USA > Maine > The Catholic church in Maine > Part 6
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In the late 1830's the Catholics of Gardiner, like other small groups in the Maine towns, were begging Bishop Fenwick for a resident priest. One gets the impression from the demands on the bishop that they did not see too much of Father Ryan. At least, like good Catholics they wanted to see a priest more often than they saw the pastor of St. Dennis'. But the bishop could only offer them promises to provide a priest as soon as possible. He knew that this would not be soon. However, on June 2, 1841 the bishop did have good news to convey to the Catholics of Gardiner through Mrs. Esmond. He was sending a priest to Augusta who would also attend them, and he was happy that they would now have a priest "nearer home" and he expected them to give their new pastor a hearty welcome. As we shall see, Father Ryan had been transferred from North Whitefield by this time, and the Catholics of Gardiner and of St. Dennis' probably were depending on a rare visit from the priest in Portland. This will explain Bishop Fenwick's use of the phrase "nearer home," since Augusta and North Whitefield were about the same distance from Gardiner. From our few observations on Augusta we know that the Catholics of Gard- iner had to wait a few more years before welcoming their new pastor. And not until Portland became a diocese was the first Catholic church built in Gardiner. In 1856 Father Charles Egan, the pastor of St. Mary's in Augusta, at the urgings of the Gardiner Catholics purchased a lot for a church at the high price of two thousand dollars. This site, however, did not please Bishop Bacon and so another site was acquired on Lin- coln and School Streets. Though this new site did not please some Protestants, others generously contributed to the church building fund. The foundations were started in May, 1858, and in October of that year the first Mass was offered in St. Joseph's. With considerable pride they acquired the furnish- ings for the church from money raised by fairs. Yet the Cath- olics of Gardiner waited five years (June 14, 1863) for its dedication by Bishop Bacon and they waited fourteen more years (August, 1877) for their first resident pastor.
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Belfast, listed as one of the Whitefield missions, best illus- trates the slow progress of the church in this area. By the 1820's it was a prosperous commercial town with regular sail- ing packets to and from Boston and frequent visits by ships from the British maritime provinces. The port was a likely stage for the Irish immigrant moving down the coast from New Brunswick. In his brief visit to the town in 1827, on his way from Eastport to Oldtown, Bishop Fenwick discovered two Irish families in a crowded room near the wharves. The bishop was moved by his experience and took the trouble to describe it in detail. Finding himself with a few hours at his disposal he went out in search of Catholics. He approached a woman who appeared to be Irish but who identified herself to the stranger with great reluctance. She hesitated long before ad- mitting she was a Catholic (not aware that she was talking to a bishop) and directing him to a house where two families re- cently arrived were living. There he found from twelve to fourteen persons in one room: all were hungry and he pur- chased food for them immediately and told them he would be back soon to hear their confessions. They spread the word that a Catholic bishop was in town and when he returned "a pretty good number" was waiting for him. He heard their con- fessions, spoke to them about opportunities in this country for sober and industrious people, told them about Whitefield and advised them to go there. Many more Irish immigrants slipped quietly into Belfast, but they did not have the good fortune of meeting a bishop on their arrival and seldom did they see a priest after settling in the town.
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Belfast was on the circuit made by Bishop Cheverus during his annual visits to Damariscotta and it became a mission under Father Ryan's care. We do not know how often Ryan visited and how many years it remained under his care. Not for long, it would appear. In a letter of September 26, 1832 Bishop Fenwick tells us that there were 150 Catholics in Belfast and they were visited about once a year by the priest at Indian Island; from this year onward Belfast was attended by priests
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from Indian Island, Bangor, and then Whitefield once again. Besides these occasional visits, now and then the Catholics were attended by a missionary, as happened in the fall of 1841 when Father Moyses Fortier of the Quebec diocese covered the Kennebec region to attend primarily to the Canadians in these towns. At Belfast he heard the confessions of twenty- three adults and of thirteen children. One can readily under- stand why many Catholics lost their faith under these condi- tions.
The loss would have been greater had not a young Irish immigrant, William S. Brannagan, settled in Belfast in the middle of the 1830's. He had a good position that gave him financial independence, he was respected by the townfolks, he was a devout Catholic and his great ambition was to see a respectable Catholic church built in this town. He became a lay curate for the priests who had charge of the Catholics, making the arrangements prior to visits and watching over the group between visits. For several years Mass was offered in the home of one of the Catholics, and when the Catholics could no longer be accommodated in a room, a hall was hired for the services. In 1851 Brannagan purchased a small build- ing that was converted into the Catholic church and it served the Catholics for about twenty years, although it was far too small for many of those years. When this church was aban- doned (it remained Brannagan's property) in 1870, the Cath- olics again had to hire a hall - Johnson's Hall, and for another fifteen years this was the "Catholic Church" of Belfast. During these years Belfast was a mission of many different churches. First it was served by Father Ryan and his successors; shortly after the Jesuits came to Maine in 1848 Belfast was assigned to them;1 when Ellsworth became a parish (1862), Belfast became one of its missions; then it became a mission of Rockport (1870-1877), and after that a mission of Winterport.
1 There is a curious mistake about Belfast in the Catholic Directory for 1847. It is listed first as a mission of Whitefield and then as a mission with a new church under the care of Fr. John Boyce, stationed at Eastport. This duplication is repeated in the next four editions (1848-1851).
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Meanwhile Brannagan was hoping to see a church built and was willing to contribute generously towards it. On two differ- ent occasions priests and parishioners started to build the church; first, when it was a mission of Rockport and Father M. C. O'Brien was pastor, the money for a church was pledged under the leadership of Brannagan, but Father O'Brien was transferred, and the project was abandoned and the money collected returned to the donors. Then, when Belfast became a mission of Winterport and Father Jeremiah McCarthy was pastor, another attempt was made. It was during McCarthy's first year as pastor that Bishop Healey came to confirm ( Octo- ber 7, 1877) a class of about forty in the local Opera House, hired for the occasion. This was the first confirmation cere- money in Belfast, - twenty-two years after the arrival of the first bishop. Bishop Healey's visit was an incentive to the church builders and the plans were revived; late in 1878 Bran- nagan purchased the site for the church that would cost, according to plans, ten thousand dollars. Completion was ex- pected within a year, but the project failed when Father McCarthy was transferred (1879). Not until May, 1891 was the church started. It was completed in 1894, and then Belfast became a parish with a resident priest. By the grace of God, Brannagan lived to see his dreams realized; it took about fifty- five years and much of his money to do it. Parishes grew slowly in Maine.
This brief account of the Belfast Catholics underscores the many factors involved in the slow growth. One can see, too, why the loss of faith among the Catholics of this town must have been heavy. Only souls strong in the faith can survive year after year on a monthly Mass, on little, if any, contact with a priest between these monthly visits, and in an atmos- phere that frequently belittled the Catholic religion.
Father Ryan has been lost while recording the development of Whitefield's missions. But the sad fact is that Whitefield had lost Father Ryan. He was first transferred to Providence and Taunton, then journeyed to Illinois and Iowa, and returned to
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Whitefield for two years, and finally went west, settling in Lockport, Illinois, in the diocese of Chicago. The conflicting statements in the available sources make it difficult to record with any finality where and why he moved during these years of 1841-1846.
In 1841 Ryan was transferred to Providence. On sound au- thority we are told he requested a transfer, but the reason is not disclosed. One would assume that only a compelling reason would persuade him to request a transfer from the parish he had labored so successfully to develop and from his comfortable rectory with its well pruned orchards. He was no longer young; he was fifty-five on May 1, 1840. Possibly he thought he could cure the spirit of restlessness that eventually over- came him by a change of scenery. We know he left St. Dennis' in 1841 and was pastor of the new parish of St. Patrick's in Providence in September of this year. He had attended the cornerstone ceremony of this church on July 13, with Bishop Fenwick presiding, but as a visitor, it seems, for the report of the affair lists him as Father Ryan of Whitefield, Maine. Super- vision of construction was entrusted to the pastor of Pawtucket. But in September Father Ryan was appointed pastor and in charge of construction. The appointment gave him more than a change of scenery, for the Catholics of Providence differed sharply on the wisdom of establishing another parish, and the pastor of the only church in the city was one of the opponents. That was the reason why the construction of the new church was assigned to the pastor of the Catholics of Pawtucket.
It is quite probable that Father Ryan now became the inno- cent victim of the severe measures that Bishop Fenwick was compelled to take to put an end to the parish squabbles and factions, some of them scandalous, that plagued the diocese during the early 1840's. The bishop was an old hand at this sort of trouble, for when he was President of Georgetown University Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal of Baltimore called on him in October, 1818, to dissolve the dissensions among the Catholics of Charleston, South Carolina. In any event, early in January,
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1842, Dennis Ryan and William Wiley, the pastor of St. Mary's in Taunton, exchanged parishes. The Catholics of Taunton disapproved of the move and in a manner that was typical of these times manifested their feelings. As one chronicler of the events observed:
The people made a great ado over Father Wiley's departure, and would have nothing to do with the new-comer. They held a meet- ing denouncing him, but he declared that he intended to stay as long as the pump gave him water, or he had the means to buy bread.
This attitude soon passed and they wrote a letter of thanks to their bishop for sending them Father Ryan, but this was the kind of treatment that would send a man back to the quiet of Whitefield or fix him in his resolve to go west. It appears that it turned his mind westward, for he was replaced at Taunton at the end of the year and in 1843 he and his niece, Mary Ryan, left Boston for Dubuque, Iowa.
This trip with his niece in the summer of 1843 has been described as a vacation. It was not. He had already decided to go west, and before his departure he had received Bishop Fenwick's permission to leave the diocese and had been accept- ed by Bishop Pierre Loras of Dubuque. The trip had the ap- pearance of a vacation because Ryan did return to Whitefield sometime in 1844 and then departed again for the west, this time to the diocese of Chicago, settling at Lockport, Illinois. It is an exchange of letters between Edward Kavanagh, then Governor of Maine, and Father Ryan that clarifies the first departure, and we shall give the letters as they appeared in the Boston Pilot, July 8, 1843.
It will be noticed that Kavanagh gives the impression that Father Ryan was still the pastor of St. Dennis' and had not been absent for two years or so. It could well be that Ryan did return to Whitefield early in 1843, after he had been replaced at Taunton. We know he had been away, first in Providence (not Pawtucket as the Directory states) and then in Taunton. Kavanagh's letter has no date as printed in the Pilot, but Father Ryan's was written in Boston on June 15, 1843, and we can assume that there was not a long delay before the answer was
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penned. In June, 1843, then, the Catholics of St. Dennis' and St. Patrick's knew that their pastor intended to go west and their spokesman, Governor Kavanagh, made one last appeal to him to change his mind.
To the Rev. Dennis Ryan: - Sir, - We have heard with extreme regret that the Catholics in this vicinity are in danger of losing the benefit of the pastoral labours that with patience and disinterested zeal you have discharged among us for twenty-five years past. What- ever may be the result of your final determination in this respect, it is but justice to declare now that those of us who during that period have had occasion to ask your pastoral offices in behalf of themselves and their friends for the administration of the sacraments of the church and the consolation of religion, must ever have reason to be grateful for the zeal and kindness that you have invariably mani- fested.
Attached to your person from all these considerations and revering your character for your virtues, we are unwilling to have you go from among us and we still hope that for the benefit of this scattered church you may, after further consideration on the subject, determine not to sever the connexion that has so long subsisted between us. We are, Sir, with sentiments of profound respect and sincere affection, your obliged servant,
Newcastle, Me.
Edward Kavanagh
Father Ryan delayed his answer until the day before his de- parture. By the time Kavanagh received it the priest and his niece were on their way to Iowa. His letter does support the claim that the decision was dictated by his relatives who were seeking better opportunities. If he "were to consult" his own feelings, he would continue his work at Whitefield.
To the Hon. Edward Kavanagh: - Sir, - I have received your very kind letter, in which you express a desire that I should return to, and continue in my late mission. Believe me, dear sir, that, if I were to consult my own feelings and the esteem in which I hold you and my other friends in Whitefield and vicinity, nothing would be more agreeable to my mind. But since I have accepted an invitation from the venerable Bishop of Dubuque, to administer to the spiritual wants of my fellow christians in that diocese, with the consent and approbation of my own Venerable and much beloved bishop, I leave here tomorrow morning, and hope that my ministry may be more useful.
Whatever my labors have been among you, they have been rendered light and agreeable by the many marks of kindness and
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affection, which, in our social intercourse, you have invariably mani- fested towards me.
Boston, June 15, 1843.
Respectfully yours, &c. Dennis Ryan.
Neither Kavanagh nor the bishop expected Ryan to return. That is clear from a notation in the bishop's Memorandum under June 26, 1843: "The Governor is anxious also to have a priest sent as soon as possible to replace Revd. Ryan at White- field." But Ryan did return to Whitefield sometime during 1844. In the Directory for 1845 and 1846 he is listed as the pastor of St. Dennis' with missions in Newcastle, Augusta and Gardiner.
During his absence St. Dennis' was, according to the annual directories, under the care of the Rev. J. O'Beirne for 1842 and 1843 and of the Rev. Patrick O'Beirne for 1844. It is confusing enough to find these two priests of the Boston diocese assigned in successive years to Whitefield, but to discover that both were also elsewhere compounds the confusion. This is only an indi- cation, however, of the many quick changes made by Bishop Fenwick during these years, and an annual was not an adequate record book to chronicle the changes. Both John and Patrick O'Beirne no doubt spent some time at Whitefield. However, Father John O'Beirne succeeded Father Ryan at Taunton late in 1842 and remained there until 1846; Father Patrick O'Beirne was assigned to St. Dominic's, Portland, early in March of 1842, and in the absence of a priest covered Whitefield and its mission. St. Dennis' was without a resident priest during most of these years until Father Ryan returned to Whitefield, some- time in 1844.
What happened at Dubuque? We do not know. Either his relatives failed to discover the opportunities they desired or Father Ryan consulted his own feelings and found that the diocese of Dubuque did not satisfy them. No doubt opportuni- ties in other places were investigated and the Chicago area was eventually the choice. Now Father Ryan had to negotiate an- other transfer to the diocese of Chicago, and this could be
Common de fleste crocs
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Plan of Champlain's settlement on Holy Cross Island.
The Mission of St. Sauveur (1613) on Mt. Desert Island.
St. Patrick's, Damariscotta, built in 1808 and now the oldest Catholic church in New England.
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managed better from Boston than Dubuque. That probably explains his return to Whitefield. In any case, after a few years at Whitefield he transferred to the diocese of Chicago. He settled at Lockport, Illinois where he built a church. It was a frame church, like the first he built at Whitefield, and he named it, as one would expect, St. Denis. He had dropt one "n" by now. His name appears in the 1847 edition of the Catholic Directory and remains there until 1852. The last mention of him is quite laconic: "St. Denis, frame church, service one Sun- day in the month. Rev. D. Ryan." He is not listed as serving any mission. He died that year in his brother's house.
One suspects that his declining years would have been hap- pier ones if he had remained at Whitefield where he was need- ed and appreciated. He had done much for the pioneer Cath- olics of Maine, and it was during his visit of 1832 that Bishop Fenwick was convinced that a farming colony like the one at Whitefield was the solution to the Irish immigrant problem and inspired him to found one in Aroostook County. The origin of this new Catholic colony will be described later.
2. CHARLES FFRENCH AND THE MAINE COAST
The next two churches built in Maine, after St. Patrick's in Damariscotta and St. Dennis' in North Whitefield, were in Portland and Eastport. Both were started at the same time and by the same priest, Father Charles Ffrench, who was accepted into the Boston diocese in the fall of 1826 and was immediately assigned to Maine with the seacoast from East- port to Dover, New Hampshire, as his mission. He first resided in Eastport, the gateway from the British maritime provinces to New England, but soon transferred his residence, if one can rightly assign a place of residence to this roving pastor, to Portland. This town, with its spacious harbor, was more central, was nearer to Boston, and attracted more permanent settlers among the Catholics moving to Maine. Portland's St. Dominic's
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was the first of the churches completed (1830) under the supervision of Father Ffrench.
Portland was a natural halting place for any traveller to and from Boston and Maine's coastal towns. Hence Father Chev- erus, on his first visit to the Catholics of Damariscotta in the summer of 1798 (this was his second visit to Maine), stopt at Portland on his journey back to Boston. There apparently is no record of contacts with any Catholic on this brief, one day (July 24) visit, but we can be sure that inquiries were made, and thereafter Father Cheverus seldom failed in his annual trip to Maine to stop at Portland, either on his way to or from Damariscotta. Father Romagné was instructed to do the same, and on his visits of 1811, 1812, and 1815 baptized a few children. In the second decade of the nineteenth century, then, we have the beginnings of a Catholic colony in this sea- port town. But the first noticeable increase came during the 1820's. In the spring of 1822 Bishop Cheverus, at their request, spent several days with them. There were forty-three Catholics there then, and before he departed the number was increased by two, - two converts by Bishop Cheverus. Later that year, he spent a week-end (July 13-14) with his little Portland flock, and this time a hall was hired for the occasion. Now Father Ryan was told to keep an eye on Portland and he regularly visited the town from 1822 to 1827, when Father Ffrench was appointed their pastor. By 1827 the Catholics of Portland numbered one hundred and twenty-five, a small, inarticulate group lost in the town's rapidly growing population of nearly 12,000.
Benedict Joseph Fenwick was then Bishop of Boston. He had been selected to succeed Bishop Cheverus, whose return to France on October 1, 1823 had saddened both Catholics and non-Catholics of Boston. More than two years after the de- parture, on November 30, 1825, Fenwick had arrived in Boston. He was American-born, from a Maryland family with respected colonial ancestry and he understood well the temper of the American people; he was also a Jesuit well known in ecclesi-
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astical circles, of proven administrative ability, of cheerful disposition that made him easily approached, full of zeal and energy that were subtly imparted to his co-workers, and with a saving sense of humor. Shortly after his arrival in Boston he wrote to the Superior of the American Jesuits that the New England cod-fish was so tasty it would lure more Jesuits than he needed to his diocese where, as he says, there was "a wide field" for workers. This wide field was, of course, all New Eng- land where, in 1825, there were two diocesan priests, Father Dennis Ryan and his cousin, Father Patrick Byrne, and exactly nine churches. Four of these churches were, as we know, in Maine; four were in Massachusetts; one was in New Hamp- shire; three New England states had no Catholic churches.
Late in 1826, a year after he had taken possession of his see, Bishop Fenwick accepted into the Boston diocese two priests, the first additions to his original diocesan staff of two. Virgil Barber, S. J., was at Claremont, New Hampshire, but he was on loan. The two new priests, both Irish-born and from other dioceses, were Charles Ffrench and John Mahoney. Only Father Ffrench, who arrived in Boston in November, 1826, concerns us, for he was assigned to Maine and during his eleven years there increased the number of churches by two. The appointment of Bishop Fenwick was a turning point in this priest's life. If Bishop Cheverus had remained in Boston or had Rome appointed his choice, Father William Taylor, as his successor, Ffrench would never have been accepted into the Boston diocese and Maine Catholics would never have known this exciting personality. He was fifty-one when he came to Maine, having already had enough excitement during this half century to more than satisfy the desires of three normal per- sons. One can not appreciate this man's pioneering work in Maine without some knowledge of his past career, although only a glimpse of it can be related here.
He was an Irishman, the son of a prominent Galway Anglican clergyman, and he and his brother (who later became a Cath- olic Bishop), were converted to the Catholic faith before reach-
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ing the twenties. Charles Ffrench entered the Dominican Order, studied at Lisbon and was there ordained on December 21, 1799. He had a wealth of talent, possessed a striking per- sonal appearance, but lacked the precious gift of common sense or sound judgment. Returning to Ireland a few years after ordination he conducted a private school with apparent success until, while he was in Lisbon, bankruptcy closed its doors and involved him in a heavy debt. The combination of debt and lack of common sense contrived to involve him in a succession of predicaments. The news of the unfortunate bankruptcy kept him in Lisbon for a year and rekindled, we are told, an old desire to labor among the Irish immigrants and the Protes- tants of America. Coupled with the old desire was the expec- tation to raise money to pay off his debt. This obviously was an escape, for no one could expect to pay off a heavy debt working among Irish immigrants in the United States.
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