USA > New York > Niagara County > History of the Seminary of Our Lady of Angels : Niagara University, Niagara County, N.Y., 1856-1906 > Part 2
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OUR HISTORY
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REAR VIEW OF BUILDINGS
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CHAPTER I
ESTABLISHMENT OF A COLLEGE ON LAKE SHORE NEAR BUFFALO - FATHERS LYNCH, C. M., AND MONAGHAN, C. M., THE SOLE FACULTY - VISIT TO NIAGARA FALLS - PURCHASE OF THE VEDDER FARM, 100 ACRES, MIDWAY BETWEEN SUSPENSION BRIDGE AND LEWISTON - NO FUNDS, YET ANOTHER PURCHASE OF 200 ACRES FROM THE DE VEAUX ESTATE - " THE FOLLY OF THE CROSS" - FATHER MCGUINNESS AND THE MIRACULOUS TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS - BISHOP TIMON GIVES ADVICE - BISHOP LOUGHLIN SOLVES A DIFFICULTY.
T RAVELERS on the Canadian trolley line running between Chippawa and Niagara-on-the-Lake cannot help noticing that the most imposing building along the American bank of our river is the white-domed Niagara University. It looms up on the highest point of Mont-Eagle Ridge, like some huge castle on the Rhine, commanding a view of the country for an area of thirty miles. For the past fifty years it has towered there in the midst of its three hundred acres, but not always with the grandeur which it now exhibits, and which draws admiring inquiries from sightseers roaming through a region where grandeur is almost commonplace.
Fifty years ago the beginning was made, humbly, as are most things done in the name of God; quietly, as becomes a work which has God for its principal object; in poverty, as are most of the projects undertaken for the furtherance of our religion. The founder of our institution was Father John Joseph Lynch, C. M., afterwards the first Archbishop of Toronto. In an address which he delivered here during the celebration of our Silver Jubilee in 1881, he attributed the work as done by God since it could not have been carried on by the weak hands of men. " A Domino factum est istud," he exclaims on that occasion, "et est mirabile in oculis nostris."
Prior to our establishment here a site had been secured by Father Lynch along the lake shore in the vicinity of Buffalo, but it does not seem to have been occupied, at least for any great length of time. Later on, an abandoned orphan asylum nearer to the city was taken and opened as a college, November 21, 1856, the entire faculty consisting of Fathers Lynch, C. M., and Monagan, C. M., and the number of students reaching an encouraging half dozen !
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From boyhood days it had been Father Lynch's dream, as he tells us in the address above mentioned, to found an institution of learning within sight of Niagara's mighty cataract. Besides, the situation in the suburbs of Buffalo was not all that could be de- sired in point of seclusion, and so it is that. we find him during the Christmas vacation of 1856 casting about for a more suitable spot on which to erect a college. Accompanied by Father Monaghan, he visited Suspension Bridge, and, after many inquiries, he learned that the "Vedder farm" of one hundred acres, lying midway between the town of Suspension Bridge and the village of Lewiston, was for sale. He bought it, although, as he used often to relate in after years to the students of Niagara, he had no ida at the time where he was to get the money that would pay for it.
He was one of those apostolic men who confide in Providence, and drive shrewd bargains for the kingdom of God on earth. They are the bolder in doing so because self has no claim in the premises, because personal glory is eclipsed, and only the general benefit is consulted. It is no exaggeration to say that the Church values such men and encourages them in their efforts to secure for the glory of religion the fairest, grandest sites in all creation. And, " by-the-way," if we take a look at the commanding situations occu- pied by Catholic churches, colleges, convents, monasteries, even within a radius of thirty miles from our Episcopal city of Buffalo, may we not find more truth than taunt in the saying of an irritated non-conformist: "Catholics keep one eye on the kingdom of Heaven and the other on real estate " ?
The purchase of one hundred acres at seventy-five dollars an acre was a desperate speculation on the part of Niagara's founder, especially at a time when hardly seventy-five cents were in the treas- ury. Although a year's grace had been given by the Vedder family for the payment of the money, the lapse of that time found the treasury about as empty as ever, and the purchaser as determined as ever to acquire new territory ! The first purchase was pro- nounced by some as imprudent; the second, that of two hundred acres from the De Veaux estate, before the first had been secured by cash, was regarded with amazement as a piece of folly monumental in its greatness. It was " the folly of the Cross."
The Vedder property extended from a line running just north of the "Wash House " to the river front, back towards the present vineyard, and southward to about the spot now occupied by the
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college barns. The new purchase embraced that portion of our land which extends from the vicinity of the "Sacred Grounds " as a river line southward towards " Sugar Lane " and eastward along the line skirting " Smith's Orchard."
On the De Veaux farm was a brick hotel, or inn, situated a little in front of the present porch. This was renovated by the new " landlord," who, after a series of blessings, metamorphosed the bar-room into a sacristy and an adjoining ten-pin alley into a chapel. On the first of May, 1857, the personnel and belongings of the Buffalo suburban establishment were transferred to our present site on the New York bank of the Niagara River.
At last the dream of Father Lynch had been realized, that over the stormy waters of our river the emblem of Christianity should tower, softening the wildness of Nature hereabouts by Religion's sacred influence. A Catholic college is erected above the flood which the great Richelieu once dreamed of harnessing as a tributary to the commercial prosperity of New France! An institution under the patronage of Our Lady of Angels marks one of the spots where Hennepin contemplated the glories of Nature at a time when the Falls were as yet unknown to Europeans, and Nature was, here clothed in all her primeval wildness ! A penniless missionary reclaims for the cause of education a region where La Salle once roamed in quest of new discoveries ; where Chataubriand once sat and dreamed, drinking in those inspirations which lend such a charm to his writings ! Who will not agree with the apostolic Vincentian when, contemplating our institution twenty-five years after its foundation, he exclaimed in a spirit of faith and gratitude: "A Domino factum est istud et est mirabile in oculis nostris: This is the Lord's doing : and it is wonderful in our eyes " ?
Contracting for three hundred acres of land, however, was an easier task than paying for them, as the sanguine founder of Niag- ara soon discovered. The total number of students in attendance during the first year was only twenty-four, so that the revenue derived from board and tuition was in no way adequate to meet the urgent demands of the Seminary's creditors.
Whatever time could be spared was employed by Father Lynch in collecting funds to meet immediate expenses. Numerous and generous responses were made to his appeals for help, yet all that he could do was not sufficient to remove the heavy burden which weighed upon the infant seminary. He did not lose heart, however, but waited with a sort of blind persistence for that windfall which
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he felt certain Providence had in store for the succor of his poverty- stricken institute.
While engaged in preaching a retreat to the young men at the Cathedral in Buffalo, Father Lynch was taken ill with what appeared to be erysipelas of the head and was obliged to relinquish all work, retiring to the Sisters' Hospital for treatment. Father Monaghan, procurator of the institution, was thus left in sole charge while his superior was struggling between life and death, unable to gather the much-needed funds, or even to give a thought to his beloved project of saving the purchased acres from reverting to their original owners.
It was a dreary omen, indeed, to find the head of the house thus stricken down at a time when above all others his presence and his activity were so sorely needed. Yet it was in this very emergency that the expected windfall came which enabled the institution to secure itself against the evil day. The story reads like a tale from the Ages of Faith, but its accuracy is vouched for by Father Lynch himself, who recounts it with charming simplicity in his lecture previously mentioned.
During the height of Father Lynch's illness, a priest, Father McGuinness, formerly of Brooklyn, called at the hospital to see the patient, but the latter was unable to receive him. The next day, however, an interview was had, when the startling news was un- folded that for three months Father McGuinness had been praying for light to know what he should do with ten thousand dollars! In his perplexity he had consulted with Bishop Timon of Buffalo, and the latter had referred him to Father Lynch. It did not take Ni- agara's founder long, sick as he was, to unfold a scheme whereby the sum mentioned would be most advantageously employed. The priest from Brooklyn warmly seconded the project of his sick brother, who, it is said, began to mend from that moment.
Later on difficulties developed owing to the fact that the money to be given was tied up in a mortgage on some Brooklyn church, and pressure was brought to leave it there, but Bishop Loughlin, "nobiscum ab initio," always our friend, dissolved all complica- tions, and eventually a check for ten thousand dollars lay in the hands of Niagara's delighted president. Because of Bishop Timon's counsel, the generosity of Father McGuinness, and the cordial assistance of Bishop Loughlin in enabling Father Lynch to secure this large donation, they are justly regarded as joint founders with him of " The College and Seminary of Our Lady of Angels."
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THE
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SOUTH VIEW OF BUILDINGS
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CHAPTER II
FATHER LYNCH APPOINTED COADJUTOR OF TORONTO - DEATH OF FATHER McGUINNESS -INCORPORATION OF SEMINARY - OFFICERS ELECTED - SOME WELL-KNOWN NAMES -NEW YORK LEGISLATURE PETITIONED TO GRANT A CHARTER TO THE SEMINARY -TEXT OF CHARTER -SOME EVENTS OF THE EARLY '60's - BURNING OF THE SEMINARY.
I N 1859, Father Lynch was appointed Bishop of Aechnias in partibus and Coadjutor of Toronto, so that the management of the institution which he had founded passed to other hands. Father McGuinness, who gave what was so often called the mirac- ulous ten thousand dollars, came to the Seminary to live and was there engaged in teaching, and also in working in other ways to advance the new project. For the few priests at Niagara in those days knew how to take off their cassocks and dig sand or quarry rocks for the new building after class was over and they had dug out the beauties of Virgil, Horace, or the other classical authors. While engaged in superintending the working of a sandbank owned in Lewiston by the Seminary, Father McGuinness caught a severe cold which soon obliged him to desist from all labor. He went over to Toronto in hopes of recuperating, but pneumonia developed, and in a short time the good Father died. His body was brought back to the Seminary and was interred in a plot of ground overlooking the river at the head of the ravine which divides the "Sacred Grounds " from the orchard adjoining the old limekiln.
There it rests to-day, no longer alone, but surrounded now by the graves of those Vincentian fathers and brothers who, through his generosity, had been so largely aided in finding a home on the banks of the Niagara. One by one as their life work ceased, and the night came on when no man can labor, they were borne to our little God's acre and laid beside the grave of him whom Niagara reveres as her first great benefactor. For nearly thirty years after his death two scholarships were annually granted by our institu- tion in memory of this generous priest, although no obligation of that nature had been imposed by Father McGuinness on the gov- erning body at Niagara. May he rest in peace!
From the " first meeting of the Board of Trustees of Our Lady
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of Angels," we find that they were incorporated June 4, 1861, under a general act " for the incorporation of benevolent, chari- table, scientific and missionary societies." Those present at that meeting were: Bishop John Timon, of Buffalo; Fathers Stephen V. Ryan, John Monaghan, John Asmuth, and William Ryan, all members of the Congregation of the Mission. Among the officers elected at this meeting appears the name of Rev. John O'Reilly, C. M., as vice-president of the Board. In 1862, the names of Rev. Thomas Smith, C. M., and Denis Leyden, C. M., are mentioned, the former succeeding to the office of Vice-President of the Board, previ- ously held by Father O'Reilly. In January, 1863, Revs. James Knowd, C. M., and R. E. V. Rice, C. M., are chosen to fill vacancies, and on the same day a resolution is adopted to petition the Legislature of New York State to grant a charter to the insti- tution.
On the 20th of April of that year, by special Act of the Legis- lature, the desired charter was granted in the following terms :
CHAPTER 190.
An Act to incorporate the Seminary of Our Lady of Angels. Passed April 20th, 1863.
The people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
SECTION 1 .- Stephen V. Ryan, Thomas J. Smith, John Asmuth, James Knowd, Robert E. V. Rice, Patrick M. O'Regan, and Fran- cis Burlando and their successors are hereby constituted a body corporate by the name of 'The Seminary of Our Lady of Angels,' the object of the said institution being to establish and maintain a seminary of learning in the County of Niagara for the care and education of young men.
SEC. 2 .- The persons above named and their successors are hereby appointed trustees of the said corporation. Vacancies in the said board, by death, resignation, or otherwise, shall be filled by the remainder of the trustees, or a majority of them.
SEC. S .- The said corporation may grant to its students honor- ary testimonials for proficiency in studies, or for general merit of such character as it may deem proper.
Sec. 4-The said corporation shall possess the general powers and privileges, and be subject to the liabilities of a corporation, as provided in and by the third title of the eighteenth chapter of the first part of the Revised Statutes.
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Sec. 5-The said institution shall be subject to the visitation of the Regents of the University in like manner with other institutes of learning in the State.
Sec. 6- Whenever in the opinion of the Regents of the Univer- sity the state of literature in the said Seminary, and the value of its property (according to the regulations of said Regents) shall jus- tify the same, the said Regents may, on the petition of the trustees by an instrument under the common seal, erect the said Seminary into a college, with such name, and such number of trustees, and on such conditions and with such powers and privileges conformable to law as the said Regents may deem proper.
Sec. 7 - This act shall take effect immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK, Office of the Secretary of State.
I have compared the preceding with the original law on file in this office, and do hereby certify that the same is a correct tran- script therefrom, and of the whole of the said original law.
Given under my hand and seal of office at the City of Albany this 21st day of April, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three. DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE.
(Place of Seal.)
It will be observed from the above legal transactions that the official title of our institution was at first "The Seminary of Our Lady of Angels." Hence the origin of the abbreviated address, S. O. L. A., which adorned letters, packages, and similar articles directed to Niagara for over twenty years. A later official title was that of " College and Seminary " employed on our catalogues to indicate the maintenance here of the two separate departments.
The first detailed account recorded of events at the Seminary is that of the sixth annual commencement held on Wednesday, July 2, 1862, "in the old frame study hall." In the absence of Bishop Timon, who had not yet returned from a visit to Europe, Vicar Gen- eral O'Farrell presided at the exercises. Among the names of clerical visitors from other dioceses we find mention of Fathers O'Hara of Syracuse; Gordon, V. G., of Hamilton, Ont., and Grat- tan of St. Catherines, Ont. The faculty of the Seminary were Revs. T. J. Smith, J. M. Asmuth, D. D. Leyden, P. M. O'Regan, A. J. Rossi, T. M. O'Donoughue, and a secular priest, Thomas
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Welsh. The programme, consisting of songs, speeches, and a dia- logue, contained twenty-five numbers, concluding with an address by " Very Rev. S. V. Ryan, C. M., Visitor of the Congregation of the Mission in the United States."
The first speech, delivered by David Chase, had for its title " The Happiness of Serving God in the Sanctuary; " the second was in French on " Devotion to Mary," and was delivered by John Gorman. P. Daly spoke on " The Civilizing Power of the Catholic Church," and D. Ryan delivered the " Magnificat " in Greek. It may be remarked that the " Magnificat " has always been a favorite canticle with the students of Niagara. Our first president believed in its potency to dispel storm-clouds on a picnic day, and make the rain cry itself into sunshine and laughter. On one occasion when the students were ready to visit Goat Island, and the heavens began to weep in a way peculiar to our region, Father Lynch started the " Magnificat," like one battling against hope. A student of little faith appeared in the ranks holding an umbrella! The president ordered him to the study hall, resumed the singing of the canticle, and was soon able to lead his followers to the Falls under a sky as genial as any that ever smiled in Italy.
The scholastic year of '62-'68 opened with the beginning of the month of September, the officers of the faculty consisting of Rev. T. J. Smith, president ; Rev. J. M. Asmuth, vice-president ; Rev. R. E. V. Rice, procurator ; Rev. C. J. Becherer, prefect of disci- pline, and Rev. P. M. O'Regan, director of seminarians. Moral Theology was taught by Father Asmuth, Dogmatic Theology by Father Walsh, a secular priest ; the higher mathematics by Father Knowd, the higher Latin and English by Father O'Regan, " mis- cellaneous classes " by Revs. Father Rossi, Dwyer, and a few of the theologians.
In reading the commencement exercises of this year, Tuesday, June 30th, " ex uno disce omnes " comes to our mind, except that our programmes are not so lengthy, and exhibition day no longer impinges on the Fourth of July. Rt. Rev. Bishop Timon presided on this occasion, surrounded by about forty priests, the laity filling the remainder of the hall. The students, numbering 103, of whom twenty were seminarians, filed in as in later times, and were conveni- ently placed where the Prefect could observe all entrances and exits. The first number on the programme was the "Veni, Sancte Spi- ritus," rendered by the Glee Club; the second was "Washington Grand March," by the College Band, a proof that vocal culture and
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instrumental music had a hold thus early in our career on the affections of Niagara's students. All through the programmes of entertainments given at various times by the student body, songs and music predominate, band, orchestra, glee clubs figuring with the greatest regularity.
A dialogue on "Natural Philosophy " was presented at this exhibition by James Muldoon as Professor Muller, James O'Hare as Professor Galvani, William Nyhan as Professor Gurnaud, and James O'Connor as Deacon Peabody. Thomas McCudden played " A Sprig of Shillalah " on the violin, B. J. McDonough sang "Gay and Happy," after which James Dunn and Thomas Furlong maintained against Thomas Neade and William Connolly that " The Middle Ages Were Dark." Joseph McCosker read a French essay on " Religious Instruction," Owen O'Brien joined with T. McCudden in a violin duet, John O'Reilly delivered the "Valedic- tory," the college band played "Hail Columbia," the premiums were distributed, the " Te Deum " was sung, dinner was taken, and then " All Aboard!" was the slogan as the happy students bolted bridgeward for their trains.
College history is necessarily monotonous except to those imme- diately concerned in its making. The record of any one year is found to be so painfully like its predecessors that unless some pow- erful extraneous influence intervenes to relieve the sameness of local color, the aspect is anything but inviting to the general ob- server. We are very fond of our college home, but not so foolishly fond as to believe that the continued record of exercises, commence- ments, the quotation of college " rerums," or the outlining of col- lege freaks, must prove interesting to all the patrons of this book. Hence we pass from mere localisms to an event which startled and grieved the educational world while enlisting the sympathies of all who watched the struggles of our Seminary to establish itself on our border side of the Niagara River.
The work of the scholastic year of '64-'65 was taken up under unusually promising circumstances, considering that the Civil War, then just over, had had a disturbing effect on houses of learning as well as on other institutions which are so momentous in the life of a nation. Nearly two hundred students were registered and were at work in the prosecution of their studies, when in the early after- noon of December 5th, 1864, the alarm of fire was sounded and the inmates, rushing out, discovered that the roof of Philosophers' Hall was blazing with a fury which presaged the destruction of the entire
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institution. Every possible effort was made to check the flames, but all to no purpose, and in a few hours the Seminary of Our Lady of Angels was only a smoldering mass of ruins. The faculty, brothers, students, and workmen turned their attention to the saving of such property as could be removed, and it was while thus en- gaged that a seminarian named Thomas Hopkins of Brooklyn was caught by a falling roof and buried in the ruins. In our cemetery over by the Sacred Grounds stands a monument, the highest in our marble group to Niagara's dead, erected by his fellow students to commemorate the heroism and the untimely end of their companion.
By the destruction of the Seminary two hundred people found themselves deprived of food and shelter, and had it not been for the kindness of some neighbors who opened their doors to the homeless on that sorrowful December night, exposure might have added more than one little hillock where the dead of Niagara are laid to sleep. It is especially deserving of mention that the proprietor of the Mont Eagle Hotel, Mr. DeCamp, immediately offered the shelter of his house to all who would accept his hospitality. The greater number of the students slept that night under his roof, returning in the morning to gaze upon the ruins of their college home, to gather what effects they might from the smoldering heap, and to prepare for journeying to their respective homes.
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CHAPTER III
REBUILDING OF THE SEMINARY - PRESENT SOUTH WING OPENED FOR STUDIES - DISTINGUISHED VISITORS PRESENT - CORNER- BTONE OF MAIN BUILDING LAID - NEW TRIALS -GENEROUS FRIENDS - NIAGARA'S AID TO POOR STUDENTS - MORE PROS- PEROUS TIMES - THE NEW GYMNASIUM.
T HE work of resurrecting the Seminary, " Phoenix-like from its ashes," was begun on the 4th of April, 1865, just four months after it had been destroyed by fire. On the 4th of September following, the present south wing was completed, and on the 6th, after having been solemnly blessed by Right Rev. John Timon, C. M., then Bishop of Buffalo, it was opened for the recep- tion of students.
Among those who were present on this occason were Bishops Lynch of Toronto and Farrell of Hamilton; Very Rev. S. V. Ryan, C. M., Visitor of the Congregation of the Mission in the United States; Rev. Fathers O'Farrell of Lockport, Flaherty of Auburn, Bede of Rochester, Quigley of Buffalo, Byrne of Lockport, Mc- Gowan of Rochester, O'Donoughue of Scottsville, McEvoy of Buffalo, Mulligan of Clifton, Canada, Welsh of Toronto, Christy of Canada, LeBreton of Buffalo, Cannon of Niagara Falls, Daley of Rochester, Molloy of Lewiston. The officers of the Mass were: Father J. T. Landry, C. M., celebrant, Father O'Keeffe, C. M., deacon, and Father Kenrick, C. M., subdeacon.
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