in debt to Brendon C. McNally, S.J., and Maurice F. Reidy, S.J., my colleagues in the Department of History and Political Science, who read the manuscript and whose sugges- tions have been invaluable.
It would be ungrateful of me if I did not express my grati- tude to the community of St. Ignatius Residence in Portland for the many kindnesses extended while engaged in research on this volume.
WILLIAM L. LUCEY, S.J. Dinand Library Holy Cross College
CONTENTS
Preface Foreword
vii xiii
1
Chapter
Page
I. Catholic Memories from the Colonial Period 1
1. The Cradle: Holy Cross Island and St. Sauveur
1
2. Castine 6
8. Norridgewock and the Kennebec 8
4. Sebastian Rasle 12
II. Laying the Foundation: 1783-1818 17
1. Indian Island and Pleasant Point 21
2. Damariscotta and Whitefield 28
3. Madawaska 36
III. Pioneer Priests and Projects 45
1. Dennis Ryan and the Sheepscott Valley 46
2. Charles Ffrench and the Maine Coast 65
3. Benedict Fenwick at Benedicta 81
IV. The Jesuits in Maine: Second Phase 99
1. The Jesuits Return to Maine 100
2. Bapst at Indian Island 104
3. Bapst at Eastport and the Rising Mission of Maine 112
4. Bapst at Ellsworth 118
5. Last Years of the Maine Mission 136
V. Maine's First Catholic Bishop, David William
Bacon: 1855-1874 144
1. The Situation in 1855 145
2. Searching for Priests 157
3. Domus Dei Firmiter Aedificata 178
4. The Sisters Come to Maine 187
5. The Last Years of Bishop Bacon 202
VI. James Augustine Healy, Second Bishop of Portland: 1875-1900 209
1. The Strange Journey from Georgia to Maine 210
2. Problems at the Start 218
3. Growth Under Healy 226
4. The End of a Useful Life 240
243
VII. Some Maine Converts
1. Dr. Henry Bowen Clark Greene 245
2. Josue Maria Young 251
3. Mary Agnes Tincker 258
4. John Joseph A'Becket 263
5. Charles Eugene Woodman 267
VIII. A Period of Expansion: 1900-1924 272
1. The Start of a New Century
273
2. Portland Welcomes Its Fourth Bishop 282
3. Recalling Maine's Catholic History
291
4. Walsh Becomes a Public Figure 299
5. A Summer's Work 312
6. The End of a Busy Life 320
IX. The Last Quarter of the First Century: 1925-1955 327
1. Two Boyhood Friends Become Bishops of Portland 327
2. Omnia Mea Tua 334
3. The Last Years of the First Century 342
Bibliographical Notes 351
Index 357
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Bishops of Portland Frontispiece Opposite 64
Champlain's Settlement on Holy Cross Island (1604) Mount Desert, site of St. Sauveur Mission (1613) 64
St. Patrick's Church in Damariscotta Mills, first (1808) Catholic Church in Maine 65
Old St. Dominic's, first Catholic Church in Portland 80 The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, dedicated September 8, 1869 81
STATISTICS FOR THE DIOCESE OF PORTLAND
For the Year 1855 The Metropolitan Catholic Almanac and Laity's Directory for ... 1855 (Baltimore, Lucas Brothers), p. 195 144
For the Year 1875 Sadliers' Catholic Directory (New York, 1875), pp. 298-301 160-161
FOREWORD
D URING THE year 1955, the diocese of Portland cele- brated the first one hundred years of its existence. The cen- tenary was appropriately observed through the entire year in the schools, academies and colleges of the diocese, as well as by programs of historic theme in the parishes and as part of the programs of the regular and annual meetings of our lay societies. A quickened interest was aroused and it was a matter of astonishment to thousands of Catholics to learn that the Catholic Church in Maine had had an almost continuous his- tory of three hundred and fifty years. Those now well ad- vanced in age easily remember that during the years of his service as Bishop of Portland, the late Bishop Louis S. Walsh (1906-1924) was indefatigable in his zeal to encourage historic research into the life of the Church in Maine. Under Bishop Walsh the study of Maine Catholic history was a must for the clergy, religious and schools of the diocese. With his death, interest flagged, but his work and the researches of those who shared it endure in the preserved volumes of the Maine Cath- olic Historical Magazine which he founded as the organ of publication for our Catholic history.
Our centenary awakened us to the truly glorious and edify- ing history that has been ours. The diocese of Portland is one of the few dioceses in the United States that shares the dis- tinction of witnessing within its limits the efforts of the Church to bring Christ to a barbarous people long before the Europe- ans were numerous enough by immigration to require the foundation of the diocese of Portland. The missionary activities of the Jesuits, the Capuchins and the diocesan clergy of Quebec laid the basis of a faith that still endures and is practised on three Indian reservations in this diocese.
The gradual advent into Maine of the immigrants from Canada and Europe in the early and mid-nineteenth century,
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and then the waves of immigrants in the latter years of the same century, taxed the zeal and ingenuity of the woefully inadequate clergy to care for their spiritual needs. Our forbears in the faith experienced the same travail that afflicted our brethren elsewhere in this new land of the free - suspicion, misunderstanding, hate, legal and illegal persecution, bodily suffering and destruction of their religious properties. Happily those days and their events are far behind us. They were but the logical conclusion of what honest historians today regard as a conspiracy against historic truth that spanned the years between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. We can afford to forget them with relief.
That the salient records of the past might be preserved for easy access in one volume, the Reverend William L. Lucey, S.J., librarian of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massa- chusetts, and an historian in his own right, was invited to devote his talents and acumen as an historian to a study of Maine Catholic history. This volume is the fruit of his labori- ous research. It was not conceived to be a detailed recitation of events to cover local parochial and institutional growth over the years, but rather as a broad adaptation of the Church's life in general as affected by the eras and circumstances in which over three hundred and fifty years she found herself. I believe that Father Lucey has succeeded admirably. I am happy to recommend his readable volume, The Catholic Church in Maine, to all who are interested in the ever continuing spread of the kingdom of God on earth.
& DANIEL J. FEENEY Bishop of Portland
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
1 CATHOLIC MEMORIES FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD
MA AINE IS the only New England state with a Catholic history rooted deep in the colonial period. Her forests, seacoasts and rivers from the St. Croix to the Saco are filled with memories of Franciscans, Capuchins, Jesuits, priests of the Foreign Missions, and priests of the diocese of Quebec, ministering to the spiritual needs of the Abenaki Indians and French traders and with reminders of the remarkable fidelity of Indians to the doctrines of Christianity taught them with great patience and many sacrifices by these missionaries. These memories were frequently recalled by David W. Bacon, the first Bishop of Portland, and the pioneer Catholics of Maine as they faced the task of organizing a diocese, and they were heartened by them. The labors of these missionaries have not lost their power to inspire, and some of them are recalled in this chapter as a preface to the history of the diocese of Portland.
1. THE CRADLE: HOLY CROSS ISLAND AND ST. SAUVEUR
Late in the month of May, 1613 the first French Jesuit mission in North America was hastily founded on Mount Desert. This was not the intended site of the mission and its origins and end were unhappy, but on this beautiful island off the coast of Maine the Catholic faith in New England was cradled.
For its start we must go back to the first French settlement
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
in New England, to the colony founded by Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, a Calvinist, who had received in 1603 the the right to colonize Acadia, a vague and indefinite grant that covered nearly half of North America. With Samuel de Champlain as his navigator, he sailed from Havre de Grace with his colonists in the spring of 1604, and from the many sites at his disposal he selected "with singular infelicity," as Francis Parkman comments, a small island near the mouth of the St. Croix River. The island, named St. Croix by the pioneers but now known as Holy Cross or Dochet's, had little to recommend itself, but there they disembarked and established what was the first European colony in New England.
It was a mercantile venture and not a mission to the Indians, although Henry IV had insisted that the conversion of the Indians be a primary objective of the French colonies in America. Hence, there were both priests and ministers in the colony and a chapel was among the buildings constructed. This was not a situation that promoted harmony. The colony survived only the bitter winter of 1604-1605, and many of the colonists did not survive that long, for when spring had arrived thirty-five of the original seventy-nine had died and those
alive, with the exception of the dauntless Champlain, were ready to abandon the colony. So they moved across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal. But here on Holy Cross Island, site of French civilization in North America, Father Nicholas Aubry, a victim, it would seem, of the severe winter, offered the first Mass on New England soil.
French colonial activities continued at Port Royal, and Baron de Poutrincourt, one of de Monts' companions, asked and received from the ambitious empire builder the right to colonize Port Royal. Before long two Jesuits, Peter Biard and Enemond Masse, were assigned to work among the Indians there. To get passage, however, was not easy, for neither Poutrincourt, a Catholic, nor the interested Calvinist merchants, wanted them. Appointed in 1608, the two did not arrive
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MEMORIES FROM COLONIAL PERIOD
until 1611, after a friend at the court, Madame de Guerchville, acquired shares in the company and provided passage for them. Before or shortly after their arrival, the only priest in the colony, Father Jesse Fleuche, returned to France. But difficulties between Poutrincourt and his son Biencourt and the two Jesuits continued. Out of these difficulties came the decision to found a mission for the Indians free from the conflicts with mercantile interests.
During the summer and fall of 1611 Biard joined Biencourt in exploring the coasts of Maine, visiting on two trips the stretch from the St. John to the Kennebec. He ascended the Penobscot as far as Bangor, and decided that this was the site for the future mission. He offered Mass, he tells us on one of the islands near the mouth of the Kennebec after the initial distrust of the Indians had been overcome, a distrust of the white man that derived from their first contacts with the English, George Weymouth in 1605 and the colony under Popham and Gilbert in 1607-1608. Weymouth, by kidnapping five Indians to exhibit to Sir Ferdinand Gorges in London, had implanted a suspicion and fear in the minds of the Indians whose memories were tenacious. The Popham colony was the first to feel the suspicion, for the colonists got little aid from the Indians during the severe winter of 1607-1608 that compelled them, like the de Monts colony, to abandon their site. An unmistakable coolness awaited Biard and Biencourt, too, as they approached the Kennebec Indians. At anchorage for the night near Bath, Indians and crew spent part of the night shouting at each other until the crew changed to the Salve and other hymns. It was not exactly a sacred concert, but the Indians did hear for the first time some beautiful Christian hymns, although, in a fashion typical of the old school of New England writers, we are told they sang and shouted "at their superstitious priest's request, as a pious shield against the baleful influence of the supposed incantations" of the savages. At least, the Indians preferred a songfest to kidnapping and before the
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
ship departed some nearby spot had been hallowed by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Plans for a mission developed during the next year. Brother Gilbert Du Thet, S.J., was in charge of details, and the ship under the command of Captain Charles Fleury left Honfleur, France on March 13, 1613. There were about forty-eight on board, counting crew, colonists, the future commander of the colony, Pierre La Saussaye, and another Jesuit, Father Jacques Quentin. They had little space to themselves, for also on board were some horses, goats, and other supplies. At Port Royal they were joined by Biard and Masse, and without delay they sailed for the Penobscot. But as so frequently happened with the early colonial projects they never reached their intended destination.
A heavy fog engulfed them, the ship strayed and finally had to heave to until the fog lifted. They found them- selves off an island which they named St. Sauveur, but which is known to generations of Americans as Mount Desert. They landed and before long decided to stay. What changed their plans is not clear. The crew was quarrelling about the terms of their contract, and on these early journeys the crews frequently decided the site of a colony; the Indians were friendly and wanted the missionaries to stay; and besides, Mount Desert is a tempting place in the summer time. Yet the decision was not a timely one. It was near the end of May when they landed, and the original site was soon exchanged for another, what is now Fernald's Point. All were soon busy with building shelters for themselves and the live stock, except Fleury who decided, in typical French independence of mind, that it was wiser to provide food for the winter and so turned gardener. With the Indians friendly and favorable to conversion, the prospects were bright. Unfortunately, the prospects were never realized.
For the end of the mission we must go to Virginia where Samuel Argall had been appointed Admiral of Virginia and
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MEMORIES FROM COLONIAL PERIOD
instructed to prevent the French from gaining a foothold within the limits of the colony. He knew, of course, of the French activity in Acadia and probably had heard of the projected Jesuit mission. In the summer of 1613 Argall was busy with preparations for a strange journey for an admiral. He was planning to fish cod up north, and the preparations were stranger still,-a ship armed with fourteen guns and manned with sixty musketeers. Before the mission of St. Sauveur was two months old, Argall's ship appeared off shore, and since it was peace time and the little French colony had no means to fight (their ship had one cannon that fired with difficulty), Argall quickly subdued them. He also managed to discover and secrete the commission to colonize held by La Saussaye, and then accused the French of an unwarranted attempt to colonize and of intruding on English soil.
His disposition of his prisoners was at least unique. One group, with Father Masse one of them, was given a boat and the open sea. Fortunately, with the aid of friendly Indians and with courage from Mass when it could be offered, they managed to reach a French trading vessel that returned them to France. Biard and Quentin and the others were taken to Virginia where only Argall's confession that he had stolen and concealed the commission saved them from the death threatened by the governor, Sir Thomas Dale. The two Jesuits also got back to France safely after many harrowing experiences. Brother Du Thet remained on Mount Desert, killed in the defense of the mission.
Thus ended the first Jesuit settlement in New England, ruined, as Parkman describes it, by "an obscure stroke of lawless violence." That act of violence marked the beginning of the century and half of wars and contentions between the English and French for the control of North America. The mission was a failure, but failures are frequently preludes to great events. The Christian faith had been planted in the hearts of the Maine Indians and from that hour their loyalty
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
to the faith and to the Blackrobe remains one of the remarkable achievements in the annals of the missions.
2. CASTINE
A missionary's life in Maine during the colonial period was never dull. One never knew whether an approaching sail was bringing friend or foe. Frequently it was the latter. Part of Maine, exactly what part was never decided, came under the region known as Acadia, and from 1604, when the first French colony was established, until the final victory in favor of England in 1763, Acadia was exchanged nine times between the English and the French. News of the beginning of a war and of the treaty concluding it usually reached the mission with the appearance of a hostile ship to take the post or of a friendly ship to recover it. Missionary work among the Indians in Maine, accordingly, lacked continuity.
After the wanton destruction of St. Sauveur in 1613, there was no renewal of missionary activity in Maine until 1619, when, at the invitation of two trading companies, one interested in fishing and the other in furs, the Franciscan Recollects came to Acadia. They established missionary centers at Port Royal, at Miscou, and on the St. John River; this latter was their major post, and from there they ministered to the Indians of northern Maine. Only scant information of their work has survived, but they did have a chapel on the St. John, and we know from Champlain's reports that they were still there in 1630. But a war (1627-1632) interrupted and finally ended their missions. During this war the Pilgrims of Plymouth extended their trading posts from Augusta on the Kennebec to Castine in 1629, and to Machias, two years later. But when, by the treaty of St. Germain (March 29, 1632), Acadia was restored to France, Cardinal Richelieu, as Prime Minister, reorganized both the colonial and missionary
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MEMORIES FROM COLONIAL PERIOD
policies of New France. To the Capuchins and to the Jesuits was given the onus of converting the Indians. Acadia, including Maine as far as the Kennebec, was assigned to the Capuchins. Henceforth there would be no confusion among the Indians from contentions between French priest and minister over Christian doctrine. But the missionary still had to contend with traders more concerned about pelts than the promotion of the Christian faith.
The Capuchins established a mission at Castine (Pentagoet) in 1635, and of their seven permanent missions this was their only one in Maine. This site on the peninsula that juts into beautiful Penobscot Bay was a natural trading center and made fine quarters for contacts with the Indians on the Maine rivers. Here the Capuchins built a chapel, the third on New England soil. Later they constructed a more substantial church and called it Our Lady of Holy Hope; the cornerstone was laid June 8, 1648. Unfortunately another war ruined their plans. In 1654 Castine was captured by the English and it remained under their control until 1667, when, again, by the treaty of Breda, Acadia was restored to France. The return of the English naturally ended the work of the Capuchins in Maine and Acadia where, during the brief quarter of a century (1632-1655), about forty members of their Order had labored.
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