USA > Maine > The Catholic church in Maine > Part 15
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32
Bath, St. Mary's, Rev. Lewis Mutsaers.
Bangor, Rev. Edw. McSweeney, Rev. Anthony Siniscalchi. St. Mary's, Rev. John Murphy. Chapel of St. Francis Xavier. Rev. Edw. McSweeney. Benedicta, St. Benedict's, Rev. Jas. Cassidy.
Belfast, Rev. P. Coffee.
Bremer, Rev. Anthony Siniscalchi
Brunswick, St. John Baptist, Rev. Lewis Mutsaers.
Bucksport, Rev. P. Coffee.
Carmel, Rev. John Murphy.
Calais, Immaculate Conception, Rev. Owen Conlan.
St. Anne's (Indian), Rev. Eug. Vetromile, Rev. Owen Conlan. Cherryfield, Rev. P. Coffee.
Damariscotta, St. Patrick's, Rev. D. McFaul.
Dion Plantation, Fort Kent, St. Louis' (French), Rev. F. Sweron. Wallagas, St. Charles', Rev. L. Demers. Fish River, St. Joseph's, Rev. L. Demers. Ste. Luce, Rev. Chas. Sweron.
Dexter, Rev. D. Halde.
Eastport, St. Joseph's, Rev. Eugene Vetromile.
Ellsworth, St. Joseph's, Rev. P. Coffee.
Frankfort, Rev. P. Coffee.
Gardiner, St. Mary's, Rev. Eugene O'Callaghan.
Hallowell, St. Mary's, Rev. Eugene O'Callaghan.
Hermon Pond, Rev. John Murphy.
Hampden, Rev. John Murphy. Houlton, St. Mary's, Rev. Luke Bartley.
Indiantown, St. Ann's, Rev. Eugene Vetromile.
Kennebunk, Rev. Jobn Brady.
Lewiston, St. Michael's, Rev. Clement Mutsaers, Rev. Thos. O'Neil St. Joseph's (French), Rev. P. Heney.
Lubec, Rev. M. McDonald.
Machias, Rev. M. McDonald.
Newport, Rev. John Murphy.
Oldtown, St. Ann's (Indian), Rev. John Duddy. St. Mary's, Rev. John Duddy.
Orono, St. Mary's, Rev. John Duddy.
Pembroke, St. John's, Rev. Eugene Vetromile.
Pleasant Point, St. Anne's (Indian), Rev. Eugene Vetromile Richmond, Rev. Lewis Mutsaers. Robbinstown, Rev. Owen Conlan.
Rockland, St. David's, Rev. Jas. Peterson.
Skowhegan, St. John Baptist, Rev. D. Halde.
Tangas Military Hospital. Rev. Eugene O'Callaghan.
Sadliers' Catholic Directory (New York 1875) pp. 298-301
Thomaston, Rev. Jas. Peterson. Trescott, St. Patrick's, Rev. M. McDonald. Madawaska, St. David's, Rev. P. Trudel. Mt. Carmel, Rev. P. Trudel. St. Bruno, Rev. M. Hubert. Caribou, Rev. M. Hubert. Fort Fairfield, Rev. Luke Bartley. Vassalboro, St. Mary's, Rev. D. Halde. Waterville, St. Francis of Sales, Rev. D. Halde, Rev. P. Lunney.
Whitefield, St. Denis, Rev. D. McFaul.
Winterport, Rev. D. Coffee.
Winn, Rev. Jas. Cassidy.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Bath, Rev. I. Noiseux.
Claremont, St. Mary's, Rev. C. O'Sullivan.
Columbia, Rev. Isidore Noiseux.
Concord, St. John's, Rev. John Barry.
Dover, St. Aloysius', Rev. James Drummond.
Exeter, St. Bernard's, Rev. Charles Egan.
Gonic, Rev. James Carnes.
Gorham, Rev. Isidore Noiseux.
Fisherville, Rev. John Barry.
Great Falls, St. Michael's, Rev. P. Canavan.
Greenburgh, Rev. Thomas Walsh.
Keene, St. Bernard's, Rev. D. Murphy.
Franklin, Rev. M. Goodwin.
Laconia, St. Mary's, Rev. M. Goodwin.
Lake Village, Rev. M. Goodwin.
Lancaster, St. Mary's, Rev. Isidore Noiseux.
Littleton, Rev. Isidore Noiseux.
Manchester, St. Anne's, Rev. Wm. McDonald. Convent of Mercy, Rev. Wm. McDonald, Rev. M. Danner St. Joseph's, Rev. John O'Brien. St. Augustine (French), Rev. A. Chevalier.
Mason, Rev. P. Hoolahan.
Milford, Rev. P. Hoolahan.
Nassau, Immaculate Conception, Very Rev: John O'Donnell, V.G. St. Louis' (French), Rev. J. N. Millette.
Newmarket, St. Patrick's, Rev. Charles Egan.
Portsmouth, St. Mary's, Rev. Thomas Walsh, Rev. P. McCaffery.
Rochester, Rev. James Caines.
Salmon Falls, St. Mary's, Rev. M. Bouvier.
Peterboro, Rev. D. Murphy.
Suncook, Rev. John Barry.
Wilton, Rev. P. Hoolalian.
INSTITUTIONS.
Convent and Academy of the Sisters of Mercy, at Portland. Number of Religious, 20. Sister Mary Francis, Superior.
Orphan Asylum, at Portland. Number of children in the house, 45. Choir Sisters, 2; lay Sisters, 5.
Parochial Schools of the Cathedral. Pupils, 500.
Parochial Schools, at St. Dominic's. Pupils, 400. Mother-House of the Sisters of Mercy, at Manchester, New Hampshire. Professed choir Sisters, 21 ; choir novices, 14; lay Sisters, 8.
Orphan Asylum, opened in May, 1870, adjoining the convent. Num- ber of children already in the institution, 47 ; professed choir Sisters, 2 ; lay Sisters, 6.
Academy and Boarding School, under the charge of these ladies.
Also Parochial Schools of St. Ann's and St. Joseph's.
Parochial Schools, for Canadians, in the Madawaska territory and else- where.
House of the same Ladies of Mercy, in Bangor, with parochial schools, academy, and boarding-school. Professed choir Sisters, 7; lay Sisters, 3. Parochial Schools, under the charge of lay teachers, are attached to several of the churches of the larger congregatione.
Convents and Academies.at Bangor and Whitefield, under charge of Ladies of Mercy ; also, Parochial Schools.
RECAPITULATION.
Churches. 58 | Female religious institutions .. . 4
Churches building. 6 Asylums .. 2
Priests. . 52
Female academies. G
Ecclesiastical students. 20 Free schools. 20
Catholic population, 80,000.
161
MAINE'S FIRST CATHOLIC BISHOP
eastward to Canada and became acquainted with a priest who recommended him to Bishop Bacon. Where and when he studied theology, we are not told. But the bishop recognized his worth and consented to ordain him for the diocese of Port- land. The two became good friends, the bishop was only ten years his senior, and they evidently had many talks together; the bishop tells us that Kenny spoke frequently and with af- fection of his mother, presumably still alive.
Father Kenny remained at St. Dominic's about three months after ordination, acquiring from the bishop and the pastor the details of pastoral theology. In November he was appointed pastor of the Catholics of Biddeford, Saco, and Kennebunk, with his residence in Biddeford where the bishop had pur- chased a house for a rectory. In Biddeford he found the Catholics eager to build a church and he, too, entered into their eagerness; indeed he expressed an anxiety to leave behind him a monument, as if he had an inkling of an early death and the time for building was brief. Possibly the idea of a letter from the Biddeford Catholics to the readers of the Pilot that they soon would have their own church was inspired by their pastor. He did not live to see the church completed. He died during a visit to Boston on February 28, 1857. He had been a priest less than two years, but by his piety and zeal he had honored the priesthood and the diocese of Portland. He was a model for the future priests of Maine. As a tribute to the first ordained priest of the diocese, Bishop Bacon buried him in the vault of the Cathedral chapel.
Eight weeks later John Brady was ordained, the second priest to be ordained in Maine and for the diocese of Portland. Brady was, like Kenny, from Ireland, but the bishop has not given us any biographical information about him. Even his diocese has been omitted. The powers of subdiaconate were conferred on October 8, and on that day he gave Bishop Bacon his promise of obedience. Ten days later he became a deacon and on All Saints he was ordained a priest. He remained at St. Dominic's for some weeks, at school really with the bishop and the
162
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
pastor his instructors in pastoral theology. In July 1856 the bishop found it necessary to send him to Claremont, New Hampshire.
Father Daly, the pioneer priest of Vermont who had re- turned to the diocese of Boston after Bishop de Goesbriand had become the first bishop of Burlington only to find himself in the new diocese of Portland, had decided to seek work in another field. He had spent nineteen years in Vermont and New Hampshire and though he was somewhat inclined towards the eccentric, these foibles were on the pleasant side and did not detract from his solid achievements in building up the church in the southern sections of these two states. Father Daly enjoyed telling friends that he never spent two nights under the same roof. It could be that Bishop Bacon attempted to persuade him that it would be better for the Catholics, if not for himself, if he tarried longer in Claremont, now his residence. There is a hint of this in an observation found in a history of St. Mary's of Claremont; the writer noted that Father Daly was a missioner at large and "could not strictly be called pastor of Claremont." In any case, in the early spring of 1856, Father Daly, without Bacon's approval, went to New York. He was apparently still a member of the Franciscan Order and had no intentions of retiring. Eleven years later he was doing parish work in New York and then he became an institutional chaplain. He was chaplain of the Girls' Orphan Asylum on Prince Street when he died, in his seventy-eighth year, on De- cember 11, 1872.
John Brady's appointment as Daly's successor at Claremont was the beginning of a lengthy and fruitful pastoral life that ended with a long tenure in Biddeford, where Thomas Kenny, Portland's first ordained priest, had started and ended his brief priestly career. He spent six years at Claremont, with Keene, East Jaffrey, Peterborough, and Greenville as missions to the south, Franklin to the east, Lancaster and Littleton to the north. From Greenville to Lancaster was about a hundred and thirty miles, and if Father Brady had to minister to Catholics
163
MAINE'S FIRST CATHOLIC BISHOP
in the villages between these two towns he soon realized that Father Daly's remark about never spending two nights under the same roof was not spoken entirely in jest. Keene was the important station, for the building of the Cheshire railroad in 1845 attracted Irish laborers who started to settle in this town. In his first year at Claremont, Brady purchased and converted a building into a church and offered Mass there monthly. In 1862 he transferred his residence to Keene, becoming thereby the first resident pastor. But shortly after this move he was transferred to Dover. Then in 1870 he was appointed to St. Mary's, Biddeford, the church Father Kenny was so anxious to make his monument.
Father Brady spent a quarter of a century in Biddeford, twenty years as the busy pastor and the last five in semi- retirement. In his declining years he may have considered how he, with God's help, had put an end to any Canterbury tales linked with the rectory. Indeed, he had had a few misgivings about the new assignment when offered to him. St. Mary's had had six pastors in its fifteen years of parish life by 1870; one, Brady's immediate predecessor, had remained only a few months; another had had a respectable tenure of eight years before he was changed. But the other four had died quite unexpectedly a year or so after their appointment. No doubt Brady was aware of this during his first few years in Biddeford and dwelt on it again in a more pleasant way during his retire- ment.
It seems unfair to dismiss his quarter of a century of pastoral life with only a passing mention, yet one does not add much to an appreciation of his work by adding that he improved the interior of the church, completed the rectory, and purchased land for a school. It is in his work among his poor parishioners that one will discover his achievements, and they are not re- corded for the inquiring historian. His parish had been reduced shortly before his arrival and during the brief tenure of Father Luke F. Bartley, his immediate predecessor. The large influx of French-Canadians had demanded a new parish and Father
e e d CS
t t f
164
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
John F. Ponsardin was appointed to organize it and to build the parish church. In Bishop Bacon's memorandum book there is no information about this new pastor; we are not told where he came from and when he was accepted by the diocese, but Biddeford seems to have been his only assignment and quite probably the bishop had accepted him at this time for this new parish. The absence of notations in the memorandum book would indicate that he did not cause Bishop Bacon any trouble, but he succeeded in giving Bishop Healy many restless nights and wretched days.
In July 1890 Father Brady retired from the active admin- istration of St. Mary's, but remained at the parish. Five years later, as the fortieth anniversary of his priesthood was ap- proaching, he returned to Ireland. Ireland had given the diocese of Portland its first two ordinandi. One was buried in the vault of the Cathedral chapel; it was only fair that the other be buried in Ireland.
The numerical gain in the number of priests during 1856 was slight. Four were added during the year, but the departure of Daly and the death of O'Reilly had reduced the eighteen of the previous year by two. And deaths and departures soon reduced the four of this year to one. In June, Bishop Bacon accepted a priest from the diocese of Philadelphia, and neither the bishop nor the Catholics of Eastport, where he spent his brief stay in the diocese, discovered his Christian name or got his family name straight. He was Father Moshall ( also Mosher and Mochell), who returned "to his homeland" in the spring of 1857. Father John Cullen, from the diocese of Hartford, was accepted in July and assigned to Lewiston; he left the diocese, at the request of the bishop, one year later. It was no easy task to staff the diocese with zealous pastors.
The other two priests of this year were ordained for the diocese by Bishop Bacon: Michael Lucey and Patrick Bacon. Although both had become deacons on the same day, June 26, they were ordained on different days, a practice the bishop continued to follow in all ordinations. Lucey was ordained a
165
MAINE'S FIRST CATHOLIC BISHOP
priest on June 29 and Bacon on August 15. It could well be that the bishop wanted to mark the first anniversary of Maine's first ordination. Father Patrick Bacon, like Father Kenny, lived only a few years after his ordination. He was first assigned to Thomaston and Rockland, and then transferred to St. Mary's in Biddeford as Kenny's successor. He died during a visit to his parents in Ireland on February 18, 1859. In Father Lucey, however, the bishop found a man badly needed, - a builder of churches.
One could hardly find a better place to test the talents of an authentic church builder than the diocese of Portland during its early years. Michael Lucey was pastor of three different parishes during his twenty-two years as a priest in Maine and New Hampshire and he built four churches; in each instance the church he built was the first constructed by Catholics in the town. Only death, a year after he had completed his fourth church, ended his career as church builder. Bishop Bacon realized he had a church builder shortly after he appointed the recently ordained priest as pastor of Great Falls (now Som- ersworth), New Hampshire.
As an example of the problems of a new diocese, it is well to recall what Father Michael Lucey achieved for his bishop and the Catholics of the diocese of Portland. He had been a priest less than two months when he was told to go to Great Falls and attend the Catholics of that town, and those of nearby Salmon Falls and Rochester. We do not know his age but he was probably quite young and recently from Ireland. He had received both minor and major orders in Portland at the hands of Bishop Bacon during the month of June. He was ordained a priest on June 29 and assigned to his parish on August 24. He was, of course, alone and a stranger to his parishioners. He resided at Great Falls, living in the house of a Catholic and there offering Mass until he was able to rent a house for residence and a hall for religious services. Without delay he persuaded the Catholics to build a church and plans were progressing well until the local mills, the main source of
1 1
166
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
financial support of his parishioners, failed. Plans for a church in Great Falls were suspended, but not cancelled. He concen- trated on Salmon Falls and persuaded the Catholics there to build a church. St. Mary's was completed and ready for the dedication ceremony by 1859, and Bishop Bacon paid his first visit to Salmon Falls to dedicate the church. The bishop's visit inspired the Catholics of Great Falls, who had recovered from the failure of the mills, to revive their plans for a church; by 1860 Holy Trinity was completed. The Catholics of these two towns were neither numerous nor wealthy, but now could with reasonable pride claim that they had their own church, whereas larger and wealthier Catholic parishes in the diocese still attended Mass in rented halls or abandoned Protestant churches converted into shabby chapels.
Father Lucey did not long enjoy the two new churches. In 1862 he was transferred to Lewiston, exchanging places with Father James H. Durnin. Lewiston and Great Falls had re- ceived their first resident pastors at the same time, but Lewiston had had three pastors within those six years: John Cullen, Daniel Whelan, and James H. Durnin, and the Cath- olics were still worshipping in the remodeled, abandoned Baptist church that Father Mclaughlin of Bath had purchased in 1855 and moved to another site. It was not quite the same church, for it had once been partially destroyed by fire and repaired and again nearly destroyed by fire and rebuilt. On both occasions there were strong suspicions that the fire was not accidental. I suppose it could be said that the Catholics of Lewiston had built a church if the combined costs of repairing were computed, and there was no point in expending money and energy on a costly church if the end of it would only be a fine bonfire. By 1862 the bishop evidently thought a new church would be reasonably safe and sent Father Lucey to build it. A lot on Main Street was purchased, the building was started, the cornerstone ceremony, with the bishop officiating, took place June 13, 1864, and the church, St. Joseph's, was ready for services in 1867.
167
MAINE'S FIRST CATHOLIC BISHOP
The pioneer Catholic of Lewiston, Patrick O'Donnell, did not live to see the church constructed. O'Donnell was a con- tractor who had come to this community to construct a canal and the Continental Mill, and the many Irish laborers he hired for these and many other projects formed the first Catholic colony in Lewiston. In 1850 he married Catherine Mangan, a young Irish immigrant from County Kerry who came to Lewis- ton in 1847 when she was twenty-one, and the two made the trip to Augusta so that their marriage could be blessed by Father O'Reilly. The O'Donnell home then became a place for Catholics to gather and the visiting priest to stay. Patrick died in 1863 after Father Lucey arrived, but before construction of the church began; Mrs. O'Donnell lived on for many years and when she died in 1913, she was the last of the Catholic pioneers of Lewiston. The church in Maine owes much to families like the O'Donnells.
St. Joseph's was completed as quickly as one could have ex- pected, for the war had suspended most construction, and the expenses of the church were heavy, - about eighty thousand dollars. Hardly had the church been finished when it was found too small for the growing Catholic population of Lewis- ton. The French-Canadians accounted for the sudden increase, and in 1859 the basement of St. Joseph's was given to them and a curate appointed to serve them. The next year a new parish for the French-speaking Catholics was established and the old Catholic chapel was again opened and used as their church until they could build a suitable one. This was the time when a second Catholic church started to appear in the cities of Maine and New Hampshire. The date of the second church usually marked the arrival in large numbers of the French- Canadians into the diocese.
Exeter, New Hampshire, was Father Lucey's next field of activity. He went there in 1875; by 1877 St. Michael's was ready for services. This parish had been founded in 1859, three years after Lucey had gone to Great Falls. Five pastors had preceded him, and yet, in 1875, the church was only a rented
168
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
building. The Catholics had purchased an abandoned Protes- tant church and converted it to their own use, but another pastor had sold both the church and the residence, acquired another residence and used a nearby building for church services. There are no records to explain this transaction, but it does not today have the appearance of progress and improve- ment, although it may have been part of a plan to build a new church. If so, Father Lucey did the building after purchasing another site and acquiring the services of a Boston architect. He had one year to enjoy the new St. Michael's. In 1878 the builder of churches died. His was the first funeral in St. Michael's.
With each year the needs for more priests increased and year by year Bishop Bacon managed to add a few more priests to meet the needs. Now and then he would accept a priest from another diocese, regret his decision later, and be compelled to release him. In 1857 seven new names were added to the roster of the diocesan clergy, four of them from other dioceses (Louisville, New Brunswick, Brooklyn, and St. Hyacinth) and the other three ordained for the diocese. Bacon himself or- dained two of them, James P. Perrache, born in France, on February 24, and Matthew Murphy, an Irishman, on August 28. Henry Gillen, another Irishman, who succeeded Bapst in Bangor after a few years at Eastport, was ordained for the diocese of Portland in Montreal. The gradual increase of priests ordained for the diocese was encouraging, although the total years of service of these seven was far short of the expected, due to deaths and departures, voluntary or otherwise. One remained three months in the diocese; another less than five years; little can be discovered about a third; only Father Isidore Noiseaux, of the four transferred priests accepted in 1857, out- lived the bishop. The three newly ordained priests served the diocese a total of thirty years, a total far below the normal expectancy. But that was one of the disappointments a bishop building a new diocese had to expect.
The next three years were lean: none in 1858, one in 1859,
169
MAINE'S FIRST CATHOLIC BISHOP
three in 1860; all four priests had served elsewhere before the bishop accepted them. Death and departure soon terminated the services of two of them; the other two were Eugene Vetromile, one of Bapst's companions on the Maine missions, and James T. Durnin, a native of Eastport, Maine. Eugene Vetromile had been recalled from the Maine missions in the fall of 1858 in time to take over the classes in physics, chem- istry, and astronomy at Holy Cross. He was also college librarian. It would seem that the work of a missionary had a greater appeal than the demands of the classroom and the care of books, for he decided to return to Maine. The transfer to the diocese had been arranged some time in advance for Bishop Bacon was in Rome making his first ad limina visitation when Vetromile, late in 1859, was accepted by the Vicar-General. In the spring of the next year he was appointed pastor in Bidde- ford and while pastor there had charge of the Indians at Calais.1 He spent twenty-two years in the diocese, found time to travel rather extensively, acquired a solid reputation as an author and an authority on the Maine Indians, and added no little prestige to the clergy of the diocese. His books are now among the collection of the college library where he was once librarian, and among the library's manuscripts is an abstinence pledge signed by one of his Penobscot Indians in 1858. The certificate of the pledge is a printed formula in Indian and English with vivid illustrations of the evils from over-indulgence in fire water and bears Father Vetromile's name in print in the lower right corner. Obviously the occasion of the pledge was not lightly taken and the Indian was given a telling reminder of his promise.
1 Since Calais was more than 200 miles northeast of Biddeford and there was a resident pastor of the Immaculate Conception church in Calais, this appears to be a singularly strange assignment. A probable explanation may be that the priest in Calais did not know the Abenaki language, and Vetromile requested the work among the Indians. Whatever the explanation, Vetromile was, according to the Catholic directories, pastor in Biddeford and pastor of St. Ann's (Indians) in Calais for the years 1865-1870. When, however, Vetromile was assigned in 1871 to Lubec, a town not far from Calais, he no longer was pastor of the Indians of St. Ann's; Father Durnin, resident priest in Calais, had charge of them. Durnin probably knew the Indian language. But Vetromile was soon working again with the Indians; from 1872 to 1876, as pastor in Eastport, and from 1879 to 1881, as pastor in Machias, he attended to the Indians of Pleasant Point. In 1877 and 1878 Vetromile was granted permission by Bishop Healy to travel. He died August 23, 1881, at the age of sixty-two, in Gallipoli, Italy, his birthplace.
170
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MAINE
The information on James T. Durnin is tantalizingly meagre, and this is unfortunate for he was, as far as can be discovered, the first Maine born Catholic ordained a priest. If Bishop Bacon was aware of this when he accepted Durnin for the diocese, he failed to make note of it in his memorandum book; he merely noted the new arrival came from the diocese of Dubuque, was accepted April 22, 1860, and was named pastor of Lewiston. This information is given under Thomas Durin, but there is no serious doubt that this priest from Dubuque was James T. Durnin, born in Eastport on November 28, 1828. Apparently people found it difficult to get Durnin's correct name, and he made little effort to correct them.1
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.