USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. II > Part 35
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Ecclesiastical History.
Such is the duty and such is our practice, whom yon misrepresent, and against whom you are endeavoring to excite bad feelings in the com- munity. Now, Sir, the only fact or intimation of truth, which your article relative to me contains, is, that I board in this city at the American Hotel, the proprietor of which is Mr. Gass ; and I would respectfully ask of you, would yon deny me the right, or the privilege, to board where I consider to be the most advantageous to myself? or to travel in this free country where the calls of the people confided to my care, or the interests of religion, may require my presence? Be- lieving that you have received your information, that led to the publi- cation of the article, from some interested source, or renegade Catholic, that always fears as much as he hates a Catholic priest, I freely ex- onerate you from all blame and culpability : should you be pleased to let this reply appear in the columns of the "Daily American " you will confer a favor on your very obedient, humble servant,
JOHN B. DALY, Catholic Priest.
In a little over a year from the time this letter was written, the bad feelings which .Father Daly charged had been excited by the misrepresentations he called attention to were so much increased by a continuation of them, that bloody riots had occurred, with great loss of life and property in Louisville, Baltimore, and New Orleans. New Hampshire was not even exempt from it. There was no loss of life, but the church in Manchester was attacked and considerable injury done. Father Daly left New Hampshire before 1860; where he went to, or among whom he labored after his departure to the time of his death, is not known. It is fair to presume that it might have been in Troy, N. Y., for he died in that city sometime during the year 1863.
The first public service of the Roman Catholic Church was held in Brackett's Hall1 in 1848 or 1849, the officiating priest being the Rev. Father Jeremiah O'Callaghan, who came here at that time upon the invitation of John and Richard Smith. The small hall was nearly filled, several non-Catholics being present. Father O'Callaghan preached a rather lengthy sermon, much of it relating to theological questions. The Reverend Father visited the town two or three times after this event. He was a strong man, of great courage and pertinacity, who had many somewhat original ideas on economical questions which he advocated, sometimes to the exclusion of more interesting, if not more important matters. Like Father Daly, he was an untiring
1 In what is now Calhoun's Block.
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worker, and for many years traversed in all sorts of weather and varying conditions of travel his vast mission, which was practically under his sole supervision, and which he ruled with the iron hand of an autocrat. He was born in Ireland, and educated and ordained to the priesthood there. He was for a time connected with the diocese of Cork, where he had a misun- derstanding with his bishop on the subject of usury. The trouble grew out of a disagreement as to the terms upon which he re- ceived a sum of money from the bishop to be used in building a church. The priest regarded it as a gift, the bishop as a loan, and in time demanded its payment with compound interest, at which Father O'Callaghan demurred and visited Rome to defend his contention, but without success. The subject was ever after a fruitful theme with him both in the pulpit and in the press. Upon coming to this country, Bishop Fenwick sent him to Burlington, Vt., in 1830, where he remained until 1852, when he was assigned to Holyoke, Mass., as a missionary. There he built St. James Church, and was the first pastor of the parish. He was a priest of the primitive type, a father to his people, by whom he was much beloved and over whom he possessed unusual influence. As a preacher, he was pungent and practical, going direct to the point and seldom dealing in sentiment or permitting a public or private wrong to pass unrebuked while it was still fresh in the minds of his people.
He was a prolific writer on controversial subjects, especially such as pertained to religious and economic questions. He pub- lished several works which attracted attention in their day, but are now mostly forgotten or remembered for the merciless char- acter in which he attacked his opponent.1 Father O'Callaghan passed to his reward in 1868, at the age of eighty-three years, and is buried in the grounds of the church he built at Holyoke.
It was the custom then, as now, for the bishops to send among the people speaking different languages clergymen who would preach to them in their native tongue. The French population of this section was at that time increasing rapidly, and probably for this reason a priest of that nationality was sent among them in the person of the Rev. Hector Antoine Drolet, of Mont-
1 Among the titles are " A Critical Review of Mr. J. H. Convers's Calvinistic Sermon," a pamphlet of 58 pages, 16mo, Burlington, 1834; " Usury, Funds, and Banks ; also forestalling Traffic and Monopoly; likewise Pew Rent, and Grave Charges, etc.," 8vo, pp. 380, Burlington, 1834; " The Creation and Offspring of the Protestant Church ; also Vagaries and Heresies of John Henry Hopkins, " etc., 12mo, pp. 328, Burlington, 1837; "Exposure of the Vermont Banking Companies," pam- phlet, pp. 32; " Atheism of Bronson's Review," etc., 8vo, pp. 306, Burlington, 1852.
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pelier, Vt., who for two or three years alternated with Father O'Callaghan in visiting this town. Father Drolet was born in Quebec in January, 1806; ordained January 24, 1830, vicar of St. Roch in Quebec ; 1831, of St. Gervais ; 1833, of Verchères ; 1835, of St. Hyacinthe ; 1838, missionary of Nipissiquit ; 1839, of Caraquet ; 1849, missionary at Montpelier, Vt .; 1855, of St. Charles Chambly ; 1856, of St. Jude, where he died in June, 1868, aged fifty-five years.
He is said to have been an exceptionally devout and amiable man, greatly devoted to his work and endowed with the true missionary spirit. Hard work and exposure on his travels weakened his constitution, and while in Montpelier ill-healtlı so added to his burdens that he was finally compelled to return to his old home, where he was appointed to work that was deemed more suited to his feeble health.
After his departure came the Rev. John Brady, missionary at Claremont, who had succeeded Father Daly in the mission. All these priests held their services at private houses, usually at the house of Richard Smith, but sometimes at those of Matthew Powers or Daniel Harrington.
Father Brady was born in Curryroe, County Cavan, Ireland, in 1828. His parents were in good circumstances, and assisted two of their sons to obtain an education and enter the priesthood. Father Brady was educated partly in Ireland, but coming to Canada entered Montreal College, and subsequently began the study of theology in 1858, and was graduated from Grand Semi- nary in 1855, and the same year ordained by Bishop Bacon at Portland, and appointed to the Claremont Mission, where he remained about a year.
Father Brady was located at Lebanon, Keene, Houlton, Me., and in 1870 became pastor of St. Mary's Church, Biddeford, Me., where he remained twenty years. After his retirement he con- tinued to reside in the parish until 1895, when he returned . to Ireland to make his home with a brother in the house where he was born. He was a man of many accomplishments, a fine scholar, a poet of no mean ability, and a persuasive pulpit orator. His successor at St. Mary's, the Rey. Father Timothy P. Linehan, says of him : " I do not believe that he ever spoke an unkind word to his people during all the years of his ministry. He was exact and faithful in the discharge of the duties of the priesthood. He talked little of himself, was most simple and unaffected in manner, and loved retirement. In speech he was direct, always quite to the point, but always most charitable." Much of his
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History of Littleton.
own personal revenue he turned into the parochial treasury, and when he was departing he crowned his generosity by a gift to the parish, through Father Linehan, of $5,000 for school purposes.
The life of a missionary priest at that time could not have been very much lighter than that of his Jesuit predecessors two centuries before. Railroads in this section were unknown, and the travelling from one mission to another in rude sleighs, carts, or on foot, while the priest was fasting in preparation for the coming sacrament, must have made the existence of the missioner one of inconceivable hardship. The life of Catho- lic priests at the best is one of hard toil and loneliness. There is little change for them from the hot, stifling confessional, where cramped in one position they must sit for hours late into the night, listening to the sins and sorrows of their spiritual chil- dren : later they retire to rest only to be called again to some distant sick one, perhaps driving or walking through the rain or snow to administer the last sacrament without which no Catholic willingly undertakes the journey to "the undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns," and then returning home only in time to celebrate the early mass. Even in our day it is not uncommon for a priest at Christmas to say a midnight mass at one mission, drive twelve miles in an open sleigh over rough roads to repeat the same at five A. M. at another, and then continue to drive eight miles farther to celebrate the third mass at ten A. M., not breaking his fast until noon.
But after all, these physical hardships were the least of those endured by a priest in the beginnings of the faith in New Hampshire. The State was first settled by Puritans and Scotch Irish ; the latter, stern Covenanters and bitter foes of the Roman Catholic faith, who had no fellowship for Catholics. Famine, however, was driving the children of Ireland to this country, as the Acadians had been driven from their well-loved homes, and they were scattered here and there. Railroads were being built, and mills, which called for much labor, and so, in spite of opposition, Catholics were here to stay, and churches and priests must necessarily follow, even at the cost sometimes of life itself. These missionary fathers of Burlington, then in the diocese of Boston, were followed by one who may be called the Apostle of Littleton, the Rev. Father Isadore H. Noiseux.
Among the families connected with the church under the care of these priests, beside the Smith brothers and Lewis Coutreau,
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were John, James, and William Truland, Dennis Murphy, Joseph Lucia, John Legacy, Joseph and Frank Mozrall, Lewis Biron (Bero), and others. When the railroad was completed to the town in 1853, there was added to the citizenship, not only in this, but in neighboring towns, a number of Catholic families, such as the Donovans, Powers, Nihans, and Callahans, who strengthened the people belonging to this church and rendered it necessary, in order to minister to their spiritual wants, to provide a more regular service.
The see of Portland was erected from that of Boston in 1853, but it was not until 1855 that the diocese obtained its first bishop, the Rt. Rev. D. W. Bacon, the first candidate having declined the office and returned his papers to Rome. The diocese embraced the States of Maine and New Hampshire; Little- ton was then a part of the Claremont Mission. Bishop Bacon divided that mission, and Littleton came under the charge of the Rev. Father Noiseux, of Lancaster. He visited here once a month for sixteen years, and then twice a month for four years longer. Rev. Father Noiseux was born in Canada, in the diocese of St. Hyacinthe, October 15, 1815. He was educated at the College of St. Hyacinthe, and after leaving there, entered the Grand Semi- nary of St. Sulpice at Montreal, for the purpose of studying philosophy and theology. He was ordained there to the priest- hood in Holy Week, 1843. The Reverend Father began his labors in Canada, and was stationed at St. Hyacinthe as assistant for two and one-half years, and then transferred from there to St. Dominick as resident pastor for six years, and from there to St. Gregoire, three years. At the end of that time he came to the States to assist the Rev. Father Boyce at Worcester, Mass., having special charge of the French Canadians in the parish. Hear- ing, however, of the great need of priests in the new diocese of Portland, the missionary spirit moved him to leave the more comfortable city parish and offer his services to Bishop Bacon. The bishop immediately assigned him to take charge of Lancaster and the whole Connecticut River mission, -this district extended from Colebrook to Ashuelot and included also the White Moun- tain district. It is unfortunate that so little is known of the Reverend Father's toils in his large mission. His visits to the lumber camps and other unsettled places would doubtless be most interesting and edifying. Good men do not care to tell about those things, and there is only one allusion in his papers to those hardships. He says : "Many times I slept in old shanties. There were no railroads, and I had many cold, hard
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History of Littleton. .
drives. On one of my visits to Laconia I was thirty-six hours at the mercy of a pitiless storm and without anything to eat."
Father Noiseux began his labors here in a time of bitter animosity against the church. New Hampshire by her Consti- tution prohibited Catholics from holding seats in the Legislature and from all other offices of the state. The spirit that destroyed the Catholic Church in our cathedral city of Manchester was still rife. What volumes, then, does it tell of the saintly character of the man to hear him say, " I have never met with any opposition or persecution from non-Catholics of any kind ; on the contrary, Catholics have been always esteemed, and I have received much help from them for church charities, etc."
To build a church in Littleton was a desire that lay very near the heart of Father Noiseux. At a time when the contributions were insufficient to defray his personal expenses, he formulated a plan, whichi was executed some years after, for the erection of such an edifice. Immediately prior to 1875 the Roman Catholics in the parish had received large and important accessions. John M. Mitchell, Stephen Ouvrand, and his son Phileas F., Timothy Murphy, and the Carbonneaus, the father and four sons, were of this number. Father Noiseux thought the hour had struck for the consummation of his long-cherished plans, and with great zeal began to raise funds to render them effective. Before de- cisive action was taken, however, he was transferred to Bruns- wick, Me., in 1877, and it was decreed that another should build where he had prepared the ground.
The Rt. Rev. Bishop Bacon paid his first visit to this mission and administered the sacrament of confirmation for the first time in 1865. He died in 1874 at St. Vincent's Hospital at New York City, and the Rt. Rev. James A. Healey was consecrated as his successor.
During Father Noiseux's absence in Maine, the Rev. Father Francis Xavier Trudel was appointed in his. place. Father Trudel was born at Three Rivers, P. Q. He received his primary, classi- cal, philosophical, and theological training in the schools and seminary of that town. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Bacon at Portland, Me., in 1872, and was appointed to the charge of Madawaska, Me. Afterwards he was transferred to Lebanon, and from this parish attended Littleton, which was one of its missions. In 1876 Bishop Healy visited Littleton and administered the sacrament of confirmation in Union Hall.
Father Trudel was an energetic administrator, and liis pastorate was noted, among other things, for the erection of the church.
1
REV. DENNIS F. HURLEY.
REV. ISIDORE H. NOISEUX. REV. LOUIS M. LAPLANTE.
ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS.
P. J. FINNIGAN.
REV. CYRILLE J. PARADIS.
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Ecclesia stical History.
At the first service held in July, he announced that a meeting of the parishioners desirous of building a church would be held after the mass service of July 23, 1876. This meeting was largely attended, and a committee was appointed to consider the matter of a church edifice, provide funds therefor, and report when their investigation was completed. Their report, which was favorable, was made within a few weeks, and in September the lot on High and Clay Streets was purchased and a contract executed with Dunn & Simpson for building a church in accordance with the plans submitted by Father Trudel. The edifice, a handsome structure, was finished in February, 1877, and the first service held in it on Sunday, March 4, the Rev. Father Trudel officiating. During his administration was also held the first service known as the "Forty Hours' Devotion " beginning on Sunday, September 17, 1876. In February, 1878, Father Trudel was recalled to Maine. His ministry in this town had covered less than two years, but his work in those months was rich in achievement and left an enduring impress on the parish.
The Rev. Patrick J. Finnegan succeeded Father Trudel in this mission, and gave about half his time to the church here. He labored with much zeal to elevate the spiritual character of his people, and held frequent devotional services for that purpose. A mission productive of much good was held by the Oblate Fathers in the winter of 1879. The people had labored hard and subscribed liberally to pay off the debt incurred in building. The church was dedicated by Bishop Healy, August 30, 1880. It was named in honor of the first American saint, St. Rose of Lima. The bishop administered confirmation and preached in French. The Rev. Dr. Brann, of New York City, was present and preached in English. The Rev. R. Dee, Rev. Father McKenna, and Rev. Father Finnegan, pastor of the parish, were also present. Father Finnegan came from Lebanon twice a month to officiate at Littleton. He was appointed pastor of Claremont in 1881, where he remained until he went to Portsmouth, where he is at the present time.
Father Finnegan was born in Ireland in March 20, 1843. He came to Boston with his parents in infancy, and received his early education in that city. When sixteen years of age, he entered the order of the Society of Jesus. He studied and taught in the colleges of that order in the New England and Middle States, and was ordained by Bishop Bailey of the diocese of Baltimore in 1875. He came to the diocese of Portland in VOL. II .- 22
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the same year, and began his work at St. Dominick's Church in the city of Portland, whence he was appointed to the church at Lebanon, of which this church was a mission.
Father Finnegan is an indomitable worker, and has had much success in building up the waste places. While at Leba- non, he built the present Sacred Heart Church in that town ; while at Claremont, he rebuilt its church and established a convent and parochial school which are well housed and in a flourishing condition. Father Finnegan is a member of the bishop's council.
When Father Finnegan was transferred to Claremont, this mission was placed in the care of the Rev. Father Louis La Plante, who had been appointed to Lebanon in July, 1881, and continued in charge until Littleton was severed from that church and made an independent parish under the ministry of Father Noiseux.
The Rev. Father La Plante was born at Three Rivers, Canada, in 1855. He was educated in the schools at that place, and afterwards made his course in Classics and Theology in the Semi- nary there. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop La Flech in 1879. He remained in Canada for a short time, and then came to the States in 1880. He was first stationed as assistant in the parish of St. Augustine, Manchester, for a year, and then appointed pastor at Lebanon, where he remained until 1888. In October of that year he became pastor of Hooksett and Pittsfield, and in April, 1890, was transferred to Rochester, where he was in charge of the church of the Holy Rosary, which he greatly improved, and built a rectory. In 1899 he was appointed to St. Ann's at Berlin. Father La Plante is an efficient priest, and is greatly liked by his people wherever he has been stationed.
With his departure from this mission at the close of 1882, Father Noiseux returned from Brunswick, Me., and assumed charge of the church, and the same year, January 5, had the great pleasure of seeing Littleton raised from a mission to the position of an independent parish. Age had written its traces on his formerly robust figure and handsome and benignant coun- tenance. His courage and zeal were, however, as strong as in the earlier days when he had visited the thriving villages as well as hundreds of obscure hamlets in the Connecticut valley, from the headwaters of that river to the mouth of the Ashuelot, - a region that forty years before was a part of his mission, - but in 1887 he was compelled to retire. In 1885 the parish was free
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from debt, but had no other property than its church edifice. He continued to reside here for some time, but finally removed to Montreal, where he passed to his reward in 1893. This vener- able patriarch of the Northern New Hampshire missions spent the golden anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in this town, and found his final resting-place in the Catholic ceme- tery here, where among those to whom he ministered for so many years he awaits the resurrection.
The successor of the venerable prelate was the Rev. Denis Francis Hurley, who came to the parish from Portsmouth, where he had administered affairs during the absence of the Rev. Father O'Callaghan in Europe. The Rev. Father Hurley was born in Ireland February 5, 1851. While still a child he was carried by his parents to Salem, Mass., and attended the schools there during his boyhood. He made his classics at St. Charles College, Maryland, and afterwards entered the Seminary at Mill Hill Missionary College, London, Eng., where he took his course of theology and philosophy. He was ordained to the priest- hood by Cardinal Vaughan July 25, 1875.
His first work in this country, from the time of his ordination until coming to Manchester, was among the colored Catholics of Baltimore, Md., Louisville, Ky., and Charleston, S. C. He came to the diocese of Manchester in 1884, and began his work at the Cathedral. Afterwards he was placed at different times at Keene, Portsmouth, and Franklin Falls, and was appointed pastor at Littleton in 1887. The Rev. Father Hurley bought a house near the church, which he enlarged and improved, making it a very suitable priest's house. He also decorated the church, and in 1888 bought a tract of land on the Bethlehem road beyond Ap- thorp for a cemetery, which was dedicated in 1889 by Bishop Bradley.
When Father Hurley came to the church of St. Rose of Lima, his health was so broken that he was regarded as a con- firmed invalid whose days were to be short in this world; but his spirits were high, and liis ambition to achieve something for the Church in this field was strong, and in this he was not to be denied, as his record of things done abundantly shows. In November, 1893, he was ordered to Penacook, which was to be his final charge, and where he gave renewed evi- dence of his great reserve power; for within a few days after assuming his duties he purchased a large estate and made plans for a new church, parish house, and rectory, all of which he lived to see built and paid for. He departed this life in
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1901. At this time the Rev. Cyrille J. Paradis, then pastor at Lebanon, was appointed to this parish.
The Rev. Father Paradis was born at Quebec, P. Q., in 1857. He came to Manchester in his childhood, and was taught in the parochial schools of that city, afterwards entering college at Sherbrooke in Canada, where he studied philosophy and the classics. For his theological studies he entered the Seminary at Quebec. He was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Taschreau at Quebec in 1885. He began his ministry as assist- ant at St. Augustine's Church, Manchester, and was subsequently pastor at. Lebanon, where he remained until 1893, when he was appointed pastor at Littleton.
The missions then attended from Littleton were those at Beth- lehem and Lisbon.
Father Paradis built a church at Bethlehem Junction. He offered the Holy Sacrifice there once in two weeks, and every other Sunday at Bethlehem during the summer season, and at Lisbon once in three months. Since then a church has been built at Woodsville, and that mission detached from this parish and annexed to another where the Roman Catholic population was less in number, and the duties devolving on the priest necessarily less arduous.
Father Paradis, like all his predecessors, was ambitious for the material as well as the spiritual advancement of his people, and labored unceasingly to that end. His care for the physical needs of the parish was a marked characteristic of his pastorate. He rebuilt the rectory, repaired and decorated the interior of the church, and established the Rosary Society. In 1899 he was transferred to Rochester, where he is now pastor of the church of the Holy Rosary.
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