USA > New Jersey > The Catholic Church in New Jersey > Part 6
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the only sanctuary in that portion of the State. A certain Father Tissorant remained with the Catholics in Elizabeth from 1805 to 1806. The Rev. John S. Tissorant was simply on a visit to this country, and in his zeal he determined to give his services tempo- rarily to his compatriots in Elizabeth. Bishop Cheverus says "he was a most amiable and respectable man," "equally conspicuous," adds Dr. White, "for his learning and piety." In or about 1795, several French families from Belgium and the West Indies set- tled in Princeton, and bought farms in and around Cedar Grove and Cherry Valley. They were men of character, intelligence, and refinement, some of them men of wealth, and others had occupied posi- tions of prominence in their own country. It is doubtful if some were Huguenots, and certain that most, if not all, were Catholics. Among their names were Viennet, L'Hom- me, Tulane, Joubert, Boissinot, Pothier, Lejoy, Ancellein, Hurage, Teisseirs, St. John, St. Louis, Malou, La Rue, Chielon, Bona, and, strangest of all, the Rev. Anthony Smith, whose grave is in the Presbyterian cemetery. He OLD ST. PETER'S CHURCH, Barclay Street, New York City. evidently accompanied these families in their exile, which
was not at all unusual. Among them one demands our atten- tion. Pierre Malou, a general in the army of the Belgians, resident in Princeton, 1795-99, purchased five hundred acres of land in Cherry Valley, three miles from Princeton, and erected a mansion whose magnificence is still a tradition among Prince- tonians. There was a chapel attached to the house, with altar, stations of the cross, etc., etc. He returned to Europe for the purpose of bringing his wife and two sons to their new home; but, on the voyage back to America, his wife was stricken with a mortal illness and died before reaching port. He sold his property in Cherry Valley, returned again to Belgium, disposed of
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all his possessions, and journeyed to Russia, where, finding a house of Jesuit fathers, he entered under an assumed name as a lay brother. One day some visitors were walking through the gardens, and one of them, an ex-officer, recognizing his old general laboring among the flowers in the garb of a Jesuit brother, gave him the military salute. The fathers were astonished, and the more so when, on returning to the house, he told them the history of their distinguished subject. He was transferred at once, and took up the study of theology, and in time he was raised to the priesthood.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century the Jesuit Fathers opened a school on the corner of Fiftieth Street and Fifth Ave- nue-a portion of the present site of St. Patrick's Cathedral- which was called the New York Literary Institution. Father Pierre Malou was one of the staff. But, after a time, his health broke down, and as it was thought that there was no prospect of his recovery and that he would be a burden to the community, efforts were made to induce him to return to Europe. This he refused to do.
Father Malou afterward left the society, and was attached to St. Peter's. He visited Madison, and was the first priest to reside there permanently, living upstairs in the old frame rectory, the lower apartments of which were used as a church. He was a lovable character, and idolized by the children, to whom, when they were very good, he would show a miniature of his children. Cardinal McCloskey, who was in his catechism class, used to say that the children often marvelled how he, as a priest, could have children.
One of his sons was John Baptist Malou, a senator of Belgium ; and of his grandsons one was Minister of Finance, and another John Baptist Malou, bishop of Bruges.
Father Malou died in New York, October 13th, 1827, and is buried under St. Peter's Church.
Of Father Anthony Smith there does not appear to be a single record, and the fact that he is mentioned here is due to the cour- tesy of the Rev. Robert E. Burke, the present pastor of the University town. Over his grave is a stone, which bears the fol- lowing inscription :
IN MEMORY OF THE REVEREND ANTHONY SCHMIT WHO DIED ON THE 12TH OF FEBRUARY, 1807. AGED 75.
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The Formative Period.
THE various industries opening up in different parts of the State of New Jersey invited skilled artisans to leave the scenes of conflict and carnage in their own country to settle in the new land where they might live with their families in peace and security. Before the middle of the eighteenth century glass-works were opened near Salem, N. J., and a number of German Catholics were among those employed. Thus was Father Schneider induced to run the risk of arrest and visit them in August, 1743. He was skilled in the art of healing, and, in the guise of a physician, he was able to exercise his priestly ministry. He celebrated holy Mass in the home of Maurice Lorentz, and in the month of Octo- ber, 1743, at the Glass Home, about ten miles from Salem. The next year he repeated his visits, and in the month of June admin- istered baptism in the house of Matthew Geiger. This name occurs frequently in the records of Father Farmer, and this house for nearly half a century was the rallying point of the Catholics in South Jersey.
In the northern part of the State the iron industry was begin- ning to attract the attention of capital, and laborers began to flock thitherward from Pennsylvania about 1750.
"The Irish and the Scotch-Irish came into Warren County, and many of them early worked their way into Sussex. . .. As travel increased, taverns became a necessity, and within six years after the county seat was fixed at Newton (by act of 1753), a tract of land of three-tenths of an acre at the northwest corner of the green was conveyed by Jonathan Hampton to Martin Delaney, evidently for a tavern, and a public house was kept on that spot until within the last fifty years.
William Kirby, a deserter from the British army during the French and Indian War, passed through Sussex County in 1762, stopping at Sussex Court House, where he sold a pair of stock- ings for seven shillings. "There," he says, "we bought a bottle of rum, and on our march we met an old woman and gave her a dram." He went from the Andover Mine to Ringwood.
He tells how the men tried to cheat each other. The wood chopper piled his wood so as to cheat the collier. The collier put his charcoal into baskets in such a manner as to deceive the iron master; and the iron master, not to be outdone, sold his provisions to the men at an extortionate price. As a consequence,
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"when they had worked six months, if they had anything coming, they may perhaps get a few rags to cover their nakedness at a very dear price, but as for money they will get none though they have ever so much need of it." 1
From 1750 to 1772 we find mines and furnaces in operation at Mount Pleasant, Denmark, Dickerson Mine, Mount Hope, White Meadow, Ringwood, Greenwood Lake, Hibernia, and Dover. These, doubtless, brought a number of Irish and Ger- man Catholics, who formed the little flocks so faithfully attended by Father Farmer.
July 3d, 1776, the Provincial Council of New Jersey asked the Committee of Public Safety of Philadelphia to send troops to Mon- mouth Court House to check the Tories and defend the approaches to Staten Island.
Three battalions, although ill-equipped and uniformed, were ordered there in reply to this appeal. The women of Philadelphia hastened to prepare lint and bandages, awnings and sails were made into tents, and clockweights were cast into bullets. Thomas Fitzsimmons was captain of the Third company, composed almost entirely of Irish and Catholics. Their tour of duty brought them to Elizabeth, Woodbridge, and vicinity. In December, 1776, they were at Trenton, and on the twenty-eighth of the same month they were in Burlington, where some of them have taken care to record that they were regaled with mince pies. In January, 1777, they arrived and were encamped on the Jockey Hollow road near Morristown. Thomas Fitzsimmons was not only an ardent patriot, but a man of exceptional ability. With Alexander Hamilton he was associated in establishing the financial policy of our government, and he is acknowledged by both Madison and Webster to be the father of that political principle and dogma of the present Repub- lican party known as the "protection of American industry."
When Father Farmer visited the little flock in New York he not only administered to them spiritually the consolations of relig- ion, but it is beyond doubt that he built for them a church some time before the Revolution. Its exact location is not known, and it was swept away by the conflagration which followed the evacua- tion of the city by the Continental troops, after their crushing defeat by the British at the battle of Brooklyn. In 1787, Bishop Carroll, then the very reverend Prefect, appointed the Rev. William O'Brien, a Dominican, pastor of St. Peter's Church, New York,
1 " Semicentennial Address of Judge Swayze," Newton, N. J., Sept. 2d, 1903.
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and of him it is said "that he had already done parochial work in New Jersey."
Just where he labored is not known, but no doubt he visited the field which the intrepid Father Farmer had culti- vated with so much labor and in the face of so many perils and dangers.
The large share Catholics had in the formation of the republic and in wresting from a powerful nation their liberties cannot be gainsaid. Still, with the dawning of a new order of things, our coreligionists did not reap the immediate fruits of religious equal- ity, or the full measure of the reward which their sacrifices seemed to deserve.
In 1788, in a pamphlet entitled Remarks on the Origin of Government and on Religious Liberty, ascribed to Governor Livingston, in speaking of liberty of conscience and contrasting the prevailing condition in our State "with the spiritual tyranny in England," the writer goes on to say "how beautiful appears our Catholic Constitution (of New Jersey) in disclaiming all jurisdic- tion over the souls of men," "that no Protestant inhabitant of this State shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles," and that "all persons profess- ing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect shall be capable of being elected to any office of trust or profit, or being members of either branch of the legislature." These sentiments drew forth from the well-known Catholic publisher of Philadelphia, Matthew Carey, a reply in which he said: "This clause falls far short of the divine spirit of toleration and benevolence that pervades the American Constitution : 'Every Protestant is eligible to any office of profit or trust.' Are Protestants, then, thereby capable or upright men in the State? Is not the Roman Catholic thereby disqualified ? Why so? Will not every argument in defence of exclusion tend to justify the intolerance and persecution of Eu- rope?"1 And later on he voiced the indignation of his church- men in a spirited protest, which appeared in the General Adver- tiser. "The greatest wonder of all is that at the close of the eighteenth century, among the enlightened, tolerant, and liberal Protestants of America, at the very instant when the American soil was drinking up the best blood of Catholics, shed in defence of her freedom, when the Gallic flag was flying in her ports and the Gallic soldiers fighting her battles, then were constitutions framed
American Museum, vol. iv.
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in several States degrading those very Catholics and excluding them from certain offices. O Shame! where is thy blush? O Gratitude! if thou hast a tear, let it fall to deplore this indelible stigma!"1 When the convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, to amend the articles of confederation and to draft our present Constitution, the question of religion did not come up until the sixth article was reached. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, proposed that a clause should be introduced preventing any religious test. North Carolina was the only State that voted against it. When the people were called upon to approve the Con- stitution, New York, strongly anti-Catholic in its organic law, reluctantly approved it; Rhode Island and North Carolina, where Catholics were practically unknown, rejected it absolutely. It has been charged that Catholics were instrumental in having enacted the First Amendment to the Constitution: Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe the rights of conscience. There is not the slightest proof for any such contention. Dr. Schaff says: "The credit of the Amendment is due to the first Congress, which proposed it, and to the conventions of the States of New York, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and the minority of Pennsylvania, all of which suggested it, directly or indirectly, in substantially the same language." ? Of it Bishop Spalding writes : " There is no foundation, we think, for the opinion which we have sometimes heard, that the First Amendment to the Constitution was intended as a tardy act of justice to the Catholics in the United States, in gratitude for their conduct during the war, and for the aid of Catholic France. It, in fact, made no change in the position of the Catholics, whom it left to the mercy of the differ- ent States, precisely as they had been in the colonial era. Various causes were, however, at work, which by modifying the attitude of the States toward religion tended also to give greater freedom to the Catholic Church. The first of these was the rise of what may be called the secular theory of government, whose great ex- ponent, Thomas Jefferson, had received his political opinions from the French philosophers of the eighteenth century. The State, according to this theory, is a purely political organism, and is not in any way concerned with religion; and this soon came to be the prevailing sentiment in the Democratic party, whose acknowl- edged leader Jefferson was, which may explain why the great mass
1 1792.
2 The Church and State in the United States, ii., 4.
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of the Catholics in this country have always voted with this party." 1
Catholics have many times since the foundation of the repub- lic been made to feel the sting of ingratitude, but they have always found among them a skilful pen or an eloquent voice to resent it.
"Tell me not, in the beautiful fiction of the poet, of the Pil- grims of Massachusetts :
"' They left untouched what here they found, Freedom to worship God !'
Tell me not of the liberal principles of Roger Williams, under whose rule of nearly a half century at Providence the Rhode Island ordinance excluded the Catholic from the franchises of his own asylum from Puritan persecution! Tell me not of the char- ity of Penn, who could rebuke his officers for toleration of the Catholic worship! ... While the Puritan of the East was perse- cuting the Catholic, the churchman, the Antinonian, the Baptist, and the harmless Quaker; while Winthrop was recording his dis- content at the ' open setting up of the mass in Maryland'; and the law-established church in Virginia was wielding the scourge of universal proscription-the Catholic of Maryland alone was found to open wide his door to the sufferer of every persuasion, in the sentiment of the sweetest, the all but inspired poet of antiquity, has ascribed to the injured Dido:
"' Myself an exile in a world unknown, I learn to pity woes so like my own !'
"The firmness of the sons of Maryland, marshalled by a Small- wood, a William, a Gist, a Howard, or a Smith, under every aspect of danger and every form of privation, from the frozen plains of Valley Forge to the sweltry high hills of Santee-while their bones were whitening every field of Revolutionary glory or her dashing Barney was guiding them to victory on the ocean! The talent, the learning, the patriotism of her Chases, her Martins, her Dulaneys and Pinckneys, or the Wirts and Harpers whom adoption has made her own, these and the thousand incidents that illustrate them must be told by a more eloquent tongue than mine.
"But there was one on whose lustrous character even I may venture with friendship's privilege to dwell. I need not name that venerable model of the Christian, patriot, and gentleman, the
1 Catholic Church in United States, 1776-1876, p. 23.
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relative of the first American archbishop, and his associate in the establishment and support of American liberty. I need not name the ardent youth, who, at a time when his religion disfranchised him in his native province, engaged with all the energies of a vig- orous and accomplished mind in successful conflict with the legal dictator of his age, for the violated rights of that very country. I need not name the man who threw into the scale, where the pa- triots of '76 staked ' life and fortune and sacred honor,' more brilliant earthly expectations than all perhaps beside him; and who lingered among us, an exemplar of their virtues, till the whole immortal band had passed away. He lived till the controversial title of 'first citizen,' by which the early gratitude of his admir- ing patriots addressed him, was literally realized. Even he so much his junior, like whom
"' This earth that bears him dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman,'
the hero1 of Cowpens and Eutaw, who nourished with his blood the tree of liberty that Carroll's 2 hand had helped to plant, and who upheld it, with strong arm and unwavering heart, when shaken rudest by the storm of war, the pride of the Maryland line had struck his tent, and gone forth on his march of eternity, and the survivor of the Declaration of Independence was without a peer.
"' He lived, till age his brow with snows Had crowned,-but, like the Syrian hill, Amid the waste of life he rose, And verdure clasped his bosom still.'"
(Speech of William G. Read, Esq., at first Commemoration of the landing of the Maryland Pilgrims.)
To James Madison more than to any of the early statemen be- longs the credit of removing religious disabilities. An attempt was made in the Virginia legislature, in 1784, to lay a tax upon the people "for the support of teachers of the Christian religion." Madison saw the danger which lurked behind this attempt to erect a state church. He wrote a Memorial and Remonstrance, set- ting forth its dangerous character, and labored industriously to obtain signatures for it. In the election of 1785 the question of religious freedom was the issue.
1 John Eager Howard, died October 12th, 1827.
2 Charles Carroll, of Carrolton, died November 14th, 1832.
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The odious bill was defeated, and in its stead was enacted "that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any relig- ious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or in his goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or be- lief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." 1
It was, indeed, becoming that Virginia, with its hideous past of religious proscription, should be the standard-bearer of religious equality in the States.
To be done with this painful question of intolerance, suffice it to say that not until 1844 was the clause excluding Catholics from office in New Jersey abolished.
Among the first converts in this State, if not the very first, was the Rev. Calvin White, who from 1791 to 1795 was pastor of the first Presbyterian church built in Morris County, at Whippany, in 1718. After "exercising a useful ministry of four years " in this congregation he resigned and attached himself to the Episco- pal Church, becoming eventually rector of St. James's parish, Derby, Conn. Although he became a Catholic he did not enter the priesthood, but by his edifying life and intelligent grasp of the teachings of the Catholic Church was a veritable confessor of the faith in Connecticut. He was a Tory and just escaped hanging at the hands of a mob, because he refused to shout "property and liberty." It is said that he was first led to examine the doctrines of the Catholic Church by the correct life and intelligence of an old Catholic soldier in the Continental army. He was the grand- father of Richard Grant White, the distinguished art, literary, and dramatic critic. He died in Derby, Conn., March 28th, 1853, in his ninetieth year, fortified by the sacraments of holy Church. Much of the progress of Catholicity in Connecticut was due to his efforts and example.
The yellow fever in Philadelphia, in 1793, and the massacre of San Domingo filled the little town of Mount Holly with a surplus population, many of whom were Catholics. The gaiety and volu- bility of the French imparted a lively tone to the little community, in strong contrast to the staid, sober, but no less happy Quakers. About this time Stephen Girard, "famous for his riches and gifts," landed at Egg Harbor, came across the country on a ped-
1 Fiske's Essays, History and Literature, i., 194.
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dling tour, and took up his residence in the village. He lived in Mills Street, where he opened a cigar store, and sold raisins, by the penny's worth, to the children. He is said to have been "a little unnoticed man, save that the beauty of his wife, whom he married there, worried and alienated his mind."
In 1793, September 19th, we find the last record of Father Graessl, "the worthy bishop elect," who celebrated the marriage of Julia Vinyard to John Philip Seeholzer at Charlottenburg.
In 1795 there came to our State a man of brilliant mind, a dis- tant relative of Archbishop Carroll, a member of the Society of" Jesus until its dissolution by Clement XIV, but an apostate from the faith after twenty years in the ecclesiastical state. The Rev. Charles Henry Wharton, D.D., became principal of an academy in Burlington, N. J., and three years later became rector of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, a position he held thirty-five years. He was twice married, but he had no children. He died at Bur- lington in his eighty-sixth year.
"The great lights of the Church of Rome he regarded with unaffected reverence. Of Archbishop Carroll, his antagonist in controversy, as he was his kinsman in the flesh, he spoke to the very last with warm affection. 'It was a remarkable trait in his character,' says Bishop White, 'that from the beginning to the end of my acquaintance with him, he was a decided advocate of Jesuits, with the exception of the tenets of the Roman Catholic creed '" (Wharton's Remains, G. W. Doane, i., 66).
It is said of him that when a servant of his household was stricken with a mortal illness, and realizing the impossibility of getting a priest from Philadelphia, for she was a Catholic, Wharton said to her, " Although I am a parson, I am also a Catholic priest, and can give you absolution in your case." She made her confes- sion to him, and he absolved her, thus giving her that little com- fort before she died. Wharton's nephew, a good Catholic and a magistrate in Washington, is responsible for this story.
Not long after Bishop Carroll returned from England, where he had been consecrated, to take possession of his vast see, De- cember, 1790, there came to this country a priest, who as an officer under Rochambeau had taken part in the struggle for our inde- pendence, the Rev. John Rosseter. On his return to his country with the French forces he entered the Augustinian order, but his eyes turned toward the country he had helped to free, and his heart thirsted for other victories more glorious and more stable- the conquest of souls.
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Bishop Carroll gave him a warm welcome, and located him about thirty miles from Philadelphia, probably at Wilmington, Del. In 1795 he was joined by the Rev. Matthew Carr, from St. Augustine's Convent, John Street, Dublin, whose purpose in coming was to found a house of the Hermits of St. Augustine.
In 1796 the Augustinian Fathers secured a site on Fourth Street, below Vine, in Philadelphia, and immediately started to collect funds to build a church. Washington and many other Protestants were among the contributors.
By an indult granted May 27th, 1797, they were given the necessary authority to establish convents of their order in the United States.
After the death of Father Farmer, the Augustinians took up missionary work in New Jersey, and the Catholics of this State must ever hold the members of this order in grateful remem- brance. Among the missions founded by them in the early part of the nineteenth century were Cape May Island, visited about 1803 by the Rev. M Hurley; Trenton, by the Rev. Dr Matthew Carr in 1805; and Paterson, first visited by the Rev. Philip Lariscy about 1821.
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