USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Woonsocket > History of the Catholic church in Woonsocket and vicinity, from the celebration of the first mass in 1828, to the present time, with a condensed account of the early history of the church in the United States > Part 4
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THE DIOCESE OF PROVIDENCE.
O'Connell took his seat in the British House of Commons as member for Clare, being the first Irish Catholic admitted to Parliament under the act. The first Mass celebrated in that first completed church in Rhode Island was by Father Woodley, the celebrant of the first Mass in Woonsocket. The church was dedicated by Right Rev. Benedict Fenwick, when on his way home to Boston from the first Provincial Council at Baltimore, and who was assisted by Right Rev. Joseph Rosati of St. Louis and Rev. Fathers Blanc and Jeanjean.
Providence, during those struggling years of Catholi- cism, was receiving priestly attendance from Rev. Jolin Corry, a young and at that time recently ordained priest, who succeeded Rev. Father Woodley in the Providence mission on November 30, 1830. Father Corry's adminis- trations extended from Providence to Taunton, Newport and Pawtucket. In 1833 he was relieved from spiritual duty in Providence and Pawtucket by the appointment of Rev. Father Connolly to take charge of these missions.
Rev. Father Connolly continued his priestly functions at Providence and Pawtucket until 1834, when Rev. Fathers Lee and McNamee were appointed by Right Rev. Bishop Fenwick to attend to the spiritual wants of the faithful, not only in Providence and Pawtucket, but also in other por- tions of the State including Woonsocket.
On February 15, 1832, a site on which to erect a Church in Providence was purchased in that city for the sum of $1,500, but for the want of funds the building of a Church on the purchased site was not begun until three years after- ward. The Catholic people were during that period allowed, through the liberality of their Protestant fellow-citizens, the use of the Town Hall in which to hold Sunday services.
In that hall in 1836 Right Rev. Bishop Fenwick cele- brated Mass and preached a sermon to a congregation num-
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
bering one thousand people, the majority of whom had come from neighboring places to see and hear him. The theme of 'his sermon was one of encouragement to the people to go forward with the erection of a Church, the foundation of which had been previously laid by Rev. Father Lee. Work on the building of this first Church in Providence had so far progressed that Mass was celebrated there on the second Sunday of Advent in 1837.
On November 4, 1838, the feast of St. Charles Bor- romeo, this Church was solemnly dedicated to God, under the title of S.S. Peter and Paul. The size of the edifice was eighty by forty feet. The Catholic census taken the following year showed the total number to be 1,096.
This first Church erected in Providence was subse- quently raised to the dignity of a Cathedral. It stood on the site of the present splendid edifice.
Catholic services were held, however, on the soil of Rhode Island, as well as in other places throughout the country, long before the first Bishop was consecrated and the first diocese established in the United States. French Chaplains accompanied the French Allies to this country in 1780 and several of these Chaplains, attached to the regi- ments of General Rochambeau's army, during the opera- tions in Rhode Island celebrated Mass at Providence, New- port and elsewhere. The most impressive requiem service held at that time was at the obsequies of Admiral De Ter- nay, who died at the home of Colonel Joseph Wanton on Washington street, Newport, on December 15, 1780. In- terment of the remains took place in Trinity Church yard, Newport, on the day following his death, namely, December 16. A historian of this particular event states that the long funeral procession, preceded by priests chanting the burial service, presented the most imposing funeral scene ever witnessed in that town. The remains were borne to
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THE DIOCESE OF PROVIDENCE.
the grave by sailors and committed to their resting place amid the firing of minute guns and the solemn strains of music.
There were twelve priests in the procession, each of whom bore a lighted torch. A solemn High Mass of requiem was sung on the morning of the day of the Admiral's fun- eral. The location of the grave is in the northeast corner of the Church yard. A monument placed over the grave was removed and placed in the western vestibule of Trinity Church.
In 1872 the late Hon. Henry B. Anthony, Senator from Rhode Island, introduced a bill in Congress asking for an appropriation of $800 to repair the grave, which was then in a delapsed condition. This bill was unanimously passed. A granite slab six feet square, with beveled edges and fifteen inches in thickness, was placed over the grave. The slab is suitably inscribed. The grave was visited by members of the American-Irish Historical Society during a convention of the Society held in Newport a few years since.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST BISHOP OF PROVIDENCE DIOCESE.
Right Rev. Thomas F. Hendricken was consecrated first Bishop of Providence Diocese on Sunday, April 28, 1872, on which occasion the consecration sermon was preached by Very Rev. Thomas N. Burke.
Bishop Hendricken died June 11, 1886. His remains were laid to rest in a crypt in the completed Cathedral, an edifice of which he laid the corner-stone and lived to see finished as a lasting and beautiful monument to his zeal.
Right Rev. Matthew Harkins, a former pastor of St. James' Church, Boston, was consecrated second Bishop of Providence Diocese on April 14, 1887. During the interim
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
between the death of Bishop Hendricken and the consecra- tion of Right Rev. Bishop Harkins, Very Rev. M. McCabe, permanent rector of St. Charles' Church, Woonsocket, who had been Vicar General of the diocese for several years, exercised full jurisdiction, by right of authority, over the whole diocese.
The territory now comprising the diocese of Providence, which had but one Church and a small, widely scattered Catholic population when the first Mass was celebrated in Woonsocket seventy-one years ago, is now rich in churches and Catholic institutions and is blessed with a large popu- lation of pious and exemplary adherents to the Church of Christ.
The following facts concerning this progressive diocese show the splendid growth of the Church in her onward spiritual march, under the triumphant banner of the Cross- the " In Hoc Signo Vinces " of Christ's Kingdom upon earth :
There are now one bishop and 170 priests in the dio- cese. There are also eighty churches, with resident priests ; sixteen missions, with churches ; sixteen stations ; twenty- eight chapels, two academies for boys, attended by 500 pupils ; eight academies for young ladies, attended by 600 pupils ; forty parochial schools, attended by an aggregate of 20,000 pupils ; four orphan asylums, in which there is a total of 800 orphans ; one infant asylum, with 120 inmates ; one hospital (St. Joseph's), where 100 patients are cared for; three homes for aged poor, in which there is an aggre- gate of 300 inmates ; one home for working girls, with eighty-five inmates ; a total of 20,000 young people under Catholic care and a Catholic population of 250,000.
Two years before the death of Right Rev. Bishop Mc- Farland the diocese of Hartford-which up to that time in- cluded the State of Rhode Island, as well as Connecticut-
RIGHT REV. THOMAS F. HENDRICKEN, First Bishop of Providence Diocese.
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THE DIOCESE OF PROVIDENCE.
was limited to the boundary of the last named State and the diocese of Providence erected, this being in 1872. The new diocese includes the whole State of Rhode Island and Fall River, New Bedford, Taunton, the Attleboros, Mans- field, North Easton, Dodgeville, Provincetown, Sandwich, Somerset and Wood's Holl in Massachusetts, making a total of 2,279 square miles, being 1,194 in Massachusetts and 1,085 in Rhode Island.
CHAPTER VII.
RIGHT REV. THOMAS FRANCIS HENDRICKEN, THE FIRST BISHOP OF PROVIDENCE DIOCESE.
Right Rev. Thomas Francis Hendricken, D. D., the first Bishop of Providence Diocese, was born in the city of Kilkenny, Ireland, May 5, 1827. He was educated at St. Kyran's College, Kilkenny, from which institution he grad- uated ; he entered Maynooth College, where he studied theology and philosophy. He was ordained a priest in 1853 by Right Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, D. D., the second Bishop of Hartford, who was at that time on a visit to Ire- land. At the request of Bishop O'Reilly lie came to the United States and on arrival in Providence in 1854 was ap- pointed pastor of St. Charles' Church, Woonsocket, a posi- tion he held for one week, after which he was appointed pastor of a parish at Winsted, Connecticut. In 1855 he was appointed pastor of a church in Waterbury, where he remained seventeen years. In 1868 he received the degree of D. D. from Pope Pius IX. On April 28, 1872, he was consecrated first Bishop of Providence Diocese by Right Rev. Francis Patrick McFarland. He died in the Episco- pal residence, Providence, June 11, 1886.
During his twenty-four years of administration as priest and bishop he purchased, built and paid for church
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
property aggregating over $1,000,000 in values. A proof of his religious zeal and unflinching courage was illustrated on his voyage across the Atlantic after ordination : There was a great deal of sickness on board of a contagious na- ture and a part of the ship was set off for those stricken with the disease. Orders were given by the captain for no passenger to visit this section. As there were Catholics among the sufferers Father Hendricken disobeyed the orders by assisting the patients in every way in his power and by administering spiritual consolation to the dying. The captain became enraged at this and ordered the young priest pinioned and thrown overboard. His life was saved by the interference of all the other passengers.
CHAPTER VIII.
RIGHT REV. MATTHEW HARKINS, D. D., THE SECOND BISHOP OF PROVIDENCE DIOCESE.
Right Rev. Matthew Harkins, the second Bishop of Providence Diocese, was born in Boston, November 17, 1845. After studying in the public schools of that city he entered the Boston Latin School, from which he graduated in 1862, winning the Franklin medal. After graduation he studied in Holy Cross College, Worcester, for one year and then crossed the Atlantic to France, where he entered the famous college established by Cardinal Allen at Douay for the education of English speaking Catholic priests. In that college and in the seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, he studied theology. After an aggregate of six years of study in these two institutions he was ordained a priest and then visited Rome. On returning to the diocese of Boston he was appointed assistant pastor of the Immaculate Con- ception Church at Salem. In 1876 he was appointed pastor of St. Malachi's Church at Arlington, where he remained
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THE DIOCESE OF PROVIDENCE.
eight years and was then transferred to St. James' Church, Boston. He was nominated Bishop to the See of Provi- dence in 1887, to succeed the late Right Rev. Thomas Francis Hendricken, D. D., and was consecrated in the new Cathedral in Providence on April 14, 1887, by Arch- bishop John J. Williams, D. D., of Boston, assisted by . Right Rev. P. T. O'Reilly, D. D., of Springfield and Right Rev. Lawrence McMahon, D. D., of Hartford. Right Rev. James A. Healy, D. D., of Portland, preached the sermon. Bishop Harkins, during his administration as a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was selected by Arch- bishop Williams as his theologian at the Plenary Council at Baltimore and was one of the notaries of that Council.
CHAPTER IX.
CHURCH OF ST. CHARLES BORROMEO-HISTORY OF THIS CHURCH FROM THE FIRST MASS, CELEBRATED IN 1828, DOWN TO THE PRESENT YEAR-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PASTORS.
In the year of our Lord 1824, now seventy-six years ago, an obscure, tall, young and athletic Irishman named Michael Reddy landed, after a long and wearisome ocean voyage, at Boston. This young man was fresh from the influence of an Irish Catholic home, and was most thoroughly imbued with the religious teachings of that Church of which Christ was the founder and is the invisible head, and of which the Pope of Rome is the visible head and earthly high priest.
The young immigrant was taught at his mother's knee that his soul's salvation depended on the devout hearing of Mass on Sundays and holy days, and also on the confession of sins, and on frequently receiving the Blessed Sacrament. This young man found employment for a short period in the city where he landed, but becoming dissatisfied with his
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
surroundings determined to seek his fortune elsewhere. As there was no railroad accommodation, and being strong of limb and resolute in mind, he took to the highway and walked from Boston to Woonsocket, and from Woonsocket to Providence.
He secured work in Providence, which was at that time a town of less than 15,000 inhabitants. In 1825, being the year after his arrival in this country, he entered the employment of Gen. Edward Carrington on the construction of the Blackstone canal from Providence to Worcester, work on which was entered upon that year, beginning at the old "Shingle bridge" in Providence. The work of building the canal was completed from Providence to Woonsocket in 1826, and here young Reddy, with a few other Irishmen who worked with him, determined to establish a home. A few others of the race and faith were found boarding with another Irishman named Patrick Mullen, on what was then known, and is still known, as "the island," being that por- tion of land which runs from South Main street to the Blackstone river, and on which the new part of the old rub ber works and the building formerly owned by William H. Baxter, and now owned by Seth S. Getchell, are located.
The procuring of the services of a priest to administer to their spiritual wants was one of the first subjects dis- cussed by those few faithful Catholics. Mr. Reddy heard of a southern priest, named Rev. Robert D. Woodley, D. D., visiting Providence, and sought him out and invited him to Woonsocket, an invitation which the reverend gentleman accepted. Notwithstanding the strong prejudice which then existed against Catholicism, and particularly against Irish- men of that faith, Walter Allen, a liberal-minded American of the Quaker, or Society of Friends' faith, gave the use of a room in his home at Union Village, which was then the greater Woonsocket, in which to celebrate Mass. Here,
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THE DIOCESE OF PROVIDENCE.
on a date in 1828, which cannot now be correctly deter- mined, Father Woodley celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar.
The stately mansion in that beautiful village which to ine has always a Sabbath-like appearance, is still standing, and is occupied by Misses Sarah and Esther Osborne, grand- children of Walter Allen. John Osborne, the father of these ladies, married Elizabeth Allen, daughter of Walter Allen. A half-tone picture of the residence, as it now ap- pears, is given in the beginning of this history.
This historic home was built by George A. Mowry about the year 1824, four years prior to the celebration of Mass in it. After completing the building Mr. Mowry emi- grated to Stauben county, N. Y. The white pine trees which adorn the grounds around the residence were planted in 1845. Mr. William A. Mowry, now of Hyde Park, Mass., and then of Union Village, assisted in planting these trees.
Walter Allen, through whose liberal and unprejudiced kindness the use of a room was given in his home, in which to celebrate Mass, was born in 1760, and died June 23, 1845, aged 85 years. His remains rest in a grave in a hol- low in the southeast part of the old Quaker cemetery at Union Village. The stone which marks it can be seen by looking north across the fence from the Limerock road and is almost beneath the shadow of the Meeting House. This Meeting House has an interesting history : A small por- tion of the original edifice was built in 1755, to which an addition, longer than the original structure, was built in 1775. The completed edifice was remodeled in 1842. A fire destroyed the building in 1881. The modern structure, now standing on the same site, has since then been built.
The spirit of Michael Reddy as he knelt in adoration at the celebration of that first Mass in Woonsocket, may have recalled the legend of Finnuala, daughter of King Lir,
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
who was by a supernatural power transformed into a swan and condemned to wander for many hundred years over cer- tain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of Chris- tianity, when the first sound of the Mass bell was to be the signal for her release. On this legend Moore has founded one of the most beautiful of his melodies. The concluding verse is as follows :
" Sadly, O Moyle, to thy Winter wave weeping. Fate bids me languish long ages away ;
Yet. still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping. Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.
When will that day-star, mildly springing, Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will Heaven. its sweet bell ringing. Call my spirit to the fields above?"
Eighteen hundred years had passed away from the birth of Christ, onward, before the tones of that bell were heard, when the Host was elevated at the celebration of the unbloody sacrifice of that first Mass in Woonsocket. The Indians had pursued their nomad habits from pre-historic times ; had wandered through primeval forests, "Saw God in clouds and heard him in the wind," their religion being essentially astrological, based on star, sun and moon worship ; they knew not the meaning of the song of the Angels, which reverberated throughout the world on the morning the Son of God was born. Nor did these valleys, where they wan- dered along the banks of the Blackstone, resound with the music of the Mass bell until over 300 years previous to the discovery of America by Columbus, and the dedication of the first island discovered by the great navigator to San Salvador-"Holy Saviour"-and the dedication of the con- tinent to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
The congregation at the celebration of that first Mass consisted of ten persons, namely : Michael Reddy, Patrick Mullen, John McGuire, James Holland, Hugh McCaffrey,
A
MICHAEL REDDY,
The First Irish Settler in Woonsocket.
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THE DIOCESE OF PROVIDENCE.
Oliver Burke, Thomas Ide, Hugh O'Brien, Edward Mc- Cabe and James Connolly.
Though money was at that time a scarce article, the ten members composing that little congregation made up a sub- scription amounting to fifty dollars, which was presented Father Woodley to assist him in paying expenses incurred in missionary work.
Every one of those faithful few have long since gone to their reward. Michael Reddy, to whom I am indebted for valuable information in connection with this history, was, I think, the last of the ten to pass from earthly to eternal life. When I visited Mr. Reddy in April, 1878, for the purpose of questioning him in regard to his life since the time he landed in this country, I found him in good health. His mind was clear on every subject relating to his previous life. A sudden illness set in the following June and he died on the 28th day of that month ; died, too, full of faith in a glorious resurrection.
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done. whether it be good or evil .- II Cor .. V. 10.
SKETCH OF REV. ROBERT D. WOODLEY. D. D., WHO PURCHASED LAND FOR THE FIRST CATHOLIC CHURCH PURPOSES IN RHODE ISLAND.
Rev. Robert D. Woodley, the young priest who cele- brated the first Mass, was born in Maryland, and was a student in Georgetown college when Right Rev. Benedict Fenwick, the second Bishop of Boston, was rector of that institution. After ordination he performed duties as a priest in Charleston, South Carolina. In the latter part of the year 1827 he applied to Right Rev. Bishop Fenwick for admission to the diocese of Boston, and was accepted. After coming to the diocese he was commissioned to per-
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
form missionary work at Providence, Pawtucket, Taunton and Newport. He purchased a lot of land for a church site at Newport on March 7, 1828, which was the first land owned by Catholics for church purposes in Rhode Island. It was through him, also, that David Wilkinson made a present of land for a church site at Pawtucket to Right Rev. Bishop Fenwick. Father Woodley visited Taunton in 1828 and found eighty Catholics there. He celebrated Mass once a month in a schoolhouse there.
Father Woodley, after three years of laborious mis- sionary work, in which he met with many tribulations and disappointments, withdrew from the diocese of Boston and went to Georgetown college, where he joined the Jesuit order. He died at Port Tobacco, Maryland, in 1857.
CHAPTER X.
The lamp of the Gospel being once lighted, it was resolved by the members of that small first Woonsocket congregation to keep it burning, and, with this end in view, earnest exertions were made to procure, as often as possible, the services of a priest, a resolution which was by no means easy of accomplishment at that time.
The early missionary priests in the United States led lives of incessant toil. In the storms of Winter and heat of Summer their labors extended over vast territories ; fast- ing, prayer, attending to the spiritual wants of the sick, the hearing of confessions and the celebration of Mass being added to the austerity of their vocations.
Their labors were in keeping with those described in a general way by Chateaubriand in his "Genius of Christian- ity," in which he uses the following language :
Neither oceans nor tempests, neither the ices of the pole nor the heat of the tropics, can dampen their zeal. They live with the Esquimau in his sealskin cabin; they subsist on train-oil with the
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THE DIOCESE OF PROVIDENCE.
Greenlander; they travel the solitude with the Tartar or the Iro- quois ; they mount the dromedary of the Arab, or accompany the wandering Caffir in the burning desert; the Chinese. the Japanese, the Indian, have become their converts. Not an island, not a roek in the ocean, has escaped their zeal; and, as of old, the kingdoms of the earth were inadequate to the ambition of Alexander. so the globe itself is too contracted for their charity.
The priests subsequently visiting Woonsocket, from the advent of Father Woodley in 1828 to 1834, as faith- fully as their names can be ascertained, were as follows : Rev. Dennis Ryan, Rev. Father Connolly, Rev. Father Finlay and Rev. Father Ivers. These priests made Paw- tucket and Providence their permanent stations, and from there made occasional visits to Woonsocket, as well as to several other places. Masses were at that period invariably celebrated in private homes and baptisms given for record either at Worcester or Pawtucket.
In order to show how little progress Catholicism had made during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century in New England, it may be stated that up to and including 1830 there was but one Catholic church in Boston, that being located on Franklin street, the city at that time hav- ing a population of about 60,000. Up to and including that year there was but one Catholic church in the whole state of Rhode Island, that being St. Mary's at Pawtucket.
REV. JAMES FITTON,
FIRST REGULAR MISSIONARY PRIEST VISITING WOONSOCKET.
In the year 1834 commenced the earnest labors of one of the hardest-working missionary priests that ever cele- brated Mass in New England, namely, Rev. James Fitton. That reverend gentleman was born in Boston on April 10, 1805, the date of his birth being Spy Wednesday, or last Wednesday in Lent, and was baptized on Holy Saturday,
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just three days after his arrival in this world, the day fol- lowing being the festival of Christ's Resurrection. His parents were among the first workers for the building of a Catholic Church in Boston. He stated in a letter to me about a year before his death, that he was the first Catholic child baptized in Boston, and also the first child to receive the Sacraments of Communion and Confirmation in New Eng- land, and likewise the first child of Catholic parentage to receive Holy Orders in ordination as a priest in the diocese of Boston, which included at that time all of the New Eng- land States. He was baptized by Rev. Francis Anthony Matignon, D. D ; received the Sacrament of Confirmation from Right Rev. John Lefebvre Cheverus, D. D., first Bishop of Boston, and was ordained a priest by Right Rev. Benedict J. Fenwick, second Bishop of Boston, in Decem- ber, 1827, the year preceding the time of the first Mass offered up in Woonsocket. He celebrated the golden jubilee of his ordination as a priest in the last week of Advent in 1877, and died a few years afterward with the record of being the oldest priest of Boston diocese, reckoning from date of ordination to date of death.
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