USA > Pennsylvania > Adams County > Conewago in Adams County > Conewago : a collection of Catholic local history : gathered from the fields of Catholic missionary labor within our reach. > Part 12
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In 1883, the Judge Hall property was purchased for $5,000 ; improvements costing $1500 were made and the school building remodeled this summer at a cost of $700 .- Through the perseverance of the pastor and the generosity of the congregation, the whole amount has been paid. The par- ochial school was long taught in the basement of the church ; among the teachers were A. S. Goulden, D. C. Westenhaver, Mr. Kennedy, Miss B. Ahern, Miss Mary C. Doll, and others. The Sisters of Charity, from Emmittsburg, took charge Sept. 1st, 1883. The school is very successful, there being about 200 children in attendance. The Sisters have a large music class, and teach other higher branches. They have an insti- tution beautifully situated, and every advantage and require- ment for a boarding school for young ladies. The church membership is 1500. There is a large Sunday-school attached to the church ; also Sodality of the Blessed Virgin, Sanctuary
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Society, St. Joseph's Cadet Corps, St. Patrick's and St. Jos- eph's I. C. B. U. Societies, a Widows' and Orphans' Fund So- ciety, Knights of America, and a Catholic Drum Corps. Ad- joining the church is a two-story residence for the pastor, which has been greatly improved this year. St. Joseph's Cemetery is a large burying ground, fronting Norborne .- Many of the old Catholics of the Valley are buried here .- There is a priest buried there, noted in the Keyser Church record.
A number of missions have been given from time to time at St. Joseph's : by the Jesuits Bernard Maguire and C. King, 1866 ; Fathers Shea, Gaveney and another Jesuit in 1868; Revs. Sourer, Kreuss and Furley in 1870, when a mission cross was erected in the church ; Revs. Ratki and Keitz after that ; Revs. Elliott and Smith, four years ago ; and two years ago by Revs. Doyle and Brady, Paulists. The Forty Hours were held Oct. 4th, 1885 ; Revs. McKeefry. Frioli, Weider, O'Reilly, present. Bishop O'Sullivan preached in the even- ing. There were 450 Communicants.
Besides Berkeley Springs, the pastor of St. Joseph's oc- casionally says Mass at Rock Gap, in Mr. John Neary's house and at Mr. Michel's, in Morgan Co. ; at Charles Minghinni's and Mr. Thomas's, in Back Creek Valley, Berkeley Co. The erection of a steeple. according to the original design of St. Joseph's, is now in contemplation.
This valley has given to religion a number of priests and sisters. Francis Patrick Duggan, a well-known Baltimore priest, was born near North Mountain, educated at St. Charles and St. Mary's Seminary, John Joseph Kain, now Bishop of Wheeling, was born along the B. & O., near North Mountain, and his pious mother carried him from there to church at Martinsburg. She was a noble christian woman, true to the country of her birth in faith and every virtue. His father was injured on the railroad and is buried in St. Joseph's Cem- etery, so is his sister ; steps are being taken to remove their remains to Wheeling where the mother is buried. Bishop
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Becker, though born in Pittsburg, spent his early life in the Shenandoah. John Boler, priest, was born near Kearneys- ville. August, son of Charles Thumel, now preparing for or- dination, was born in Martinsburg. Michael Ahern, student at St. Charles, also born here ; and Anthony McKeefry, student there, born in Ireland, is a brother of the pastor of St. Joseph's. James O'Farrel, Wm. Lynch, Edw. Tierney, and John Hagan, priests, were born at Harper's Ferry .- Father Tierney was educated at the Propaganda and ordained at Rome. Wm. Dubourg. son of Richard McSherry, born in Martinsburg in 1824, a Novice of the Society of Jesus, died at Georgetown in 1845, and is buried with his fathers in St. Joseph's Cemetery. Bernie Doll, brother of Mary Cecilia. a Sister, was born in Martinsburg. He deserves notice as a christian hero. During an epidemic of Yellow Fever at Shrieveport, La., he gave up a good business, accompanied the parish priest in his attendance upon the sick, and died at the bedside of the Yellow Fever patients. Sept. 7th, 1862, Albert, third son of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was shot by the Confederates, near Darkesville, Berkeley County, and buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery. Martinsburg, Sept. 9th. Rev. M. Costello, D. D., was at Harper's Ferry in 1860, and visited Winchester monthly, Martinsburg occasionally. He was a promising young Irish priest, educated at All-Hallows ; died at Harper's Ferry Feb. 17th. 1867, and is buried there.
The following young ladies of the parish became Sisters : Rose McGeary, Sr. Elizabeth of the Good Shepherd ; Evaline Blondell, dec'd, Sr. Redempte, received at Philadelphia ; Car- oline Piet, dec'd, Sr. Samuel ; Rose Dunn, Frederick, Sr. Paula ; Ella Montague, Sr. Genevieve ; Maggie McDonald, Emmittsburg, Sr. Rose ; Mary C. Doll, Visitation, Wilmington, Del., Sr. Bernard ; Ella Kain, St. Joseph's, Wheeling, Sr. Jos- eph ; Susan V. Cunningham, Emmittsburg, Sr. Loretto ; Mol- lie O'Connors, Emmittsburg, now at Mt. Hope, Sr. Agnes ; also a Miss Neumann, niece of Father Plunkett, and a Miss Timmins. Bridget O'Leary. North Mountain, received at
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Frederick, Sr. Madeline. Mary Hall, a convert, daughter of Capt. Hall, Supt. U. S. Armory, Harper's Ferry, joined the Sisters of Mercy at Wilmington, N. C., as Sr. Elizabeth.
For considerable information concerning the Martinsburg Church, we are indebted to Mrs. Helen Scharman, a descend- ant of Anastasia McSherry, nee Lilly, mention of whom is made by Father Finoti, in his Clip book. She is an intelli- gent woman, having an extensive knowledge of early local church history, through tradition from her grandmother and mother, and from personal recollection. The old Missal used by Prince Gallitzin on his missionary travels, is in her pos- session.
The Catholic church is strongly established at Cumber- land, Md., both in numbers and church institutions and prop- erty. The Sisters have fine buildings there, and the Capu- chins a large monastery. Father Frambach, S. J., did mis- sionary work at Cumberland as early as 1780. The first church was built in 1794. The old church, St. Mary's, was torn down in 1850, and Carroll Hall built. The new church is of brick, Ionic order of architecture, is called St. Patrick's and was built under Rev. Obermeyer. In 1866, St. Edward's Academy was built, in charge of Sisters of Mercy. Rev. F. X. Marshall pastor in 1833 ; Rev. Henry Myers in 1837, and for a number of years. He was greatly beloved and respected by Catholics and Protestants. Rev. B. S. Piot assistant from Mt. Savage until 1852 .- Leonard Obermeyer, pastor. 1853, Rev. John B. Byrne, assistant. 1855, Rev. P. B. Lenaghan ; 1856, Revs. James Carney, Michael O'Reilley ; 1859, Rev. Geo. Flautt, Rev. Edw. Brennan, asssistant ; 1860, Rev. Edw. Brennan ; successors, Revs. Edmund Didier, Father Barry, James Casey, Charles Damur, F. S. Ryan. 1881, Rev. F. Brennan ; Rev. J. Mattingly, assistant. Father Brennan died there several years ago; he was a very able and popular priest ; Father McDivitt succeeded him. There are a number of small missions in the surrounding mining regions.
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SOME BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Remember your prelates, who have spoken to you the word of God, con- sidering well the end of their conversation. and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ yesterday and to-day and the same forever .- HEB. XIII., 7.
THE MISSIONARY PRIEST GALLITZIN.
The following is from Chap. XI of MACLEOD's Devotion of the B. V. in North America ; partly taken from a Discourse on the Life and Virtues of Father Gallitzin, by Very Rev. Thomas Heyden :
As early as 1795 there was one Father Smith who was missionary for an enormons district in Western Maryland. Virginia, and Pennsylvania. There, for forty-one years, he toiled in humble faith- fulness: from thence his soul ascended to the judgment which his life had merited. It will not be uninteresting to consider
some points in the life of this servant of Mary, this glorious, although unrenowned pioneer of her honor in this country.
This Father Smith, missionary of Hag- erstown and Cumberland in Maryland, of Martinsburg and Winchester in Virginia, of Chambersburg and the Alleghany mountain sweep in Pennsylvania, and
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thence southward ; of far more, in a word, than what now constitutes the entire dio- cese of Pittsburg ; this rival of Gomez in the south, and of Father Chaumonot in the north ; this founder of Our Lady of Loretto in the centre of the continent, was not al- ways known as Father Smith. In hisown country, the vast Muscovite empire, then ruled by the Czar Alexander I., he was known as the Prince Augustine de Gallit- zin. His father, Prinee Demetrius Gallit- zin, was ambassador of Catherine the Great to Holland, at the time of the mis- sionary's birth. His mother, the Princess Amelia, was daughterofthat famons Field- marshal Count von Schmettau who illus- trates the military annals of Frederick the Great.
The young Gallitzin was decorated in his very cradle with military titles, which destined nim from his birth to the highest posts in the Russian army. High in the favor of the Empress Catherine, his father, a haughty and ambitious nobleman, dreaming only of the advancement of his son in the road of preferment and worldly honor, was resolved to give him an education worthy of his exalted birth and brilliant prospects. Religion formed no part of the plan of the father, who was a proficient in the school of Gallic infidel- ity, and the friend of Diderot. It was carefully excluded. Special eare was tak- en not to suffer any minister of religion to approach the study room of the young prinee. He was surrounded by infidel teachers. His mother, a Catholic by birth and early education, was sedueed into seeming Voltairianism by the court fash- jon of her native country, and her marri- age with Prinee Demetrius confirmed her habits of apparent infidelity ; we say ap- parent, for she retained, even in the salons of Paris and in the society of Madame du Chatelet. a fervent devotion to Saint Aug- ustine, that grand doctor of the Church who had been a great wordling and here- tic. After the marriage of the elder Gal- litzin with the Princess Amnella, he brought her to Paris and introduced her to his literary intidel friends, especially to Diderot, in whose company he delight- ed. This philosopher endeavored to win the princess over to his atheistieal sys- tem; but though she was more than indit- ferent on the subject of religion, her na- turally strong mind discovered the hol- lowness of his reasoning. It wasremarked that she would frequently puzzle the philosopher by the little interrogative- why ? And as he could not satisfy her objections, she was determined to examine thoroughly the grounds of revelation .- Though having no religion herself, she was determined to instruet herebildren in one. She opened the Bible merely for the purpose of teaching her children the his- torieal part of it. The beauty of revealed truth, notwithstanding the impediment of indifference and unbelief, would some- times strike her-her mind being of that mould which, according to Tertullian. is naturally Christian.
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A terrible illness called her mind baek to God : she saw the truth and beauty of the Catholic faith, and she returned to the protection of Mary on the Feast of St. Augustine, in the week following the Oc- tave of Our Lord's Assumption.
It is to the happy influence and bright example of his mother, to whom, under God, we must mainly ascribe the conver- sion of the young Demetrius. As the
illustrious Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, consoled the mother of Augustine, when he used to say " that it was impossible for u son to be lost for whom so many tears were shed;" so we may believe that the pious Furstenberg, her son's tutor, cheered, in a similar manner, this good lady, in her in- tense solieitude for a son whom she so tenderly loved.
At the age of seventeen the young prince was received into the Church. He was, in the year 1792, appointed aid-de-camp to the Austrian General Von Lilien, who commanded an army in Brabant at the opening of the first campaign against the French Jacobins. The sudden deathof the Emperor Leopold, and the murder of the king of Sweden by Ankerstron, both sus- peeted to be the work of the French Ja- cobins who had declared war against all kings and all religions, caused the govern- ments of Austria and Prussia to issue a very striet order disqualifying all foreign- ers from military offices. In consequence of this order the young Prinee de Galluzin was excluded. Russia not taking any part in the war against France, there was no occasion offered to him for pursuing the profession of arms for which he had been destined by military education. It was therefore determined by his parents that he should travel abroad and make the grand tour. He was allowed twoyears to travel; and lest, in the mean time, his acquirements, the fruits of a very finished education, might snffer, he was placed un- der the guidance of the Rev, Mr. Brosins, a young missionary then about to embark for America, with whom his studies were to be still continued, In the company of this excellent clergyman he reached the United States th 1792. .
The next we need see of him is asa sem- inarian with the Sulpieians in Baltimore, November 5, 1792. In this moment of his irrevocable sacrifice of himselfto God, the teelings of his inmost soul- may be gath- ered from a letter which he wrote at the time to a clergy man of Munster, in Ger- many. In it he begs him to prepare his mother for the step he had finally taken, and informs him that he had sacrificed himself, with all that he possessed, to the service of God and the salvation of his neighbor in America, where the harvest was so great and the laborers so few, and where the missionary had to ride frequent- ly forty and fifty miles a day, undergoing difficulties and dangers of every descrip- tion, He adds, thai he doubted not his call, as he was willing to subjeet himself to such arduous labor.
/ Father Etienne Badin was the first priest ordained in the United States; Prince Gallitzin was the second, and he, as early as 1799, was settled for lite in the then bleak and savage region of the Alleghan- ies. From his post to Lake Erie, from the Susquehanna to the Potomae, there was no priest, no church, no religious station of any kind, Think, then, of the inevitable labors and privations of this missionary; and again understand how the devotion to Mary has spread over North America.
During long missionary exeursions, fre- quently his bed was the bare floor, his pillow the saddle, and the coarsest and most forbidding fare constituted his re- past. Add to this, that he was always in feeble health, always infirm and delieate in the extreme, and it was ever a matter of wonder to others how the little he ate
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could support nature and hold to- gether so fragile a frame as bis. A verit- able imitator of Paul, "he was in Jabor and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in fastingoften, in cold and nakedness."
When he first began to reside perma- Dently on this mountain, in 1799, he found not more than a dozen Catholics, seattered here and there through a traekless forest. He first settled on a farm generously left by the Maguire family for the mainten- ance of a priest. A rude log-church, of some twenty-five or thirty feet, was suf- ficient for a considerable time for the first little fock that worshipped according to the faith of their fatherson the Alleghany. He commenced his colony with twelve heads of families; he left behind him when he died six thousand devotees of Marv.
But the population grew rapidly, allnr- ed by the saintly reputation of Father Smith. It was he who purchased enor- mous tracts of land, who built the grist and saw mill, he who found himself op- pressed by debt in his old age. Of course be expected bis father's inheritance, and when that prince died in 1803, he was pressed to quit his beloved Loretto and go to claim his rights in Russia. Hismother and friends urged him to come; his pre- late was on the point of commanding him; but when he met Bishop Carroll, he gave reasons for remaining among his flock which that prelate could not in the end refute. He stated that he had caused a great number of Catholic families to settle in a wild and uncultivated region, where they formed a parish of a considerable size; that the Legislature had proposed to establish there a county-seat ; and that numbers still continued to flock thither. The bishop at length inlly acquieseed in nis remaining, as he could not send an- other in his place. The apostotic mission- aly then wrote to his mother, that what- ever he might gain by the voyage, in « temporal point of view, eould not, in his es- Imation, be compared with the loss of a single soul that might be occasioned by his absence.
Had he gone, it would have been in vain, for the Emperor and Senate of SI. Petersburg settled the question by disin- heriting him for "having embraced the ('atholie faith and clerical profession."- Nevertheless, he hoped to share with his sister, who had inherited all, And she did supply him, until the rumed German Prince de Solm, whom she had married, made away her fortune as he had done with his own, Then came his days of debt, dreariest of all days to men. But he lived so that none should suffer but hin- self. He neither ate nor drank nor was clothed at the expense or loss of any cred- itor or others. His fare was often but some black bread and a few vegetables ; coffee and tea were unknown luxuries in those times. Hiselothing was home-made and of the most homely description ; his mansion was a miserable tog-hut. not de- nied even to the poorest of the poor .- With the prodigal son of the Gospel, but in a most meritorions and heroic sense, he could say : " How many bired servants in my father's house have plenty of bread, and I here perish with hunger !"
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" Being now," he says, "in my sixty- seventh year, burdened, moreover, with the remnant of my debts, reduced from $18,000 to about $2,500, I had better spend
my few remaining years, if any, in trying to pay off that balance, and in preparing for a longer journey."
On that Loretto of his love he expended, from the wreck of his fortune, $150,000 .- So is it with the servitors of Mary. Three centuries ago, they gave their bodies to be burned, their heads to the scalping-knife, their finger-joints to the teeth of the Iro- quois; later, they gave their lives and fortunes, counting them as nothing if so they might win souls to Christ.
Let his friend and biographer tell the secret of all this, and thus show what a Muscovite prince can have in common with this book :
"Ashe had taken for his models the Lives of the Saints, the Franeis of Sales, the Charles Borromeos, The Vincents of Panl. so like them he was distinguished for his tender and lively devotion to the Blessed Virgin ; and he lost noopportun)- ty ofextolling the virtues of Mary. He endeavored to be an imitator of her as she was of Christ. Ile recited her rosary every evening armony his household, and inculca- ted constantis on his people this grand devotion, and the other pious exercises in honor of Mary. The church in which he said daily Mass, he had dedicated under the invoeation of this ever glorious Vir- gin, whom all nations call blessed. It was in honor of Mary , and to place his people under her peculiar patronage. that he gave the name of Loretto to the town he found- ed here, after the far-famed Loretto, which, towering above the blue wave of the Ad- riatie, on the Italian coast, exhibits to the Christian pilgrim the ballowed and mag- nificent temple which contains the sainted shrine of Mary's humble house in which she att Nazareth heard announced the mystery of the Incarnation, and which the mariners. as they pass to encounter the perils of the deep,or return in safety from them,salute, chanting the joyons bynin, Ave Maris Stella! For, like St. John, he recognized in her a mother recommended to him by the words of the dying JJesus: " He saidto the disciple, behold thy mother!"' And so, when the frame was worn out in her service and ber Son's, he went up to see her face on high.
JAS. PELLENTZ, S. J.
Of this worthy missionary priest, we have little more toadd, except the record of his death. He began pre- parations for the building of the Church of the Sacred Heart at Cone- wago in 1785, and completed the walls and roof in 1787; Fathers De Barth and Lekeu had pews put in, stone steps erected in front, procured bell and large organ ; cupola put up, and made other improvements .- Father Steinbacher had the interior painted. Father Enders built school houses, put up iron fence, made cru- ciform addition, with paintings, erected steeple and marble altar, and made great improvements on all the Chapel property. Father Pellentz
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also built the house adjoining, and the old farm buildings, besides sev- eral smaller log houses along the hill that have long since disappeared .- His name is spelled " Pellentz." but wherever found on the old writings it is " Pellantz," doubtless from the German. He is buried under the church which he built, but all trace of his grave is lost. The nearest that can be ascertained is towards the south wing, and there is no telling but what his remains have been dis- turbed by the construction of foun- dations and the digging of a gang- way towards the front of the church to put in the furnace and heaters .- The record of his death is in Latin. as are all the early records and may be thus rendered : On the 13th of March, of the year 1800 at half-past seven A. M., died James Pellentz. and
was buried on the 15th. He dies in peace, by the grace of Him who by his death regenerated him. Not death, but life, rather should it be called. The name of Pellentz has many claims to consideration. A stranger in a foreign land. he erected this house and church. and with zeal and devotion he made it the object of his life to gather men within the fold of the Church.
CHURCH OF THE SACRED HEART.
Taken without the steeple, so as to look like the old church before improv- ed. At first it had a small wooden cross on the front neak of the roof. Near the top of the front wall is astone with the figures 1787 ent in. Below a circular scroll work with The letters I. S. H., is a heart cut in stone or marble.
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JAMES FRAMBACH, S. J.
This was the companion of Father Pellentz. His name is spelled "Frombach " and Frambach ; the first probably correct : the last most gen- erally used. The extent of his missionary labors cannot be comprehended. His death record is entered at Conewago. probably because he labored there so long, or it may be that the priest who ministered at his death was either a Conewago priest at the time or afterwards, as few of the entries were made at the time of death, but seen to have been entered or copied very irregularly in every way. We infer that the priests on the missions before 1800 kept their records something like memoranda just as they went, and these were brought together later, some at Conewago and some elsewhere perhaps, and entered by other hands. He died at St. Inigoes, Md., and if we are correctly informed, nothing marks the place. The record reads : On the 27th of Aug .. 1795, died Father James Frombach, professed of the Society. at the age of 73. He lived here for ten years, a year and a half at Lancaster, and later at Frederick. He came to America in 1758, from the Province of Lower Ger- many, with Father Pellentz and twoother Jesuits. He traveled the country, strengthening tepid christians ; and was a source of edification to all by his devotion, zeal, meekness, obedience, modesty and patience. He suffered for years from ulcerations of the legs and arms, and finally. full of merits, he died of a contagious fever, in St. Mary's County, strengthened with all the rites of the Church.
Father Finotti says, that owing to the scarcity of Catholic books in the early days of this country, he copied the whole of the Roman Missal, preserv- ed. he thinks, in Georgetown College. The same is said of Theodore Schnei- der. S. J., the first priest of Goshenhoppen.
Some descendants of the Baxters, (who lived somewhere between Hagerstown and Frederick in early times, and which was a stopping place on Father Frambach's travels. ) now belong to Father Manley's mission at Hag- erstown. They relate as a tradition from their grandmother, that Father F. traveled on horseback and stayed all night at their house. After it had been noticed for a long time that his clothes were very poor, they made a suit of homespun and laid it on the bed in his room. When he came again he went to his room, but returned immediately to the kitchen, and said that some- body's clothes were on his bed. Being told that they were for him, he ex- claimed, " A new suit for me ! well, then I must go and try it on." When he came down again, he walked up and down the kitchen floor, very much overjoyed that he had better clothes to wear. This shows the pious humility and humble sincerity of that truly noble missionary priest.
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