USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > History of Northampton County [Pennsylvania] and the grand valley of the Lehigh, Volume I > Part 50
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At Bath there is a convenient chapel called the Sacred Heart Chapel, where services are held twice a month, when Mass is said; and Christian doctrine is taught every Saturday.
The Holy Family School Auxiliary was, during the late war, among the most enthusiastic in the county. It had a 100 per cent. membership, as did every other Catholic school in the county. Every pupil had a war gar- den which was ruthlessly destroyed in one night by vandals. An appeal to the Committee of National Defense brought no material results. The present pastor holds a certificate of the National Red Cross as a graduate of First Aid, and the women of the parish were energetic Red Cross workers. The local pastor is the Catholic Chaplain at the County Almshouse, and six times annually Mass is celebrated for these wards of the county.
Among the oldest missions in Northampton county is that of Berlins- ville, situated in Lehigh township, near its western boundary line. The Catholic churches are frequently named after the saint whose name the one interested in them bore. The little church at Berlinsville accordingly was named St. Nicholas, after the patron saint of Nicholas Glasser, who was born in the Rhineland; and many years ago acquired some unimproved land; erected a hut, and by the permission of the Venerable John Nepomu- nece Neumann, the fourth bishop of the Philadelphia diocese, built a little chapel; and adjoining it laid out a cemetery. This little church was visited monthly by Father John Tanzer of St. Joseph's, South Easton, and in 1855, when the church of St. Nicholas of Tolentine was begun, Father Joseph Tuboly of the Immaculate Conception of Allentown attended this mission. Father Schrader, his successor, made stated visits from 1861-1869. Then came Rev. Ernest O. Hilterman, pastor of the Sacred Heart Church, Allentown, until 1870, when Berlinsville became a mission to Lehighton, remaining so until 1876.
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In the latter year Mass was offered twice a month by Rev. William Heinen, V. F., and his assistants, until 1885, when Leighton again assumed charge of the mis- sion to these Pennsylvania Dutch Catholics. In 1913 it was included in the parish of Nazareth. It is now attended twice a month, on Sunday and every Saturday, by Rev. Henry Steinhagen, pastor of the Assumption (German) par- ish, Slatington. The congregation was never large, but recently there has been an influx of Slovaks and Italians, and it bids fair in the future to become an independent parish with a resident pastor. $25.00 was paid for site by the bishop.
The Catholic priests of South Easton, Allentown and South Bethlehem from 1857 to 1896 visited Freemansburg occasionally, and Mass was offered in the Odd Fellows Hall, which was rented for the purpose. The Catholics of Freemansburg were numerous, but never reached the point of a resi- dent pastor. After 1896 the mission was discontinued; and improved travel facilities and electric car service made it easier for the people of this section of the county to reach the main parish church at South Bethlehem.
The establishment of the iron furnaces at Hellertown attracted many Roman Catholics to the borough. From 1868 the clergy of South Bethlehem attended the mission until its final collapse in 1896, with the exception of 1877, when it was in charge of Rev. John Kuel of the Church of St. Agnes, Sellersville, Bucks county. Services were held in the public school build- ing ; monthly visits from 1871-1883 were made by Rev. Michael McEnroe, when Friedensville also became a mission and the visits became bi-monthly. The Catholics of Hellertown, Redington, Freemansburg and South Bethle- hem were at the time mostly English speaking; the Balkanites and other foreign people not having arrived. The removal of the iron industries caused the English speaking inhabitants to seek larger communities for employment ; this, with the improvement of travelling facilities, made the parisli church of South Bethlehem more accessible, and today the few scattered remnants attend churches at Bethlehem, where their language is spoken.
Redington was for many years a mission of South Bethlehem. An old hall was rented for public worship. As early as 1872 Rev. Joseph A. Strahan, assistant to Father Michael McEnroe, attended here occasionally. The last Catholic priest to visit the mission was Rev. Thomas Mccarthy. There have been no regular services held since the beginning of the present century; the Italians and Balkanites going to South Bethlehem to attend divine service. St. Rocco's, Martin's Creek, was originally a part of St. Bernard's parish, Easton. The slate quarries in 1885 offering inducement for employment to the Italians and Slovaks, they became residents. When Rev. Pasquale Di Nisco became pastor of the parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Roseto, he cared for the souls of Martin's Creek section. On the founding of the parish of St. Anthony at Easton in 1910, Father Landolfi assumed charge of the mission. The Alpha Portland Cement Company in 1913 donated land for the erection of a chapel, and Father Landolfi began its construc- tion and dedicated it to St. Rocco. Before its completion he was trans- ferred and Rev. John Dario continued the work. The little money. con- tributed by the congregation proved inadequate to pay the running expenses and consequently the building became a wreck,-unfit for use. The mission in 1918 was placed in charge of the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel of
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Bangor. It was visited by Father McCann of Easton, who found the church in a dilapidated condition, but with the help of John W. Falvey and Mich. Coogan enlisted the Alpha Portland Cement Company to again assist in repair- ing the edifice. The mission is now visited by Vincentian Fathers bi-monthly, and alternate Sundays the sisters from St. Bernard's Convent, Easton, visit it and Roseto to conduct a Sunday school.
Our Lady of Good Counsel-As early as 1882 Mass was celebrated by a priest from St. Bernard's parish, Easton, in the house of Patrick Powers on North Fourth street, Bangor. The priests came occasionally until 1888, when their visits became quarterly. A Hungarian mission was established in 1892 by Father Heinen of East Mauch Chunk, monthly visits being made. Arch- bishop Prendergast of the Philadelphia diocese in 1896 gave full charge of all the towns and villages in the northeastern section of Northampton county to the Congregation of the Mission at Bangor. Chapels, churches and stations have been erected at Wind Gap, Pen Argyl, Roseto, North Bangor, Bangor, East Bangor, West Bangor and Martin's Creek. They also look after the spiritual interests of Catholics scattered throughout Slate- ford, Johnsonville, Ackermanville. Richmond, Howells, Martin's Creek Junction, Edleman, Lafona and Miller. This entire stretch of territory, embracing also Nazareth parish, was, as late as 1895, under the spiritual jurisdiction of St. Bernard's and St. Joseph's of Easton, with occasional visits from East Mauch Chunk.
The parish of Bangor was organized about 1916, when Father Joseph McKee, C. M., fitted up a chapel over a clothing store on Main street. The beautiful combination monastery and chapel of Our Lady of Good Counsel was dedicated September 2, 1918. The congregation consists of about twenty-five families, of which about eighty-five are Americans; prominent among the lat- ter are Philip and William Keenan of the Keenan Structural Slate Com- pany. The church property is valued at $50,000. The parishioners were engaged in Red Cross work during the late war; fifteen of the young men were members of the American Expeditionary Force. The priests of the Congregation attend the outlying districts, and besides attending to regular services at Bangor, East and West Bangor, Wind Gap and Pen Argyl they minister to Martin's Creek, Delabole, Mount Bethel and Portland. In West Bangor, Mass is offered monthly in the house of Dominic Abruzzese for the benefit of three hundred Italians of that place. The church of St. Rocco is about to be built at West Bangor. East Bangor has also about forty Catholics who belong to the Bangor parish.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Roseto-Before the organization of Roseto as a municipality the district was included in Bangor, and was visited from 1880 to 1883 at regular periods by Father Reardon, missioner of the Lehigh Valley. Later Rev. Owen McManus and Rev. William Egan, his assistants, and Rev. John R. Dillon, Hugh McGlinn and James McGeveran, his successors, con- tinued the visits.
Five Italians, Nicola Di Francesco, Alfonso Lito, John Ragazzino, Dominico Civetta and Donoto Falcone, agreed to erect a church at Roseto. Lots were purchased, a church built at the cost of $1,000, and dedicated April 16, 1893. The first Mass was celebrated on Easter Sunday, 1893, by Father
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O. Haviano, a missionary from New York, stationed with Monsignor Scalabrini. His successor, Rev. A. Morelli, was pastor until February, 1894, when he gave way to Rev. Anthony Cerruli of New York, who took up his residence at Roseto until November 1, 1894. He improved the church and built the sanctuary. For the next six months a Franciscan Father from Trenton, New Jersey, visited the parish. From January until October, 1895, Father Vacherro was the attending priest. After his departure the church property was sold to liquidate a debt of $500. Rev. Pasquale De Nisco became the resident pastor May 8, 1896, reorganized the parish, and became the civil as well as the spiritual head of the colony. During his pastorate he built the sacristy and the right wing of the church, and began the erec- tion of a school. His assistant at this time was Rev. Carmine Cillo. Father De Nisco died July 16, 1911, the day of the celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; in which the majority of the inhabitants take part. His former pro tem assistant, Rev. Luigi Fiorello, administered the parish duties from August 11, 1911, to November 12, 1914, when the present incumbent, Rev. James Lavezzari, C. M., was appointed. About this time Roseto was assigned to the care of the Eastern Province of the Fathers of the Mission, whose headquarters are at Germantown, Pennsylvania. The present pastor built the spacious rectory, which he intends eventually to convert into a parish school. Father Lavezzari is an energetic and tire- less worker; with his own hands he cemented the cellar of the rectory, laid out the garden walks, built the fence, and is constantly engaged about the cemetery which adjoins the church. His zeal is unbounded, his only thought is the uplift, and the eternal salvation of his beloved Italians. Dur- ing the late war he was prominent in all patriotic movements and is earnest in the work of Americanizing his parishioners.
The history of the early Catholic endeavors in Pen Argyl is similar to that of the neighboring missions of Roseto and Bangor. Rev. John Novacsky of Sts. Cyril and Methodius' Church, South Bethlehem, made monthly visits in 1895, as also did his successors, Revs. Edward C. Werner and Francis Vlossak. There were in 1909 about twenty Lithuanian and Polish families, compris- ing one hundred souls, in Pen Argyl and its environs, adherents of the Catholic church. Rev. Vincent Kudirka of Kingston, Scranton diocese, when president of the Lithuanian Catholic Alliance, established a thriving branch of the order and visited them occasionally. They also received quarterly visits in 1911 from the priests of St. Stanislaus Polish Church of South Bethlehem, which were continued until they were placed in charge of the parish at Bangor.
There are today in Pen Argyl fifteen English speaking, one hundred and fifty Slavs, and fifty Italian Catholics. St. Elisabeth's, a new church, was dedicated by Archbishop Dougherty on September 1, 1919. This church is described in the Easton Express and Argus, in its issue of April 30, 1919, as follows : "The Catho- lic church at Pen Argyl, which has been under way for some time, has been com- pleted. The first services will be held May 4th, when Rev. Jeremiah P. Tracy will celebrate Mass. A temporary altar has been erected. The building is frame and painted white, with white pebble dash trimmings. The seating capacity is two hundred and fifty, and it is the first Catholic church to be erected in Pen
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Argyl. For many years the residents attended the Italian church at Roseto and later held Sunday services in the Palace Theatre in Pen Argyl." In the summer of 1919 a thriving Sunday school was organized at Middle Village or Windburgtown, mainly through the endeavors of Mrs. Patrick Butler; and Father Tracy, pastor at Bangor. The prospects are that in the near future it will become another of the prosperous missions of the slate belt.
The multiplying of churches, schools, welfare institutions and dioceses within the precincts of our county is but the reflex action of the strong pulsat- ing heart of the Catholic sons of Northampton county. Here again has the conspiracy of silence deprived the large proportion of Catholic citizens of our county of due credit in the work of its development and material prosperity. Even in this latest history of the county the Catholic citizen was almost for- gotten !
The fine public spirit of Paul Miller and John Fricki in contributing to the erection of the public school in Easton, in 1755, where they were denied either position or scholarship because of their faith, has already been recorded. Miller was one of the first captains of industry in the county. His stocking factory was among the first to produce necessities and employ labor. John Kelly in 1798 operated a burr mill in Easton, and Thos. and Wm. Kelly a general store. In 1833, Jas. Quinn was a partner.in a South Easton cotton mill. Today Hartley Haytock, Andrew Keenan, Wm. Doyle, Wm. Keenan, and many others, are among the leading manufacturers of the county. Railroad contractors and civil engineers in the county, especially in the early times, were adherents of the Catholic church; not only the Smiths and McCormicks, Miles, McInerneys, Bechtels, of today, but the Lees, who built the Lehigh Valley railroad; Biglin, who built the county jail; James Smith, who constructed the wall of the Lehigh canal; and John Hayes, who was sent by the government as one of the first engineers of the Panama canal. Also, Peter Brady, the best authority in the country in civil engineering, surveyor of the Lehigh Valley railroad, the Water Gap railroad, and chief engineer of the Wilmington & Delaware road, and who had formerly been employed by the British government. Two of his daughters entered Catholic Sisterhoods for teaching youth. Dr. James Cavanaugh is credited with first suggesting the establishment of the Easton Hospital, and his father was also a noted physician, as were Drs. Mich. Prendergast, and the present Easton health physician, Dr. J. Jas. Condron. Dr. Harry Rall, D.S., Judge J. Davis Broadhead, whose mother was a niece of Jefferson Davis, and whose father was a State senator, is one of the noted jurists. Jos. Dougherty and District Attorney Mccluskey sprang from good old Catholic parents. Also Jas. ("Pat") Reilly, noted Easton football coach, and business manager, as John W. Falvey, John J. Cunningham, Phil. Gaughran, and many others; Wm. O'Brien, secretary for the Manufacturers' Association; Jas. Reynolds, system- atizer; Eccles, welfare organizer of the Taylor Wharton plant; John Loux; Thos. Hughes, local United States railroad director; Chas. Schwab, of the Beth- lehem Steel Company. Frank Liebermann made possible many building develop- ments by clearing acres of timber land throughout the county. Numberless boat- men operated the canals as boat owners; besides the workmen who dug it, as thousands of them are operating the various industries today throughout the county. Clerks galore man the offices; teachers enlighten youth in grade and
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high school everywhere. As we said, the Catholic church is both a fact and a factor !
Besides the partial list of representatives in civil life, we find a healthy religious devotion among the sons and daughters of Mo-41. .mason mounty. Rev. James McCormick was amongst the first of its sons to dedicate his life to the church. He came from the upper section of the county, Beaver Meadows, now Carbon, in 1842. John McMahon, John Connolly, Patrick McBride, George Degnan are some of the South Bethlehem boys whose names we have been able to procure who became priests. In Easton we find James and Joseph Timmins, John C. McGovern, Chas. Welsh, John Kane, James and John McCormick, Lieut. John Conroy, Henry Kuss, Francis Hertkorn, Chas. Apt, Herman Gies, Thos. Connell and John Connell.
Besides Peter Brady's daughters, three daughters of John McCormick, two of Jas. Kennedy, and daughters of Alex. Mellon, Jas. Daley, Jas. Hickey, Thos. McCarthy, Patrick Lee, Patrick Curran, two of John Doyle's, and Misses Han- nah Maloney, Agnes Conroy, Catherine Art, Sara Oliver, Alice Hackett, Cath. McGovern, mostly of Easton, and Miss Rosina Cascioli, of Roseto, also entered convent life.
Besides the veterans resting in St. Joseph's cemetery, the following lie in Old St. Bernard's : Jas. A. Anderson, Jas. Boyle, Jno. Boyle, Jno. Cummiskey, Martin Dempsey, Matthew Delaney, Jas. Dougherty, Peter Fisher, Jas. Gallaghan, Wm. Gross, Jno. Lynagh, Peter Langton, Andrew McLoughlin, Jno. McCarthy, Jno. McLaughlin, Dennis McGinley, Jno. McMackin, Jas. Mooney, Jas. Miles, Thos. Morrison, Wm. Nightingale, Jno. Nightingale, Ephrem N. R. Stem, Wm. Prendergast, Jno. Shockency, Jno. Whelan, Wm. Mclaughlin, John McGeady, Wm. Gerberty, Jno. Geberty, Peter Liner, Thos. and John Callaghan-all Civil War veterans. Of the Spanish-American War, Lieut. F. P. Wolf lies in St. Bernard's and Edw. Flynn in Gethsemane cemeteries. Edw. C. Rafferty, of the World War, lies in Gethsemane and Corp. Edw. O'Donnell, Jno. B. Lynch, Jno. Brennan lie in Flanders Field and Bernard Jos. Donovan in the great Atlantic ocean. Jeremiah McGrath, Jas. McGinley, Jno. Bittner, Jno. Commiskey still survive. Lieut. Shanley is buried in the What These are but a few of the loyal Catholic sons of the county whose blood was prized cheap when America needed defenders! If space permitted many more names could be conjured up to establish the proposition that the Catholic church has been "both a fact and a factor" in Northampton county from its Bucks county conception to its birth and throughout its various stages of development and crystallization into its present proportions. A glance at the history of the county truthfully written sustains the claim that Catholics have helped to organize, develop, enrich, enlighten, and extend the fame of the county equally with citizens of other denominations, and deserve well of the county and its historians.
OLD VIEW OF COURT HOUSE AND SQUARE, EASTON
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CHAPTER XXXIV
THE CITY OF EASTON
The location of Easton is on the west bank of the Delaware river and the north bank of the Lehigh, at their confluence, ninety miles by the course of the former river from Philadelphia. The railway distance from New York is seventy-five miles; from Philadelphia, sixty-six miles; Harris- burg, one hundred and eight miles. The triangular territory which was the original site of Easton was known to the red men as the Forks, not because it was included between two confluent rivers, but from the Indian trails forking in different directions after crossing the west branch, one at Ysselstein's island and the other at the Buffalo ford. Afterwards it was known to the white settlers as the Forks of the Delaware.
The invasion of the Forks country by the white man was by four different routes, three from the south and one from the north. The princi- pal one of these was by the Delaware river, which also included the roads from the Jersey side of the river, south of the Lehigh. The east side of the Delaware was settled by the whites long before the Forks country was freed by Indian encumbrance or had been acquired by the proprietary gov- ernment. The William Penn treaty of 1686, and the deed of 1718, its verification, located the northern boundary at the Lehigh Hills, and its vague indefinite line became so flexible that the eastern tract of land, now comprised in the two townships of Williams and Lower Saucon, was a source of constant dispute between the officials of the land office and the settlers. The acknowledged authority on boundary lines and land transactions- James Logan-placed the northerly line at what is now the boundary between Bucks and Northampton counties.
The first explorers in the Forks country were the Hollanders, who came before 1664 by way of Esopus, now Kingston, New York, on their tours of exploration, and gave the name of Schmidveldt (Smithfield) to the country north of the mountain, and Blanveldt (Plainfield) to the coun- try south of the mountain. They discovered the copper and iron, also the marble, soapstone, verdolite and serpentine, and named these places above Easton, Chestnut Hill and Marble Hill. The peculiar gap between these two hills through which flows the Delaware, they called Whorrogott, a place where the waters disappear. The names given to some of the streams by these settlers yet remain: Saw Kill, Raymond Kill, Shohola, Walpack, all north of the mountain; Jacobus Kill and Bushkill, below the mountain. These Hollanders early developed the copper mines, and ore was transported between the Delaware and Hudson rivers by a wagon road which was known as the Minisink road. When the English in 1664 assumed proprietorship of the Dutch possessions in America, these enter- prises were discontinued. To these early Dutch explorers from their point of vision on the top of the Blue Mountains, the country to the south and to the southwest appeared like a vast level plain devoid of trees. It was
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the Indian's hunting ground, and annually the undergrowth was burnt to force game through the wind gap, when it would be dispatched. This was the cause of the barrenness of the land, which was called by the Hollanders, Plainfield; by the Jerseyites, the Barrens; by the Philadelphians, the Drylands.
There were in 1730 three roads to the Forks-one along the Delaware, ending at the mouth of the Lehigh; one ending a short distance west of where the Saucon creek enters into the Lehigh, and which later entered the Forks at what is now Bethlehem; the third road was the extreme westerly route northward from Philadelphia, passing through what is now Macungie township, Lehigh county, then northward, regardless of hills, through Whitehall township to Coplay creek, then by paths penetrating the wilderness to near the Lehigh Gap. Along these roads in 1730 white settlers were living in anticipation of the speedy opening of the lands to civilization, but for twenty years or more it was forbidden ground.
When the county of Northampton was established in 1752 there were about six thousand inhabitants within its limits; the western part of New Jersey was, however, more densely populated, and the means of crossing the Delaware river was demanded. This caused in 1739 the establishment by David Martin of a ferry. Travelers were taken across either river in rowboats, and if the traveler pursued his way on horseback his mount would swim along the side of the boat. The ferry house on the west bank of the river was located at what is now Snufftown, near East Canal street, and the stone building is still standing.
It was on May 9, 1750, that William Parsons, as agent for Thomas and Richard Penn, met Nicholas Scull, the surveyor-general of Pennsylvania, at the Forks of the Delaware, with their axemen and chainmen, and ten days were consumed in the laying out of the town of Easton. While the Pro- prietaries noted the natural advantages of the location, the enterprise was wholly a private one. At the request of Thomas Penn the location was named Easton, from the estate of his father-in-law in Northamptonshire, England. The wife of Thomas Penn was Juliana Fermor, daughter of Lord Pomfret, hence the names given to the streets on the first map of the new town-Northampton, Fermor, Juliana and Pomfret; Hamilton being named for the governor of Pennsylvania. The boundaries of the town were "on the south by the west branch (Lehigh), on the east by the main branch of the river which runs in this place, nearly north and south, about one hun- dred and twenty perches to a brook of water, Tatamy's creek (now the Bushkill), which bounds the town to the north. On the west it is bounded by a high hill that runs nearly parallel to and at a distance of one hundred and thirty perches from the main branch."
The town lots were 60 by 220 feet square, and were sold subject to an annual ground rent of seven shillings, the condition of the sale being that within two years of the date of the purchase a house with a stone chimney was to be built. On the crown of a gentle knoll a public square was laid out, which was transferred to the county on the sole condition of the annual payment of a red rose to the Proprietaries or to the head of their house, forever.
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