USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Catholicity in northern Ohio and in the diocese of Cleveland from 1749 to December 31, 1900, Volume I, pt1 > Part 7
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and asked him what the decision of the court was. He informed me that he got 'clear.' He then left, and for the rest of the night I had a quiet and undisturbed sleep. The next day I continued my visit, going as far as Independence, near the Indiana State line, where I found a few Catholic families.
"Well pleased with my first visit to the public works I
. returned slowly to Tiffin, where I remained till the end of Decem- ber. During that month I heard that Bishop Purcell was expected in some town south of Tiffin. I went to meet him there. The good bishop received me very kindly and kept me a few days to help him on the visitation. Before returning he told me that as I was able to get along fairly well in English he appointed me pastor of Sandusky. Here there was neither church nor house, and only a few Catholic families, whose acquaintance I had made whilst attending a sick call there from Tiffin. * * *
"I went to Sandusky to take pastoral charge of the place on the first day of January, 1840. From Sandusky I continued for some time to visit Lower Sandusky [Fremont], Maumee, Toledo, and all the missions of the northwest. I do not remember exactly when good Father Rappe was sent to Toledo as pastor. I think it was in 1841. We used to visit each other every few weeks. He did not say Mass very long in the room I had rented. He had the good fortune of buying (1842) very cheap, a pretty good-sized Methodist church, all finished and having a good basement. In the latter he had his residence for some time. The bell which belonged to one of the societies was bought also. As there was no town clock, it had been used also for the benefit of the public to strike 6 a. m., 12 noon, and 6 in the evening, for which a com- pensation was paid by the town. But after it had been bought for the church the town refused to pay for it; adieu clock !
"In 1843 there was no pastoral retreat in Cincinnati, and good Father Rappe invited Father Lamy, of Mount Vernon, Father De Goesbriand. of Louisville, Stark Co., and myself, to make a private retreat together. We all accepted his invitation, remaining five days, and enjoying his hospitality, and his zeal and piety as director of the retreat.
"In the course of time Father Rappe was made bishop of Cleveland, afterwards Father Lamy, bishop of Santa Fe; later Father De Goesbriand became bishop of Burlington. Your humble servant was the last to be made bishop.
"In 1844 family affairs obliged me to go to France, and Bishop Purcell requested me to procure him some more priests and a community of Sisters for Brown county. As Father Rappe had been for some time chaplain of the large and magnificent convent and academy of the Ursulines at Boulogne sur-Mer.
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France, he gave me letters of introduction to the Mother Superior of the community. From London I went directly to Boulogne and succeeded in getting two English nuns, both converts, and an Irish nun. In the south of France I found eight more Ursulines, who went to Havre, where we all met, and with three priests formed a goodly party of our own. Before going to France I had applied for an assistant priest. As none was to be had, I was told to bring one from France and keep him as an assistant. I succeeded in procuring a schoolmate of mine, a very good and zealous priest,
the Rev. Peter Peudeprat ; the other two were left at Pittsburgh, at the request of Bishop Purcell. The priest I brought for my missions was to be pastor of Lower Sandusky. Well, I kept him with me in Sandusky till he could speak some English. It happened at that time that Father Rappe had also asked for an assistant, and was given Father De Goesbriand, then (1846) pastor at Louisville, O. But there being no other priest to take his place, my assistant was sent as pastor to Louisville, to succeed Father De Goesbriand. With no assistant, and with the same number of missions, I told Father Rappe that, as he took away my assistant, he should also take a part of my missions. He did so, and they took charge of the missions of the southwest, leaving to me the east, and, for some time, the visiting of the German settlement of Peru, near Norwalk, left without any priest. I visited it one Sunday in each month. *
2. REMINISCENCES OF THE REV. LOUIS DE GOESBRIAND.
The late Bishop De Goesbriand did pastoral work in Northern Ohio for over twelve years, coming here from France in 1840. At the request of the writer. he kindly sent the following account of his reminiscences as a priest on the mission in the territory covered by the present Diocese of Cleveland. It was first published in the Catholic Universe of December 27, 1888, and forms an interesting chapter in the history of Early Catholicity in Northern Ohio.
"Rev. Father Rappe arrived in Cincinnati, from France, towards the end of the year 1840, and was immediately sent to Chillicothe by Bishop Purcell to learn English in the house of Mr. Marshall Anderson. This excellent convert to our faith, between whom and the priest there sprung up immediately the most sincere friendship, was admirably qualified to teach English to our future missionary ; but Father Rappe's memory was none of the best. His ears could not well catch the sound of words which he had never heard before, and he experienced serious difficulty in learn- ing, though he worked at it long and hard.
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"In 1841 Toledo was a new place, where there were but few Catholics. They had no church, no priest. At this time, also, the State was building the Maumee canal west of Toledo, and the Maumee Valley was full of Catholic laborers. The Maumee Valley at this time was literally a land which devoured its inhabitants. The Maumee fever spared no one; the disease slowly but surely undermined the strongest constitutions, and there was not an old man to be seen then in all that country. Another more dreadful disease reigned amongst the canal men. They earned plenty of money and spent it in drinking; and hence their temporal and spiritual condition was really lamentable.
"From 1841, until the beginning of 1846, Father Rappe attended alone to the spiritual wants of the Catholics living along the Maumee canal and river from Toledo to Indiana, and as far south as Section Ten, in Putnam county. His labors and priva- tions must have been extraordinary. The hatred he bore the sin of intemperance owes its origin to the fact that he saw it and its consequences in all its hideousness, along the Maumee Valley. He felt that the only way to save the souls of these poor men from hell was to make them take the pledge of total abstinence. He began the work with a will, and God alone knows how many families he saved from misery, how many souls he reclaimed from sin, who are now in the kingdom of heaven. Hence it is that in those days he was blessed and welcomed as an angel of peace, and the fame of his labors reached far and wide. During the four years that Father Rappe was alone in Toledo he had purchased (1842) a Protestant church at that place and another (1841) at Maumee City. A small church had been erected at Providence and another was being erected at Defiance. Before the beginning of 1846 the canal had been built and was in full operation. The bulk of the canal builders had left, but some of them settled in the Maumee Valley. At this time (1846) Father Rappe had obtained for Toledo a branch of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, whose Mother House was at Cincinnati. They had originally come from Namur, Belgium, in 1840.
"One priest could not attend to all the work, and it was in January, 1846. that I came to Toledo by direction of the Bishop of Cincinnati. The city, its environs and the whole of the country as far as Indiana were very sickly. At certain seasons it was impos- sible to meet one healthy-looking person, and frequently entire families were sick and unable to help one another. Apart from the terrible fever, we were occasionally visited by such epidemics as erysipelas, and towards the end of 1847 we saw the ship-fever- stricken immigrants land on the docks to die amongst strangers after a few hours. There were hardly any Catholic families settled
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on the south side of the Maumee river from Toledo to Defiance. Mass was now said regularly every Sunday at Toledo and fre- quently at Maumee City. Such settlements as Six-Mile-Woods, Providence, Defiance, and Poplar Ridge [New Bavaria] were visited on week days, and for some time we also had charge of Fremont and LaPrairie. The roads were at times extremely bad, and the mission very extensive, but as the Catholic population was not very large in any settlement, the work would have been pleasant enough, had it not been for the poverty and sickness which prevailed everywhere.
"The example of Father Rappe, however, was enough to encourage and comfort any man. He knew every family and all the members thereof, and would bring it about in such a way that every child would be instructed. He had received a particular gift to teach catechism, and he would spend weeks in succession in a settlement to prepare a few children for their first communion. During this time of preparation he would speak to them as many as eight hours every day, and, strange to say, neither he nor the children seemed to be in any way fatigued. As soon as he saw that any neglected the Sunday Mass, or confession, he would go to their houses and remonstrate with them. If he met a stranger who seemed to be a Catholic he would stop him and put him through a course of rather severe questions, if he saw that he did not come to Mass. It was difficult to stand his rebukes, and more difficult yet to resist his entreaties, for he begged of them to have mercy on their own souls. A practice peculiar to Father Rappe, when he visited settlements or public works, was to explain the nature of the Sacraments before administering them, and after they had been received, to make aloud an extemporaneous prayer, implor- ing the help of God that the effect of the Sacrament might be full and permanent. On such occasions, before saying Mass, he would give a short explanation of it and suggest the dispositions requisite to hear it, and at the end of Mass he would return thanks aloud for the grace of receiving Communion, of hearing Mass, of hearing the word of God, and would in his prayer draw the atten- tion of his hearers to the most practical and salient points of his sermon. The most difficult work had been done, and done by Father Rappe alone, when I arrived at Toledo; but I could well imagine what he did amongst the poor canal men when there were crowds of them in the Maumee Valley.
"The Rt. Rev. A. Rappe was consecrated October 10, 1847. at Cincinnati by Bishop Purcell, assisted by the Bishop of Rich- mond. He came immediately to Cleveland, where Rev. M. How- ard was pastor, and left me at Toledo with a young priest whom he had received into the diocese. Rev. M. Howard, having been
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ST. THOMAS AQUINAS' CHURCHI, (Interior), CLEVELAND.
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stationed at Tiffin, I was called to Cleveland in January, 1848, and appointed Vicar General. The only church then in Cleveland was old St. Mary's, on the Flats.
"The congregation at that time was already large, and the church much too small. Shortly after his arrival the Bishop had a priest, speaking German, to attend to the spiritual wants of the Catholic Germans, and two High Masses were sung every Sunday in the old building. The Bishop resided first in a hired house south of the Public Square, but moved to the house or block of houses on Bond street, after he had bought it, which was shortly after arriving in Cleveland.
"To supply the wants of the growing population he soon erected a frame building, 30 x 60, on the east part of the cathedral lot. It was named the Church of the Nativity, and here, part of the time, school was taught on week days, a movable partition or folding door being put up to isolate the chancel. There were only fourteen secular priests in the diocese of Cleveland when it was dismembered from Cincinnati. In those days Bishop Rappe used to preach missions in the churches or settlements which he first visited.
"The Cathedral was begun in October, 1848. The venerable Administrator of Detroit, Mgr. LeFevre, was present and preached an admirable sermon in the morning at St. Mary's church, on the day of the blessing of the corner stone. We had a procession from the old church, and the crowd, both of Catholics and Protestants, was very great. In the fall of 1849 the Bishop started for Europe. I think it was not long before this time that the venerable Father James Conlan came [October, 1849] to help the clergy of the cathedral.
"The Bishop returned in August, 1850, bringing with him four priests, five seminarists, and five or six Ursuline Sisters. The present Ursuline convent property on Euclid avenue had been bought by his direction during his absence.
"The brick work and roof of the cathedral were finished before the winter of 1850. All the slates were imported from Wales, and were put on with copper nails. The drawings for the finishing of the interior were made by the now well-known archi- tect, P. C. Keily, who had just finished St. Patrick's church in Newark, N. J., and was then beginning his career as an architect. The cathedral was consecrated November 7, 1852. The Right Rev. Bishop Spalding, of Louisville, preached on the occasion.
"Bishop Rappe had arrived in Cleveland at the time of the great immigration from Ireland. Hence his greatest solicitude was to procure for his diocese a sufficient number of priests. This was a very difficult matter. Up to that time there had been but
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few Catholic schools established in the country. We had no Catholic colleges or seminaries except at very great distances, and among the young men from Europe who offered themselves as candidates for the priesthood many had not the requisite qualifica- tions. The Bishop admitted, however, a few students to his own house, and wished me to instruct them. This was the beginning, and a very imperfect one, of the present flourishing seminary of Cleveland. . When Rev. A. Caron arrived in 1848 he was given exclusive charge of the seminary, which continued to improve. When the 'Spring Cottage property' on Lake street was pur- chased in 1850, the seminarists moved thither with their venerable and able director.
"Among the benefactors of the Diocese of Cleveland there is one whose name I have forgotten. The person I refer to [Miss C. Pance] was a lady from Paris who, knowing that there were many orphans in Cleveland to be provided for, volunteered to come, in 1851, and consecrate her fortune to the building of an orphan asylum. With her came two devoted companions, one of whom, Miss Ferec, was well known in Cleveland. The building on Harmon street was erected at the expense of the benefactress I allude to, but she died a few days before it was ready for the recep- tion of orphans. Her coming to Cleveland was very providential, at a time when so many immigrants were carried away by ship- fever or cholera, leaving their children unprovided for.
"There is another name which I desire to mention. It is that of Miss C. Bissonette, of LaPrairie, who since became Mother Ursula, the first superioress of the St. Vincent's orphan asylum in Ohio City [now Monroe street, Cleveland], and who died Sep- tember 11, 1863. During the cholera which did so much havoc in Sandusky City, many Catholic children had lost both their parents, and some poor widows were left in the greatest distress. At my request, this courageous young girl, whose labors at La Prairie towards the instruction of children I knew, came at once to Sandusky City, at a time when all who could had fled. We made her take possession of a good house which had been deserted. Furniture was obtained by entering a steamboat which lay deserted in the bay. There this devoted soul managed to provide for the wants of orphans and parents till the terrible scourge had passed away. Her vocation to a religious life was undoubtedly the reward for her generosity, in offering her life for the sake of the orphans. I knew of few persons for whom nature and divine grace had done so much as for the venerable Mother Ursula. * *"
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CHAPTER V EARLY CATHOLICITY IN CLEVELAND.
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1826-1847
MOSES CLEAVELAND, FOUNDER OF CLEVELAND-CATHOLICS FIRST SETTLED IN CLEVELAND, 1826-THE REV. THOMAS MARTIN, FIRST PRIEST TO VISIT CLEVELAND-THE REVS. JOHN M. HENNI AND MARTIN KUNDIG-THE REV. JOHN DILLON, FIRST RESIDENT PASTOR OF CLEVELAND, 1835-CATHOLIC SERVICES FIRST HELD IN SHAKESPEARE HALL, AT FOOT OF SUPERIOR STREET-THE REV. PATRICK O'DWYER SUCCEEDS FATHER DILLON-TWO LOTS FOR CHURCH SITE DONATED FOR FIRST CHURCH IN CLEVELAND- ST. MARY'S CHURCH ON "FLATS," COMMENCED IN 1838, AND DEDICATED IN 1840-REV. PETER MCLAUGHLIN SECURES LOTS FOR CHURCH AT CORNER OF SUPERIOR AND ERIE, IN 1815-REV. MAURICE HOWARD-BISHOP RAPPE CONSECRATED FIRST BISHOP OF CLEVELAND, OCTOBER 10, 1847.
U NDER the direction of Moses Cleaveland, the General Sup- erintendent of the Commercial Land Company, Augustus Spafford began in 1793 the survey of a portion of the site covered by the present city of Cleveland. The Hon. Harvey Rice, in his interesting work, "Pioneers of the Western Reserve," refer- ring to this survey says: "Moses Cleaveland, with the eye of a prophet, foresaw that a great commercial city was here destined to spring into existence at no distant day, and accordingly directed its survey to be made into town lots of so much of the land as was included within the angle formed by the lake and easterly side of the river, and as far southeasterly as seemed requisite for the loca- tion of the predicted city. When the survey was completed- October 1, 1796-he felt the importance of selecting a suitable name for the new city, but was perplexed in coming to a satisfac- tory decision, and hence requested his associates to favor him with their suggestions. They at once baptized the infant city and gave it the name of Cleaveland in honor of their superior in authority. Moses was taken by surprise, blushed and gracefully acknowledged the compliment. The letter 'a,' in the first syllable of his name. was subsequently dropped out by a resident editor of the town, because he could not include it in the headline of his newspaper
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for want of sufficient space. The public adopted the editor's orthography, which has ever since been retained."*
In July, 1800, Cleveland became a part of Trumbull county, which at that time comprised the entire Western Reserve lands, owned and controlled by the above-mentioned company, through whose influence, also, this part of Ohio was settled by people from Connecticut and other New England States. They brought with them an intense hatred of Catholics and their Church, which to this day has been perpetuated in their descendants, though gradually in less marked degree.
Humble and insignificant indeed was the beginning of Catholicity in Cleveland. Fully thirty years elapsed after Moses Cleaveland landed on the banks of the Cuyahoga, before any Catholics set foot on the territory now covered by Ohio's metrop- olis. Their advent dates back to 1826, when many Catholic Irish were induced to come hither to work on the construction of the Ohio canal, ground for which had been broken amid much enthu- siasm on July 4, 1825, in Cleveland, then numbering a population of about five hundred. The influx of Catholic laborers almost doubled this number within a year.
The Rt. Rev. Edward Fenwick, Bishop of Cincinnati, was informed that many of his flock were located in Cleveland, and along the canal as far as Akron, and that they were without the ministrations of a priest. He therefore directed the Dominican Fathers, stationed in Perry County, Ohio, to send a priest to Cleveland, whose duty it should be to visit them at stated times and attend to their spiritual wants. The Rev. Thomas Martin, a member of the Dominican order, was sent in compliance with the Bishop's direction, his first visit being made during the autumn of 1826. Later on he was succeeded by the Very Rev. Stephen T. Badin (the first priest ordained in the United States), who came at irregular intervals.
In the summer of 1833 the Rev. John Martin Henni (who died as Archbishop of Milwaukee, September 7, 1881) visited Cleveland for the first time. He was met there by his friend and co-laborer on the Ohio missions, the Rev. Martin Kundig, who was on his way from Cincinnati to Detroit. To the great joy of
*"Pioneers of the Western Reserve," pp. 47 and 48.
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the few Catholics then in Cleveland, both missionary priests said Mass and administered the Sacraments during their short stay. The only place at their disposal, and large enough to accommo- date the faithful, was the Masonic Hall, which served them as a temporary place of worship.1 After this welcome visit there is no record of any other priests having come to Cleveland, until the advent of the Rev. John Dillon, who was sent by Bishop Purcell in the early part of 1835, as the first resident pastor. He, as his predecessors, said Mass in private houses, as there was no other place to be had then. Shortly after his arrival, however, he suc- ceeded in securing a large room, 30 by 40 feet, known as Shakes- peare Hall. It was in the upper story of the Merwin building. located at the foot of Superior street, near the present Atwater block. This hall he fitted up as a temporary place of worship, as best he could with the limited means at his disposal, and in it said Mass for a short time.
Among the frequent attendants at the Catholic services held in this hall, were several Protestant gentlemen. They were attracted by the eloquence of Father Dillon, for whom they had conceived a great regard and admiration, because of his talent and amiability. One of these gentlemen was the Hon. Harvey Rice, who died in 1891, and who was one of Cleveland's most dis- tinguished citizens. He settled in Cleveland in 1824, two years before a Catholic priest or layman had come. He was, therefore, a living witness to the wonderful growth of Catholicity in Cleveland, and to him the writer is greatly indebted for much of the informa- tion here given in connection with the early history of the Catholic Church in this city. Of Father Dillon he said, that he was a cultivated and scholarly gentleman, polished in manner and an eloquent preacher ; that his zeal was limited only by his physical ability, and that he was truly a father to his spiritual children.
When Father Dillon came to Cleveland, he found the Catholics very few in numbers and very poor as to worldly posses- sions. Added to this he also unfortunately found much intemper- ance, and very little regard for the sacredness of the Sunday, but he set manfully to work to correct these evils and to elevate the moral and social condition of his poor and despised charge.
(1) Life of Archbishop Henni, p. 58.
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The next place at which Father Dillon held public services in Cleveland was in a one story frame cottage, on the west side of Erie street, near Prospect. The building is still standing on the old site. In it there were several rooms, the largest serving as a 'church,' the others as the pastoral residence. A few months later Father Dillon secured Mechanics' Hall, in Farmers' Block at the corner of Prospect and Ontario streets, and transformed it into a temporary church. He continued, however, to reside in the house above mentioned, till his death. -
Father Dillon had tired of halls as makeshifts for a church. Besides, the growing number of Catholics made such incon- veniently small for their accommodation. However, his people were too poor to build a church. He therefore sought help else- where and obtained much from kind and generous Protestants. He also went, among other places, to New York City, where his eloquent appeals for assistance resulted in his returning with about one thousand dollars for the proposed church. But shortly after his return to Cleveland he fell a victim to bilious fever, and died October 16, 1836, at the age of twenty-nine years-a little more than two years after his ordination to the priesthood. His death was a severe blow to his little flock, and was lamented by those not of the Faith. The Cleveland Advertiser, a secular paper, in its issue of October 20, 1836, said of him: "The death of Father Dillon will be deeply felt by his bereaved and afflicted Church. He was one of the first of our clergy in point of talent and piety, and though he labored in obscurity, yet he labored faithfully and ยท well." His remains were interred in the Erie street cemetery, but a short distance from the place in which he had resided and died. For eleven months the Catholics of Cleveland were without a resi- dent pastor. The Rev. H. D. Juncker came occasionally from Canton, where he was stationed between 1836 and 1837. Septem- ber, 1837, the Rev. Patrick O'Dwyer, a recent arrival from Quebec, was sent as Father Dillon's successor. His pastoral residence was a small frame cottage, located at the corner of Superior and Muirson streets. During his pastorate he said Mass in the third story of Farmers' Block, already mentioned.
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