USA > New Jersey > The Catholic Church in New Jersey > Part 4
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lated from their priests they must remain staunch to the Church and live up to its laws, gave holy Communion, and then sat down to breakfast. But again that soggy bread, together with a very much salted mackerel, swimming in grease. It was too much for my stomach, so bidding them Godspeed I started again on my journey, and did not break my fast till evening."
But this is modern history, and the discomforts of the priests of that day, grave enough indeed, were as nothing compared with their earlier brethren in the missionary field.
Some time in the middle of the eighteenth century, three brothers, Sebastian, Ignatius, and Xavier Waas, fled from their native country, Germany, to avoid the military conscription so tyrannically exercised at that time, and, landing at Philadelphia, crossed over into West Jersey, and, taking up an Indian trail, through moor and morass, across streams, and through the for- ests, made their way to the north side of a beautiful stream of water, known now as Clark's or O'Neill's branch, in Waterford Township, Gloucester County, and there built a square and com- fortable cabin of cedar logs. This rude dwelling they called Shane's Castle, but the Celtic aroma that lingers about the name of the adjacent stream would lead one to believe that some lone wanderer from Erin had preceded them, and seeing, perhaps, some resemblance to another dear spot far over the great ocean, gave it a name which even the Indians respected, and which clung to it after he, like so many others of his countrymen, had passed into oblivion. However, by that name was it known and enshrined by tradition.
The memory of one of the brothers, Sebastian, is hallowed with a pretty romance. Before his flight from fatherland he had plighted his troth to a plucky Gretchen who vowed to follow after him whithersoever he went. She escaped the vigilance of her parents, and before they could overtake her she was safe aboard a sailing-vessel, bound for Philadelphia.
Sebastian's vigil was a long one, but his faith in his spouse was unshaken, and, at last, after a long voyage, the ship landed her human freight safe on the Delaware's shores. But, alas! Sebastian was unable to bring her to his home and brethren, for, having no money wherewith to pay her passage, she was to be sold as a "redemptioner." This did not disconcert Sebastian, for with his trusty gun he soon secured pelts sufficent to defray all expenses, and with his loved one, now doubly cherished because of his efforts to save her from temporary serfdom, went to a priest
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in Philadelphia, who blessed their union. The brothers welcomed their new sister, and another charm was added to their sylvestral home. Furthermore, they were to erect a shrine where the mys- teries of their religion were to be celebrated, and thither came, not once but often, good Father Farmer, who kept alive in their and their neighbors' hearts the fire of faith. There is scarcely any doubt that holy Mass was offered for the first time in Shane's Castle, the home of the Waas. Here the little seed was cast that was destined to grow into a mighty tree. His records show that Father Farmer christened five children of this union. Two daughters survived, married, and inherited the estate; but the memory of the old castle has almost entirely faded away.
It seems that time did not soften the asperity or hostility either of the ruling powers abroad or of their subjects in these colonies toward our religion. George II in 1753 proclaimed an ordinance which was not only not less bitter, but more provocative than the instructions of William and Mary.
"To the Governor, Council, and General Assembly of our Province of New Jersey, 13th day of October, 1753.
"Oath prescribed for all civil and military officers.
"I, A. B., do swear, That I from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, that Damnable Doctrine and Position, that Princes, excommunicated or deprived by the Pope or any authority of the See of Rome, may be deprived or murdered by their subjects or any other whatsoever.
"I, A. B., do solemnly swear and sincerely in the presence of God, Profess, Testify, and Declare, That I do solemnly believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Tran- substantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, at or after the Consecration thereof by any person whatsoever. And that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are Superstitious and Idolatrous, etc., etc."
With this as a cue, we need marvel not that in his Instructions, in 1758, Gov. Francis Bernard orders, "You are to permit a Liberty of Conscience to all persons (except Papists)." Lest he should forget it, Father Farmer had this slip pasted on the fly- sheet of his register. The forbears of our present non-Catholic brethren had thus the spirit of intolerance and hostility to Cath- olics so rubbed into them that an occasional ebullition of this
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same spirit in our day may be pardoned. Of all human weak- nesses, fanaticism dies the hardest.
And withal these protagonists of pure religion were exceedingly superstitious. Ghosts, witches, phantoms, and papists haunted their imaginations and confused their thoughts. The witch scare which disturbed the Puritans of Charlestown and Salem in the seventeenth century seems to have disturbed the equanimity of the Quakers living in Burlington. A noble buttonwood tree standing on beautiful Green Bank, the former residence of William Franklin when governor of New Jersey, was known as "The Witches' Tree," and around it was woven a legend of spectral dames astride of broomsticks, soaring to the stars with the speed of forked lightning. This is one of the verses of the song they were heard to sing :
First Witch. I saw Dame Brady sitting alone, And I dried up the marrow within her hip bone. When she arose she could scarcely limp. Why did I do it? She called me foul imp !
About this same time, 1765, a tragic event occurred in Bur- lington by which two of our co-religionists paid the penalty of a crime which to-day would have been punished with a term of im- prisonment. On Wednesday, August 28th, 1765, at Gallows Hill, Burlington, John Grimes and John Fagan, Catholics, were exe- cuted for burglary and felony, committed at the home of Joseph Burr. Grimes was twenty-two years old, Fagan twenty-eight.
The chronicles of Burlington contain a sketch of a singular and mysterious character. "Four miles from hence, a recluse person, who came a stranger, has existed alone, near twelve years, in a thick wood, through all the extremities of the seasons, under cover of a few leaves, supported by the side of an old log, and put together in the form of a small oven, not high or long enough to stand upright or lie extended; he talks Dutch, but unintelligibly, either through design or from defect in his intellects, 'tis hard to tell which; whence he came or what he is nobody about him can find out; he has no contrivance to keep fire, nor uses any; in very cold weather he lies naked, stops the hole he creeps in and out with leaves; he mostly keeps in his hut, but sometimes walks before it, lies on the ground, and cannot be persuaded to work much, nor obliged without violence to forsake this habit, which he appears to delight in, and to enjoy full health; he seems to be
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upward of forty years of age; as to person rather under the mid- dle size; calls himself Francis " (Smith, N. J., 495).
Another account is :
" With several friends in a couple of light wagons went to see the hermit in a wood this side of Mount Holly.
"He is a person thought to have travelled along from Canada or Mississippi about ten years ago. He talks no English, and will give no account of himself " (Diary of Hannah Callender, 1762, 6th mo., 5th day, Pa. Mag., January, 1769, p. 456).
BURLINGTON, January 28th, 1778.
On the 19th inst. died Francis Furgler, the hermit, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, who existed alone twenty-five years, in a thick wood four miles from Burlington, through all the inclem- encies of the season, without fire, in a cell, made by the side of an old log, in the form of a small oven, not high or long enough to stand upright or lie extended. It was supposed he intended this mode as a penance for some evil done in his own country. He was a German-a Catholic, and was buried in the Friends' Ground at Mount Holly (Watson's Annals, ii., 292).
Francis Furgler, age sixty-six, a hermit who had existed twenty-five years alone, died January 19th, 1778. "He was found dead in his cell with a crucifix and a brass fish by his side" (Moore's " Diary of Rev.," ii., 8).
"The earliest account that we have of Catholics in New Jer- sey is in 1744, when we read that Father Theodore Schneider, a distinguished German Jesuit who had professed philosophy and theology in Europe, and been rector of a university, coming to the American provinces, visited New Jersey and held church at Iron Furnaces there. This good missionary was a native of Bavaria. He founded the mission at Goshenhoppen, now in Berks County, Pa., about forty-five miles from Philadelphia, and minis- tered to German Catholics, their descendants and others. Hav- ing some skill in medicine, he used to cure the body as well as the soul; and travelling about on foot or on horseback under the name of Doctor Schneider (leaving to the Smelfunguses to dis- cover whether he were of medicine or of divinity), he had access to places where he would not otherwise have gone without per- sonal danger; but sometimes his real character was found out, and he was several times raced and shot at in New Jersey. He used to carry about with him on his missionary excursions into this
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province a manuscript copy of the 'Roman Missal,' carefully written out in his own handwriting and bound by himself. His poverty or the difficulty of procuring printed Catholic liturgical books from Europe, or, we are inclined to think, the danger of discovery should such an one with its unmistakable marks of 'Popery ' about it (which he probably dispensed with in his manu- script) fall into the hands of heretics, must have led him to this labor of patience and zeal. Father Schneider, who may be reck- oned the first missionary in New Jersey, died on the eleventh of July, 1764. Another Jesuit used to visit the province occasionally after 1762, owing to the growing infirmities of Father Schneider, and there still exist records of baptisms performed by him here " ( The Catholic World in 1875).
In his Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll, Campbell writes of one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Catholic settlement in New Jersey :
"It is known that Rev. Mr. Harding, who was a priest in Philadelphia in 1762, occasionally visited New Jersey, and Rev. F. Farmer for many years performed missionary duty in that State at several places. In his baptismal register the following among other places are named: Geiger's, 1759; Charlottenburgh, 1769; in the year 1776 Morris County, Long Pond, and Mount Hope; and in 1785 Sussex County, Ringwood, and Hunterdon.
"In his semi-annual visits to New York, which were continued to the year of his death in 1786, Father Farmer visited an inter- esting Catholic settlement known then and later as Macopin (now Echo Lake). Macopin was settled by a colony of Germans from the Rhine, near Cologne, who came to New Jersey to engage in the iron industry, which opened up about the middle of the eigh- teenth century."
The following notice appeared in the Freeman's Journal, New York :
"One of the oldest and most interesting Catholic congrega- tions in the whole country is to be found in Macopin, this wild little place, fifteen miles distant from Paterson. The first settle- ment was made here by two German families some time before the American Revolution. They were a long time without seeing a priest, till at length a Mr. Langrey, from Ireland, paid them a visit. After this the Rev. Father Farmer from Philadelphia visited Mount Hope, in the vicinity of Macopin, twice a year He continued doing so for ten years, during which time the Revo- lution took place. These semi-annual visits were afterward con-
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tinued by Mr. Malnix, Mr. Katen, and Mr. Kresgel. The last- named priest was a German, and visited them first in 1775."
Some years ago the duties of his sacred ministry brought the writer to Mrs. Littell, then almost a nonogenarian, but intellectu- ally bright and radiantly reminiscent. As she talked of the old times her eye would kindle and the color come to her wrinkled cheeks, and a cheery laugh would accentuate the humorous inci- dents which now and then would sparkle through her narrative. On my return to the rectory I jotted down, as far as I could remember, the salient points of her story, clothing it as far as possible in her own language, and gave it to the first number of the Sacred Heart Union for publication under the title "Grand- mother's Reminiscences." Care was taken that she received a copy, and as she read it for the family-that was her self-imposed task and office-she cried out to her daughter: "Why, Mary, this is what I was telling Father Flynn the other day !"
As it gives a vivid portrayal of that ancient stronghold of Catholic faith-stronghold is used advisedly, for such it has proven to be, since the generations of that sturdy stock are all stanch Catholics to-day-it is here reproduced :
"I came from a little town in the County Cavan, adjoining Fermanagh and Monaghan, to this country in 1816. I will pass over the long and stormy voyage across the Atlantic, and begin my story with my arrival in New York. In those days two sail- boats served as a ferry to convey passengers. One went to Paulus Hook, now Jersey City, and the other to the Elysian Fields, Ho- boken. We crossed over to Paulus Hook, and hiring a wagon we started out on our journey to Caldwell. There was only one street then in Jersey City, and it was called the Rope Walk. After riding all day long we arrived in the evening at Caldwell. There was not a single Catholic in the neighborhood. You may imagine how strangely we felt, and you will not be surprised that in a few months we moved to Macopin, where we heard there was quite a gathering of Catholics. A year or two before our arrival Charley O'Brien died in Newfoundland, some miles distant from Macopin. He went there as a school-teacher, saved his money, bought his land, built factories, and soon was the wealth- iest man in that section. He owned as far as he could see, and was the first to build bark factories and an iron mill. Charley took sick and sent to New York for a priest. The priest came all the way on horseback, and the close-fisted man gave him five dollars for his trouble. He left him, however, fifty dollars in his
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will, but his heirs never executed the wish of their father, and the priest never received his legacy. But his possessions melted away, and eventually his own son died in the poor-house.
"John Gormley arrived there four or five years before we did, but his children intermarried with Protestants, and one of his grandsons is now a Methodist minister. Oh, yes, there were the McGees of Wynockie; but they clung to the faith, and although their descendants have experienced many ups and downs in life, they are all stanch Catholics. Then there were the Littells, a family who came from Ireland. Mr. Littell was a cooper and the most influential man in the settlement. To him was deputed the duty of examining the credentials of the visiting priests so as to secure the faithful few from impostors, and to his house they always came and partook of the old-fashioned hospitality. Not only priests, but every poor exile from Erin was directed thither, and scarcely a day passed that some stranger did not accept of a generous meal and comfortable bed, under the roof-tree of the Littells. I remember one night, coming in from his shop, Mr. Littell met a poor fellow warming himself at the log fire. He began: 'Well, my man, where do you come from?' 'From County Cavan, sir.' 'Ah, and perhaps you know William Lit- tell?' meaning his cousin. 'Troth, I do. Bad luck to him! for if it wasn't for him I wouldn't be here.'
"The topic was immediately changed.
"Thirty years before we came, a Father Farmer, from Phila- delphia, had visited Macopin, and not a priest had the Catholics seen since. I remember one day seeing a man coming up the road in short coat and knee-breeches; as soon as he spoke I knew he was an Irishman, and thought he was a school-teacher. He inquired for the Littells. He turned out to be a Father Langan, and he said Mass in our house two or three times. This was about 1819. I must not forget to mention the Seehulsters, the Merrions, and the Strubles. Old Mrs. Seehulster was a remark- able woman-a regular missionary ; every Sunday she would gather the Catholics in Dominick Merrion's house, say the rosary, dis- tribute holy water, and teach the children catechism. God re- warded her, for, obeying a secret impulse, Father O'Reilly, then pastor of St. John's, Paterson, came out to Macopin, saw that this valiant woman was very ill, gave her the last rites of the Church, and an hour after she was a corpse. Then there was old Anthony Merrion, who died about 1822, having reached the good old age of one hundred and five. I remember well when Mass 3
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was said for the first time in Macopin. Many of the young Catholics who had never seen Mass celebrated, and Protestants who viewed the whole thing as witchcraft, crowded and hustled the old folks who were kneeling around the priest. The altar was a chest-we had no bureaus in those days. After Mass, when we were going home, old Anthony straightened his tall form, closing his fists and rapping them sharply together. 'Oh,' said he, 'I've seen the day I could rap their heads together.' John Reardon was another of the old settlers, who with a few others and their families numbered about one hundred Catholics all told.
"Our next priest was Father Bulger, a native of Ireland, a tall, handsome man, but with a beardless face. He was ordained by 'little Bishop Connolly,' as he was called, and came to us about 1820. Mr. Littell had been notified to expect a priest, and vainly looked among the passengers of the mail-coach for his Reverence. The driver told him that a passenger had booked for Macopin the night before, but had failed to put in his appearance.
"Later that afternoon a stranger drove up to the shop on horseback, and thus addressed Mr. Littell: 'Did you expect a visitor, sir ?' 'I did, sir.' 'How did you expect him ?' 'By the mail.' 'Might I ask whom you expected ?' 'Well,' said Mr. Littell, somewhat nettled by this cross-examination, 'I expect a Catholic priest.' 'Well, suppose you take me for a Catholic priest.' Surveying the beardless youth from top to bottom, Mr. Littell tartly replied: 'Go back to your wooden college, sir, before you come to palm yourself off on me as a Catholic priest.' 'Per- haps,' thought Mr. Littell, 'I may after all be mistaken; he may be a priest'; and giving him another searching look, he inquired : 'Am I talking to Father Bulger?' 'You are,' said the young Father, smilingly; and his laughter drowned the apologies and put to flight the discomfiture of good Mr. Littell. Father Bulger was a regular apostle; he travelled through Hudson, Passaic, and Sussex Counties. I remember he was once invited to preach in Newton, and the Presbyterian Church was offered to him. But when the day came for the lecture the 'blue-lights' feared to admit the papist into their sanctuary. So to the dismay of the most prominent member of the congregation-an Irishman-they gave a point-blank refusal to allow him to preach in their church. Chagrined but undaunted, the Irishman went to the judge who was then presiding over the Sussex Circuit, related to him all the circumstances, and asked him to adjourn the court so that the priest might give his lecture. The court was adjourned; the
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The Catholics gathered at Dominick Merrion's house, Macopin, saying the rosary (page 33).
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judge and a host of legal fledglings, who have since risen to fame and honor, listened to the young priest's masterly handling of the doctrine of the Real Presence. 'I did not believe,' said an ex- United States senator-Frelinghuysen-'that the Catholics had such solid proofs for their doctrines.'
"Returning on foot one cold wintry day, with the snow inches deep on the road, from Hohokus, where he had been saying Mass, a farmer and his wife invited him into their sleigh. Of course, the farmer's curiosity made him forget the world's politeness and institute a series of leading questions. Are you a peddler ? No. Perhaps you will open a store in town? No. A physician? No. A lawyer? No. Then, may I ask, what do you do for a living ? Thus driven to the wall by the persistent questioner, Father Bulger was obliged to confess that he was a Roman Catholic priest. The good wife was horror-stricken, and commanded the dutiful Benedict to stop the horse and put the papist out ; and out he went, and he was obliged to trudge through snow and cold all the way to Paterson. Another night an attempt was made to set fire to the house in which he was living in Paterson.
"He offered Mass for the first time in 1816, in Mr. Gilles- pie's house, the grandfather of Sister Genevieve, now a Sister of Charity in St. Elizabeth's Convent, Madison. There were present the Griffiths, Karrs, Burkes, Plunketts, Bradleys, Wades, Mahans, and Levasquez. Ground was afterward bought and a church built in 1822. He did not live many years, and is buried in St. Pat- rick's church-yard, New York. Fathers Conroy, O'Gorman, and Shanahan used to come out occasionally to say Mass. Then came Father Donohue, who determined to build a church. There was a great dispute as to whether it should be of logs or boards. The 'log' partly carried the day, and Father Donohue called on Mr. Littell for his contribution. 'What is it going to be, Father ?' 'Logs,' said he. 'Then I'll give $10 to pull it down as soon as built.' So the matter was reconsidered, and finally 'planks ' pre- vailed. In 1830 it was dedicated. The night before, a furious rain storm set in, and Father Donohue and Father Ffrench were drenched to the skin. We had a great time finding dry clothes for the poor Fathers, but could find none big enough for Father Ffrench. - I can see them now sitting before the big fire, drying their clothes and saying their office. The children had great fun with Father Ffrench, who amused them with his ventriloquism. Father Duffy next succeeded Father Donohue; and he used to stop in Paterson with Dr. Binsse, who was a celebrated French
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"The good wife was horror-stricken, and commanded the dutiful Benedict to stop the horse and put the papist " (Father Bulger) "out " (page 36).
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doctor and lived on Main Street, opposite Congress Hall. Then good old Father Raffeiner came and spent one winter with us. After him came the Redemptorist Fathers Muller and Tabert. Father O'Reilly succeeded Father Duffy in Paterson.
"Then came Father Quin, and the troubles which Bishop Hughes came out to quell. Then Father Senez, Father Beau- devin, Father Callan, and Father McNulty. Now you know as much about the present as I do; but when I look back to the day when there was not a single church in New Jersey, nor a single resident priest, I feel God has blessed the fidelity of the old folks ; and I begin to feel lonesome, for almost all have gone home."
Grandmother many years ago joined her compeers in the blessed reward of the saints.
Bishop Bayley has this to say of Macopin :
"Three German families settled at this place some years be- fore the Revolution. They were from Baden (Silva Nigra) ; their names were Marion, Schulster, and Stobel. Stobel was a Prot- estant, but most of his descendants became Catholics. They form still a little Catholic colony, remarkable for their fervent piety. The son of the founder of the colony, Marion, who was but four years old when he came to this country, lived to be up- ward of a hundred years old. In the notice of the blessing of the church in the Truthteller of December, 1849, he was spoken of as being one hundred and five years old, and in good health" (Bayley, 121).
The Catholic Press, October 30th, 1830, published a letter con- taining additional items of interest :
"Seventeen miles west of Paterson, at Mocassin, there is a highland ridge in Bergen County, where there are at present more than one hundred Catholics, descendants of one common stock, Mr. Meriam, who is yet living. He came from Germany to this country before the Revolution, and settled with his little family at Queen Charlotte's in the northern part of New Jersey. He has lived to see his descendants to the fifth generation, who unite a zeal for liberty with a firm attachment to the holy Catholic faith of their ancestors. They were for many years attended by Cath- olic clergymen from Philadelphia, among whom they frequently mention the Rev. Mr. Farmer, whose, memory among them is recollected with benediction. When a bishop was sent from the Holy See to New York, the Jerseys were divided according to the old division line (which runs from Easton, Pa., to Little Egg Harbor) between the dioceses of New York and Philadelphia; so
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