New York, Archdiocese of (NEO—EBORACENSIS); see erected April 8, 1808; made archiepiscopal July 19, 1850; comprises the Boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, and Richmond in the City of New York, and the Counties of Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester in the State of New York; also the Bahama Islands (British Possessions); an area of 4717 square miles in New York and 4466 in the Bahama Islands. The latter territory was placed in 1886 under this jurisdiction by the Holy See because the facilities of access were best from New York; it formerly belonged to the Diocese of Charleston. The suffragans of New York are the Dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Ogdensburg, Rochester, and Syracuse in the State of New York, and Newark and Trenton in New Jersey. All these, in 1808, made up the territory of the original diocese. The first division took place April 23, 1847, when the creation of the Dioceses of Albany and Buffalo cut off the northern and western sections of the State; and the second, in 1853, when Brooklyn and Newark were erected into separate sees.
New York is now the largest see in population, and the most important in influence and material prosperity of all the ecclesiastical divisions of the Church in Continental United States.
I. COLONIAL PERIOD.—Nearly a century before Henry Hudson sailed up the great river that bears his name, the Catholic navigators Verrazano and Gomez, had guided their ships along its shores and placed it under the patronage of St. Anthony. The Calvinistic Hollanders, to whom Hudson gave this foundation for a new colony, manifested their loyalty to their state Church by ordaining that in New Netherland the “Reformed Christian religion according to the doctrines of the Synod of Dordrecht” should be dominant. It is probable, but not certain, that there were priests with Verrazano and Gomez, and that from a Catholic altar went up the first prayer uttered on the site of the present great metropolis of the New World. While public worship by Catholics was not tolerated, the generosity of the Dutch governor, William Kieft, and the people of New Amsterdam to the Jesuit martyr, Father Isaac Jogues, in 1643, and after him, to his brother Jesuits, Fathers Bressani and Le Moyne, must be remembered to their everlasting credit. Father Jogues was the first priest to traverse the State of New York; the first to minister within the limits of the Diocese of New York. When he reached Manhattan Island, after his rescue from captivity in the summer of 1643, he found there two Catholics, a young Irishman and a Portuguese woman, whose confessions he heard.
St. Mary’s, the first rude chapel in which Mass was said in the State of New York, was begun, on November 18, 1655, on the banks of the lake where the City of Syracuse now stands, by the Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Claude Dablon and Pierre Chaumonot. In the same year another Jesuit, Father Simon Le Moyne, journeyed down the river to New Amsterdam, as we learn from a letter sent by the Dutch preacher, Megapolensis (a renegade Catholic), to the Classis at Amsterdam, telling them that the Jesuit had visited Manhattan “on account of the Papists residing here, and especially for the accommodation of the French sailors, who are Papists and who have arrived here with a good prize.” The Church had no foothold on Manhattan Island until after 1664, when the Duke of York claimed it for an English colony. Twenty years later, the Catholic governor, Thomas Dongan, not only fostered his own faith, but enacted the first law passed in New York establishing religious liberty. It is believed that the first Mass said on the island (October 30, 1683) was in a chapel he opened about where the custom house now stands. With him came three English Jesuits, Fathers Thomas Harvey, Henry Harrison, and Charles Gage, and they soon had a Latin school in the same neighborhood. Of this Jacob Leisler, the fanatical usurper of the *government wrote to the Governor of Boston, in August, 1689: “I have formerly urged to inform your Honr. that Coll Dongan, in his time did erect a Jesuite Colledge upon cullour to learn Latine to the Judges West—Mr. Graham, Judge Palmer, and John Tudor did contribute their sones for sometime but no boddy imitating them, the colledge vanished” (O’Callaghan, “Documentary Hist. of N. Y.”, II, 23).
With the fall of James II and the advent of William of Orange to the English throne, New York‘s Catholic colony was almost stamped out by drastic penal laws (SEE NEW YORK, STATE OF). In spite of them, however, during the years that followed a few scattered representatives of the Faith drifted in and settled down unobstrusively. To minister to them there came now and then from Philadelphia a zealous German Jesuit missionary, Father Ferdinand Steinmayer, who was commonly called “Father Farmer”. Gathering them together, he said Mass in the house of a German fellow-countryman in Wall Street, in a loft in Water Street, and wherever else they could find accommodation. Then came the Revolution, and in this connection, owing to one of the prominent political issues of the time, the spirit of the leading colonists was intensely anti-Catholic. The first flag raised by the Sons of Liberty in New York was inscribed “No Popery”. When the war ended, and the president and Congress resided in New York, the Catholic representatives of France, Spain, Portugal, with Charles Carroll, his cousin Daniel, and Thomas Fitz Simmons, Catholic members of Congress, and officers and soldiers of the foreign contingent, merchants and others, soon made up a respectable congregation. Mass was said for them in the house of the Spanish minister, Don Diego de Gardoqui, on Broadway, near the Bowling Green, in the Vauxhall Gardens, which was a hall on the river front near Warren Street, and in a carpenter’s shop in Barclay Street. Finally, an Irish Capuchin, Father Charles Whelan, who had served as a chaplain in De Grasse’s fleet, and was acting as private chaplain to the Portuguese consul-general, Don Jose Roiz Silva, took up also the care of this scattered flock, which numbered less than two hundred, and only about forty of them practical in the observances of their faith.
Through efforts led by the French consul, Hector St. John de Crevecceur (q.v.), an act of incorporation was secured on June 10, 1785, for the “Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church of the City of New York,” in which Jose Roiz Silva, James Stewart, and Henry Duffin were associated with him as the first board. An unexpired lease of lots at Barclay and Church streets was bought from the trustees of Trinity church, Thomas Stoughton, the Spanish Consul-general, and his partner Dominick Lynch, advancing the purchase money, one thousand pounds, and there on October 5, 1785, the cornerstone of St. Peter’s, the first permanent structure for a Catholic church erected in the State of New York, was laid by the Spanish minister, Gardoqui. The church was opened November 4, 1786. The first resident pastor was Father Whelan, who, however, was forced to retire owing to the hostility of the trustees and of another Capuchin, the Rev. Andrew Nugent, before the Church was opened. The prefect Apostolic, the venerable .John Carroll, then visited New York to administer confirmation for the first time, and placed the church in charge of a Dominican, Father William O’Brien, who may be regarded as the organizer of the parish. He had as his assistants Fathers John Connell and Nicholas Burke, and, in his efforts to aid the establishment of the church, went as far as the City of Mexico to collect funds there under the auspices of his old schoolfellow, the archbishop of that see. He brought back $5920 and a number of paintings, vestments, etc. Father O’Brien and his assistants did heroic work during the yellow fever epidemics of 1795, 1799, 1801, and 1805. In 1801 he established the parish school, which has since been carried on without interruption. The church debt at this time was $6500; the income from pew rents, $1120, and from collections, $360, a year. The Rev. Dr. Matthew O’Brien, another Dominican, the Rev. John Byrne, and the Rev. Michael Hurley, an Augustinian, were, during this period, assistants at St. Peter’s. In July, 1807, the Rev. Louis Sibourd, a French priest, was made pastor, but he left in the following year, and then the famous Jesuit, Anthony Kohlmann (q.v.), was sent to take charge. It was at this time that the Holy See determined to erect Baltimore into an archbishopric and to establish the new Dioceses of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown, Ky.
II. CREATION OF THE DIOCESE.—We have a picture of the situation in New York when the first bishop was named: a letter sent on November 8, 1808, by Father Kohlmann, who was then acting as the administrator of the diocese, to his friend Father Strickland, S.J., of London, England, says, “Your favor of the 6th September was delivered to me at the beginning of October in the City of New York, where our Right Rev. Bishop Carroll has thought proper to send me in the capacity of rector of this immense congregation and Vicar General of this diocese till the arrival of the Right Rev. Richard Luke Concanen, Bishop of New York. The congregation chiefly consists of Irish, some hundreds of French, and as many Germans, in all, according to the common estimation, of 14,000 souls. Rev. Mr. Fenwick, a young Father of our society, distinguished for his learning and piety, has been sent along with me. I was no sooner arrived in the city and, behold, the trustees, though before our arrival they had not spent a cent for the reparation and furniture of their clergyman’s house, laid out for the said purpose above $800. All men seem to revive at the very name of the Society of Jesus, though yet little known in this part of the country.” What rapid progress was made, he indicates, two years later, when, again writing to Father Strickland, on September 14 1810, he tells him: “Indeed it is but two years that we arrived in this city without having a cent in our pocket, not even our passage money, which the trustees paid for Father Fenwick and me …and to see things so far advanced as to see not only the Catholic religion highly respected by the first characters of the city, but even a Catholic college established, the house well furnished both in town and in the college improvements made in the college [sic] for four or five hundred dollars … is a thing which I am at a loss to conceive and which I cannot ascribe but to the infinite liberality of the Lord, to whom alone, therefore, be all glory and honor. The college is in the center not of Long Island but of the Island of New York, the most delightful and most healthy spot of the whole island, at a distance of four small miles from the city, and of half a mile from the East and North rivers, both of which are seen from the house; situated between two roads which are very much frequented, opposite to the botanic gardens which belong to the State. It has adjacent to it a beautiful lawn, garden, orchard, etc.”—This spot is now the site of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.
We can judge from the family names on the register of St. Peter’s church that the early Catholics of New York were largely Irish; next in number come the French, then the Germans, followed by those of Italian, Spanish and English origin. There were enough Germans in 1808 to think themselves entitled to a church and pastor of their own nationality for on March 2 of that year Christopher Briehill, John Kneringer, George Jacob, Martin Nieder, and Francis Werneken signed a petition which they sent to Bishop Carroll praying him “to send us a pastor who is capable of undertaking the Spiritual Care of our Souls in the German Language, which is our Mother Tongue. Many of us do not know any English at all, and these who have some knowledge of it are not well enough versed in the English language as to attend Divine Service with any utility to themselves. As we have not yet a place of worship of our own we have made application to the Trustees of the English Catholic Church in this city to grant us permission to perform our worship in the German language in their church at such times as not to interfere with their regular services. This permission they have readily granted us. During the Course of the year we shall take care to find an opportunity to provide ourselves with a suitable building of our own, for First Bishop of New York we have no doubt that our number will soon considerably increase.” Nothing came of this petition, and no separate German congregation was organized in New York until a quarter of a century after its date. But Father Kohlmann saw to it that another church should be started, and St. Patrick’s was begun “between the Broadway and the Bowery road” in 1809, to meet the needs of the rapidly increasing number of Catholics on the east side of the city. It was also to serve as the cathedral church of the new diocese. The cornerstone was laid June 8, 1809, but, owing to the hard times and the war of 1812 with England, the structure was not ready for use until May 4, 1815, when it was dedicated by Bishop Cheverus who came from Boston for that purpose. It was then far on the outskirts of the city, and, to accustom the people to go there, Mass was said at St. Peter’s every other Sunday. The ground on which it was built was purchased in 1801 for a graveyard, and the interments in it from that time until the cemetery was closed in 1833 numbered 32,-153. Some of the Catholic laymen prominent during this period were Andrew Morris, Matthew Reed, Cornelius Heeney, Thomas Stoughton, Dominick Lynch, Benjamin Disobrey, Peter Burtsell, uncle of the Rev. James A. Neil, the first native of New York to be admitted to the priesthood, Joseph Icard, merchant and architect, Hugh McGinnis, Dennis Doyle, Miles F. Clossey, Anthony Trapanni, a native of Meta, Italy, pioneer Italian merchant and the first foreigner to be naturalized under the Constitution, Francis Varet, John B. Lasala, Francis Cooper, George Gottsberger, Thomas O’Connor, Thomas Brady, Dr. William James Macneven, and Bernard Dornin, the first Catholic publisher, for whose edition of Pastorini’s “History of the Church,” issued in 1807, there were 318 New York City subscribers.
III. THE HIERARCHY.—A. When Bishop Carroll learned that it was the intention of the Holy See to recognize the growth of the Church in the United States by dividing the Diocese of Baltimore and creating new sees, he advised that New York be placed under the care of the Bishop of Boston till a suitable choice could be made for that diocese. Archbishop
Troy of Dublin, however, induced Pius VII to appoint as New York‘s first bishop an Irish Dominican, Father Richard Luke Concanen, who had resided many years in Rome as the agent of the Irish bishops and was much esteemed there. He was prior of St. Clement’s at Rome, librarian of the Minerva, and distinguished for his learning. He had refused a nomination for a see in Ireland and was much interested in the missions in America, about which he had kept up a correspondence with Bishop Carroll. It was at his suggestion that Father Fenwick founded the first house of the Dominicans in Kentucky. He was consecrated first Bishop of New York at Rome, April 24, 1808, and some time after left for Leghorn on his way to his see, taking with him the pallium for Archbishop Carroll. After waiting there for a ship for four months he returned to Rome. Thence he went to Naples, expecting to sail from that port, but the French military forces in possession of the city detained him as a British subject, and, while waiting vainly to be released, he died of fever, June 19, 1810. Finding that he could not leave Italy, he had asked the pope to appoint the Rev. Ambrose Marechal to be his coadjutor bishop in New York. The American bishops cordially endorsed this choice and considered that the appointment would be made. Archbishop Carroll, writing to Father C. Plowden, of London, June 25, 1815, said: “It was known here that before the death of Dr. Concanen his Holiness at the Dr’s entreaty intended to assign to him as his coadjutor the Rev. Mr. Marechal, a priest of St. Sulpice, now in the Seminary here, and worthy of any promotion in the Church. We still expected that this measure would be pursued; and that we made no presentation or recommendation of any other for the vacant see.”
B.—Archbishop Troy, of Dublin, however, with the other Irish bishops, proposed to the pope another Irish Dominican, the Rev. John Connolly, for the vacant see of New York, and he was consecrated at Rome, November 6, 1814 (see John Connolly). It was a selection which might have proved embarrassing to American Catholics, for Bishop Connolly was a British subject, and the United States was then at war with Great Britain. “I wish,” wrote Archbishop Carroll to Father Plowden, June 25, 1815, “this may not become a very dangerous precedent fruitful of mischief by drawing upon our religion a false opinion of the servility of our principles.” Owing to his own views of the situation in the diocese, Bishop Connolly did not announce his appointment to his fellow-members of the hierarchy or to the administrator of the diocese. Father Kohlmann was, therefore, in anticipation of the bishop’s arrival, recalled by his superiors to Maryland, the college was closed, and the other Jesuits soon after left the diocese. Finally, Bishop Connolly arrived in New York unannounced and with-out any formal local welcome, November 24, 1815, his ship taking sixty-eight days to make the voyage from Dublin. In the diocese he found that everything was to be created from resources that were very small and in spite of obstacles that were very great. The diocese embraced the whole State of New York and half of New Jersey. There were but four priests in this territory. Lay trustees had become so accustomed to having their own way that they were not disposed to admit even the authority of a bishop. Dr. Connolly was not wanting in firmness, but the pressing needs of the times, forcing an apparent concession to the established order of things, subjected him to much difficulty and many humiliations. He was a missionary priest rather than a bishop, as he wrote Cardinal Litta, Prefect of Propaganda, in February, 1818, but he discharged all his laborious duties with humility and earnest zeal. His diary further notes that he told the cardinal: “I found here about 13,000 Catholics…. At present there are about 16,000 mostly Irish; at least 10,000 Irish Catholics arrived at New York only within these last three years. They spread through all the other states of this confederacy, and make their religion known everywhere. Bishops ought to be granted to whatever here is willing to erect a Cathedral, and petition for a bishop…The present dioceses are quite too extensive. Our Cathedral owes $53,000 borrowed to build it…. This burden hinders us from supporting a sufficient number of priests, or from thinking to erect a seminary. The American youth have an invincible repugnance to the ecclesiastical state.”
He made a visitation of the diocese, no mean accomplishment at that time; provided churches for the people in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Albany, Utica, and Paterson; introduced the Sisters of Charity, started the orphan asylum, and encouraged the opening of parish schools. He died at his residence, 512 Broadway, February 5, 1825, worn out by his labors and anxieties. Notable men of this period were Fathers Michael O’Gorman and Richard Bulger—the latter the first priest ordained in New York (1820)—Charles D. Ffrench, John Power, John Farnan, Thomas C. Levins, Philip Larisey and John Shannahan. There were several distinguished converts, including Mother Seton, founder of the American branch of the Sisters of Charity; the Rev. Virgil Barber and his wife, the Rev. John Richards, the Rev. George Kewley, the Rev. George E. Ironside, Keating Lawson, and others. Two years elapsed before the next bishop was appointed, and the Rev. Dr. John Power during that period governed the diocese as administrator. Brooklyn’s first church was organized during this time. It was during Bishop Connolly’s administration also, that New York‘s first Catholic paper “The Truth Teller” was started, on April 2, 1825.
C.—The choice of the Holy See for the third bishop was the Rev. Dr. John Dubois, president of Mount St. Mary’s College, Emmitsburg, and he was consecrated at Baltimore, October 29, 1826. The Rev. William Taylor, a convert who had come from Cork, Ireland, in June, 1818, at the suggestion of Bishop England of Charleston, endeavored to be himself made bishop, going to Rome in January, 1820, for that purpose. This visit to Rome being fruitless, Taylor went to Boston, where he remained several years with Bishop Cheverus, returning to New York when that prelate was transferred to France. He was exceedingly popular with non-Catholics because of his liberality. He preached the sermon at the consecration of Bishop Dubois and used the occasion to expatiate on what he called “disastrous experiences which resulted to religion from injudicious appointments”, hinting at coming trouble for the bishop in New York. He left New York simultaneously with the arrival of the bishop there, and sailed for France, where his old friend Msgr. Cheverus, then Archbishop of Bordeaux, received him. He died suddenly, while preaching in the Irish college, Paris, in 1828.
None of the predicted disturbances happened when Bishop Dubois took possession of his see, though the abuse of trusteeism, grown more and more insolent and unmanageable by toleration, hampered his efforts from the very start. Fanaticism was aroused among the Protestant sects, alarmed at the numerical increase of the Church through the immigration attracted by the commercial growth of the State. But in spite of all, he went on bravely visiting all parts of the State, building and encouraging the building of churches wherever they were needed, obtaining aid from Rome and from the charitable in Europe. He found but two churches in the city when he came; to these he added six others and multiplied for his flock the facilities for practising their religion, his constant endeavor being to give his people priests, churches, and schools. With the trustees in New York City and in Buffalo he had many sad experiences, but he unflinchingly upheld his constituted authority. In 1834 he organized, with the Rev. John Raffeiner as pastor, the first German Catholic congregation in New York in a small disused Baptist church at Pitt and De Lancey Streets, which became the church of St. Nicholas. It was about this time, too, that a public controversy over Catholic doctrine raged between the Calvinist ministers, Rev. John Breckenridge and Rev. William Brownlee, and the vicar-general, Rev. Dr. Power, assisted by Fathers Varela, Levins, and Schneller. It was followed by the fanatical attack on Catholic religious communities known as “The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk“. Dr. Dubois “had then reached the age of seventy and, though still a vigorous combatant when necessary, was disinclined to religious controversy. Perhaps he did not understand the country and the people as well as the younger men who had grown up in America; perhaps he was deterred by his memories of the French Revolution” (Herbermann, “Hist. Records and Studies”, I, Pt. 2, 333).
At length the many burdens and anxieties of his charge told on the bishop, and he asked for a coadjutor, naming the Right Rev. P. F. Kenrick, Coadjutor of Philadelphia, as his first choice, and the Rev. Thomas F. Mulledy, S.J., and the Rev. John Hughes, of Philadelphia, as alternates. Father Hughes, of Philadelphia, who had been his pupil at Emmitsburg, was selected and consecrated titular Bishop of Basileo, January 7, 1838. His youth and vigour soon put new life into the affairs of the Church in New York, and were especially efficient in meeting the aggressions of the lay trustees. Bishop Hughes had fully realized the dangers of the system as shown in Philadelphia, and he lost no time in meeting and crushing it in New York. Bishop Dubois, through ill health, had to relinquish the details of his charge more and more to his youthful assistant, whose activity he warmly welcomed. Several attacks of paralysis warned him to give up the management of the diocese. His remaining days he spent quietly preparing for the end, his coadjutor ever treating him with respectful kindness and sympathy. He died December 20, 1840, full of years and merits. Those of his assistants who were notably prominent were Father Felix Varela, an eminently pious and versatile priest, an exile from Cuba, and the Revs. Joseph Schneller, Dr. Constantine C. Pise, Alexander Mupietti, John Raffeiner, the pioneer German pastor; Hatton Walsh, P. Malou, T. Maguire, Michael Curran, Gregory B. Pardow, Luke Berry, John N. Neumann, later a Redemptorist and Bishop of Philadelphia, and John Walsh, long pastor of St. James, Brooklyn.
D.—Bishop Hughes, the administrator, at once assumed the title of the see as its fourth bishop, and is the really great figure in the constructive period of New York‘s history. “It was a day of great men in the civil order”, says the historian, Dr. John Gilmary Shea, “the day of Clay, Webster, Calhoun, yet no man of that era spoke so directly or so effectively to the American people as Bishop Hughes. He was not an ordinary man. It had been well said that in any assemblage he would have been notable. He was full of noble thoughts and aspirations and devoted to the Church; every plan and every project of his mind aimed at the greater good of the country”. The story of his eventful career is told in a separate article (see John Hughes), and it will suffice to mention here some of the many distinguished men who helped to make his administration so important in local records. Among them were the Rev. William Quarter, afterwards first Bishop of Chicago, and his brother, the Rev. Walter J. Quarter, the Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, first Bishop of Hartford; the Rev. John Loughlin, first Bishop of Brooklyn; the Rev. James R. Bayley, first Bishop of Newark and Archbishop of Baltimore; the Rev. David Bacon, first Bishop of Portland; the Rev. William G. McCloskey, first rector of the American College at Rome and fourth Bishop of Louisville, Ky., son of one of the Brooklyn pioneers; the Rev. Andrew Byrne, first Bishop of Little Rock; the Rev. John J. Conroy, Bishop of Albany; the Rev. William Starrs, vicar-general; the Rev. Dr. Ambrose Manahan, the Rev. Dr. J. W. Cummings, Archdeacon McCarron, the Rev. John Kelly (Eugene Kelly’s brother), who went as a missionary to Africa and then became first pastor at Jersey City. These are only a few of the names that are prominent. Among the notable converts of this period may be mentioned the Rev. Thomas S. Preston, J. V. Huntington, F. E. White, Donald McLeod, Isaac T. Hecker, A. F. Hewit, Alfred Young, Clarence Walworth, and Edgar P. Wadhams, later Bishop of Ogdensburg.
E.—As the successor of Archbishop Hughes, Bishop John McCloskey of Albany was promoted to be the second archbishop. He had been consecrated Coadjutor of New York, with the right of succession, in 1844, but resigned both offices to become the first Bishop of Albany in 1847. He returned to New York in spite of his own protests of unworthiness, but with the unanimous approval and rejoicing of the clergy and laity. He was born in Brooklyn, March 10, 1810, and was therefore the first native bishop, as he was the second native of New York to be ordained to the priesthood. He was a gentle, polished, amiable prelate, and accomplished much for the progress of Catholic New York. The Protectory, the Foundling Asylum, and the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin for homeless children were founded under his auspices; he resumed work on the new Cathedral, and saw its completion; the provincial seminary at Troy was organized; churches, schools, and charitable institutions were everywhere increased and improved. In the stimulation of a general appreciation of the necessity of Catholic education the cardinal (he was elevated to the Purple in 1875) was incessant and most vigorous. He saw that the foundations of the structure, laid deep by his illustrious predecessor, upheld an edifice in which all the requirements of modern educational methods should be found. Like him, also, as years crept on, he asked for a coadjutor, and the Bishop of Newark, Michael Augustine Corrigan, was sent to him.
F.—Born in Newark, August 31, 1839, his college days were spent at Mt. St. Mary’s, Emmitsburg, and at Rome. Ordained in 1863, Bishop Corrigan became president of Seton Hall College in 1868, Bishop of Newark in 1873, Coadjutor of New York in 1880, and archbishop in 1885 (see Michael Augustine Corrigan.). He died, from an accidental fall during the building of the Lady Chapel at the Cathedral, May 5, 1902. It was said of him by the New York “Evening Post”: “The memory of his life distils a fragrance like to that of St. Francis.” By some New Yorkers he was for a time a much misunderstood man, whose memory time will vindicate. Acute thinkers are appreciating his worth as a civilian as well as a churchman, and the fact that, for Catholics, he grappled with the first menacing move of Socialism and effectually and permanently checked its advance. He was an administrator of ability and, socially, a man of winning personality. To the serious problem of providing for the spiritual need of the inrushing thousands of European immigrants he gave successful consideration. The splendid seminary at Dunwoodie is his best memorial. Its beautiful chapel he built at a cost of $60,000 his whole private inherited fortune. During his administration controversy over the school question was waged with a certain amount of acrimony. He was regarded as the leader of those all over the country who stood for uncompromising Catholic education. Archbishop Corrigan was also drawn into conflict with the Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn, rector of St. Stephen’s church, a man of considerable ability, but whose radical views on the ownership of land had brought on him the official censure of Cardinal Simeoni, Prefect of Propaganda. In the municipal election of 1886, in spite of the archbishop’s warnings, he became the open partisan of Henry George who was the candidate for mayor of the Single Tax party. As a consequence, he was suspended, and, as an alumnus of the College of Propaganda, was summoned to Rome to answer the charges made against him. He refused to go and was excommunicated.—For details and text of official letters, see Archbishop Corrigan’s statement to New York papers (January 21, 1887) and Dr. McGlynn’s formal answer in Henry George’s “Standard” (February 5, 1887).—Dr. McGlynn’s partisans organized themselves into what they called the Anti-Poverty Society. He addressed this body every Sunday until about Christmas, 1892, when, having willingly accepted the conditions laid down by the pope, he was absolved from censure and reconciled by Msgr. Satolli, the Apostolic delegate. According to a published statement by Msgr. Satolli, the conditions were in this form: “Dr. McGlynn had presented a brief statement of his opinions on moral-economic matters, and it was judged not contrary to the doctrine constantly taught by the Church, and as recently confirmed by the Holy Father in the encyclical ‚ÄòRerum Novarum. Also it is hereby made known that Dr. McGlynn, besides publicly professing his adherence to all the doctrines and teachings of the Catholic Church, has expressed his regret (saying that he would be the first to regret it) for any word or act of his that may have seemed lacking in the respect due to ecclesiastical authority, and he hereby intends to repair as far as he can any offense which may have been given to Catholics. Finally, Dr. McGlynn has of his own free will declared and promised that, within the limits of a not long period of time, he will go to Rome in the spirit and intention which are becoming to a good Catholic and a priest.” In 1894 Dr. McGlynn was appointed pastor of St. Mary’s church, Newburg, where he remained quietly until his death in 1901.
Archbishop Corrigan made his last visit ad limina in 1890 and after his return, until his death in 1902, devoted himself entirely to the duties of his high office. His death brought out the fact that he was the foremost figure of the community in the respect and affection of his fellow-citizens. His unassuming personality and his gentle method, his considerate kindness and his unaffected piety were pathways to the love and veneration of his own flock. His steadfast adherence to principle, as well as his persuasive manner of, not only teaching, but also of acting out the doctrines of his religion, his profound scholarship, his experienced judgment, were ever employed when there was question of a religious, moral, or civil import to his fellow-men. The truth of this is to be found in the testimony of Leo XIII, himself, of the civil dignitaries of the land, of his brethren in the episcopate, of his own clergy and laity, on the mournful occasion of his death. Under the second and third archbishops, Msgr. William Quinn, V.G., was a prominent figure, and among his associates of this era were Msgr. Thomas S. Preston, Msgr. Arthur J. Donnelly, Msgr. James McMahon, Msgr. P. F. McSweeny, Fathers M. Curran, William Everett, W. H. Clowry, Felix H. Farrelly, Eugene McGuire, Thomas Farrell, Edward J. O’Reilly, M. J. O’Farrell (later Bishop of Trenton), and Edmund Aubril.
G.—As fourth archbishop, the Holy See confirmed the choice of the diocesan electors, and appointed to fill the vacancy the auxiliary, the Right Rev. John Murphy Farley, titular Bishop of Zeugma, who was promoted to the archbishopric September 15, 1902. He was born at Newton Hamilton, County Armagh, Ireland, April 20, 1842. His primary studies were made at St. McCartan’s College, Monaghan, and, on his coming to New York, were continued at St. John’s College, Fordham. Thence he went to the provincial seminary at Troy for his philosophy course, and after this to the American College, Rome, where he was ordained priest June 11, 1870. Returning to New York, he ministered as an assistant in St. Peter’s parish, Staten Island, for two years, and in 1872 was appointed secretary to the then Archbishop McCloskey, in which office he served until 1884, when he was made pastor of St. Gabriel‘s church, New York City. He accompanied the cardinal to Rome in 1878, for the election of Leo XIII, which event, however, took place before their arrival. In 1884 he was made a private chamberlain; in 1892 he was promoted to the domestic prelacy, and in 1895 to be prothonotary apostolic. In 1891 he was chosen vicar-general of the diocese by Archbishop Corrigan, and, on December 21, 1895, was consecrated as his auxiliary, with the title of Bishop of Zeugma. At the death of Archbishop Corrigan, he was appointed his successor, September 15, 1902, and Pius X named him assistant at the pontifical throne in 1904. He made progress in Catholic education in the diocese the keynote of his administration, and within the first eight years added nearly fifty parochial schools to the primary list, encouraged the increase also of high schools, and founded Cathedral College as a preparatory seminary.
In the proceedings of the annual convention of the Catholic Educational Association held in New York in 1903, and of the National Eucharistic Congress in 1904, Archbishop Farley took a most active and directive part. Synods were held regularly every third year, and theological conferences quarterly, to give effect to every instruction and legislative act of the Holy See. A monthly recollection for all the priests of the diocese assembled together was instituted. Provision was made for the religious needs of Italians and other Catholic immigrants—the Italian portion of his flock numbering about 400,000 souls. The great work of issuing THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA owed its inception and progress to his help and stimulus. The centenary of the erection of the diocese was celebrated under his direction by a magnificent festival lasting a week (April 27—May 2, 1908); the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral was completed, the Cathedral debt was paid off, and the edifice consecrated October 5, 1910, Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli, papal legate to the Twenty-first Eucharistic Congress, Cardinal Logue, Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore,70 prelates, 1000 priests, and an immense congregation of the laity being present at the Mass of the day. Archbishop Farley was given an auxiliary in the Right Rev. Thomas F. Cusack, who was consecrated titular Bishop of Themiscyra, April 25, 1904. Bishop Cusack was born in New York, February 22, 1862, and made his classical course at St. Francis Xavier’s College where he graduated in 1880. His theological studies were pursued at the provincial seminary, Troy, where he was ordained priest in 1885. He was a very successful director of the Diocesan-Apostolate (1897-1904) before his consecration as bishop, after which he was appointed Rector of St. Stephen’s parish.
IV.—DIOCESAN INSTITUTIONS.—The Cathedral.—St. Patrick’s Cathedral, standing on the crest of New York‘s most magnificent thoroughfare, is the noblest temple ever dedicated, in any land, to the honor of the Apostle of Ireland. It is an edifice of which every citizen of the great metropolis is justly proud. Its style is the decorated and geometric Gothic of which the cathedrals of Reims, Amiens, and Cologne are prominent examples. It was planned in 1853 by James Renwick of New York; construction was begun in 1858, and the building was formally opened and dedicated on May 25, 1879 (building operations having been suspended, owing to the Civil War, from 1861-66). The site of the cathedral, the block bounded by Fifth Avenue, Fiftieth Street, Fourth Avenue, and Fifty-first Street, has been in the possession of the church authorities, and used for ecclesiastical purposes, except during a very brief interval (1821-1828), since March 1, 1810. The block on which the Cathedral stands was purchased at its then marketable value and therefore never was a gift or donation from the city, as has been said sometimes, either ignorantly or even with conscious malice. The cornerstone was laid on the afternoon of Sunday, August 15, 1858, by Archbishop Hughes, in the presence of an assemblage estimated at one hundred thousand. The address delivered by the archbishop is regarded as one of the most eloquent and memorable he ever uttered. The gathering may be considered the first public manifestation of that great Catholic New York which became the wonder and admiration of the nineteenth century, and it lent inspiration and power to the magic of his ringing words of joy and triumph.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the eleventh in size among the great churches of the world. Its dimensions are as follows, the Lady Chapel excluded: Exterior:—Extreme length (with Lady Chapel), 398 feet; extreme breadth, 174 feet; general breadth, 132 feet; towers at base, 32 feet; height of towers, 330 feet. Interior:—Length, 370 feet; breadth of nave and choir (excluding chapels), 96 feet; breadth of nave and choir (including chapels), 120 feet; length of transept, 140 feet; central aisle, 48 feet wide, 112 feet high; side aisles, 24 feet wide, 54 feet high; chapels 18 feet wide, 14 feet high, 12 feet deep. The foundations are of very large blocks of blue gneiss, which were laid in cement mortar up to the level of the surface. Above the ground-line, the first base-course is of granite, as is also the first course under all the columns and marble works of the interior. Above this base-course the whole exterior of the building is of white marble. The cost of the building was about four million dollars. In the original plan there was an apsidal Lady Chapel, but work on this was not begun until July 20, 1901, during the administration of Archbishop Corrigan. It was finished by Archbishop Farley in 1906. The architect was Charles T. Mathews whose design was thirteenth-century French Gothic. This chapel is 56% feet long by 28 feet wide and 56 feet high. The building of the Lady Chapel was started by a memorial gift for that purpose from the family of Eugene Kelly, the banker, who died in New York, December 19, 1894. Eugene Kelly was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, November 25, 1808, and immigrated to New York in 1834. Here he engaged in the drygoods business, and later at St. Louis, Mo., whence he went to California in 1850 during the gold excitement. As a banker and merchant there, he amassed a considerable fortune the interests of which took him back to New York to live in 1856. He was a trustee of the Cathedral for several terms and indentified with the Catholic charitable, educational, and social movements of the city. In the crypt of the chapel the deceased archbishops are buried, and the vault of the Kelly family is at the rear of the sacristy under the Chapel.
Education.—In the cause of Catholic education the Diocese of New York can claim the proud distinction of being the pioneer, the unceasing and uncompromising advocate. In 1685 the Jesuit Fathers Harvey and Harrison began the first Catholic educational institution in the state; the New York Latin School, which stood near the present site of Trinity Church, Wall Street and Broadway, and was attended by the sons of the most influential colonial families. This school was closed by the fanatical intolerance which followed the Dongan administration in 1638. In 1801, Father Matthew O’Brien, O.P., pastor of St. Peter’s church, opened the free school of the parish which has been carried on ever since without interruption. During the first five years it was supported entirely by the people of the parish, but in 1806 the legislature of the state, by an act passed March 21, placed the school on the same footing as those of other religious denominations in the city; all of them received state support at the time, and Father O’Brien’s school received its share of the public money. After St. Patrick’s church was commenced, Father Kohlmann, S.J., began the New York Literary Institution, the first collegiate school of the diocese, in a house on Mott Street opposite the church. It was an immediate success, and was soon removed to a house on Broadway, and then, in March, 1812, to a suburban site in the village of Elgin, now Fiftieth Street and Fifth Avenue, the site of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Although well patronized by the best families of the city, the inability of the Jesuit community to keep up the teaching staff forced the abandonment of the enterprise in 1815. To supply teachers for girls, Father Kohlmann secured several Ursuline Nuns from Cork, Ireland, who arrived in the city April 9, 1812. Their convent was located near the Literary Institution, and the Legislature, by the Act of March 25, 1814, incorporated “The Ursuline Convent of the City of New York“, by which “Christine Fagan, Sarah Walsh, Mary Baldwin and others are incorporated for the purpose of teaching poor children”. After a year, as no other subjects joined their community, and they were not satisfied with the location, which was too remote from the city for them to receive daily spiritual direction from a chaplain, these nuns gave up the school and returned to Ireland.
With the advent of Bishop Connolly to the diocese (November 24, 1815) St. Patrick’s parochial school was opened in the basement of the cathedral. The “Catholic Almanac” for 1822 relates that “there are in this city two extensive Catholic schools conducted upon a judicious plan and supported partly by the funds of the State and partly by moneys raised twice a year by the two congregations”. The report of the trustees of St. Peter’s church to the superintendent of common schools, in 1824, states that the average number of scholars in St. Peter’s and St. Patrick’s schools from their opening had been about 500 each. These two were the pioneer schools of that great Catholic parochial system of free schools throughout the diocese which has been the example and stimulus for Catholic education all over the United States. On June 28, 1817, three Sisters of Charity, sent to her native city by Mother Seton, arrived in New York from Emmitsburg to take charge of the orphan asylum and school of St. Patrick’s church. In 1830 these Sisters of Charity took charge of St. Peter’s school and opened two academies. In 1816, owing to the conflict between the French rule of their institute, forbidding the care of boys, and other details of discipline which greatly interfered with diocesan progress, Bishop Hughes received permission to organize an independent community with diocesan autonomy. This was established December 8, 1846, with the election of Mother Elizabeth Boyle as the first superior. The novitiate was opened at 35 East Broadway, but in 1847 was moved to Fifth Avenue and One Hundred and Fifth Street, where the academy for girls and mother-house of Mount St. Vincent was established. Ten years later the city took this property for Central Park, and the community moved to the banks of the Hudson, just below Yonkers, where the College of Mount St. Vincent, and the headquarters of the community now are. There are about eighteen hundred of these sisters teaching in more than sixty parish schools and in charge of diocesan institutions.
In 1841 a community of the Religious of the Sacred Heart was sent to the diocese by Mother Barat, and established their first school at Houston and Mulberry Streets. A year later this was moved to Astoria, Long Island, and in 1846 to the present site of the convent at Manhattanville, where, under the direction, for many years, of the famous Mother Mary
Aloysia Hardey, It became, not only a popular educational institution but the center whence radiated most of the progress made by the Institute throughout the United States. When the first Religious of the Sacred Heart arrived in New York, July 31, 1827, on their way from France to make the first foundation in the United States at St. Louis, Missouri, Bishop Dubois was most favorably impressed by them, and wished to have a community for New York also. A letter which he wrote to Mother Barat in the following October expresses this desire and gives a view of his charge at that time. “It was my intention”, he says, “to visit you and your pious associates in Paris in order to give you a better idea of our country before asking you to establish a house in New York. There is no doubt as to the success of an order like yours in this city; indeed it is greatly needed; but a considerable sum of money would be required to supply the urgent needs of the foundation. The Catholic population, which averages over thirty thousand souls, is very poor, besides chiefly composed of Irish emigrants. Contributions from Protestants are so uncertain and property in this city so expensive that I cannot promise any assistance. All I can say is that I believe one of your schools, commenced with sufficient money to purchase property and support itself until the ladies have time to make themselves known, would succeed beyond all our expectations…. I have the sorrow of witnessing an abundant harvest rotting in the earth, through lack of Apostolic laborers and the necessary funds to organize the various needs of the diocese.” Although Bishop Dubois was not able to accomplish his desire to have a school then established, his prophecy as to its success when it was opened was amply justified by subsequent results.
The Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of St. Dominic, School Sisters of Notre Dame, and other teaching communities followed in the course of the succeeding years, until now (1910) the parish schools of the archdiocese are in charge of twenty-six different religious communities, twenty-two of Sisters and four of Brothers. In 1829 an Irishman named James D. Boylan with the approbation of Bishop Dubois attempted to establish a religious community on the lines of the Irish Brothers of Charity to teach the boys’ schools, and opened two schools. The attempt failed in the course of the year, owing to want of business tact and the inimical spirit of trusteeism. The Christian Brothers opened their first school in New York in September, 1848, in St. Vincent de Paul’s parish, at 16 East Canal Street. La Salle Academy was opened in Canal Street in 1850, moved to Mulberry Street in 1856 and East Second Street in 1857. Manhattan College was opened in 1853. These Brothers have charge also of the De La Salle Institute, the Classon Point Military Academy, twenty-six parish schools, and the great Catholic Protectory. Bishop Hughes, in 1846, invited the Jesuits to return to the diocese and take charge of St. John’s College and Seminary at Fordham, which he had opened there in the old Rose Hill manor house, June 24, 1841. The seminary was moved to Troy in 1864, and St. John’s remained as part of Fordham University. St. Francis Xavier’s College was begun at the school of the church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Elizabeth Street, in 1847. It was burned down in the following year, reopened in Third Avenue near Twelfth Street, and finally located in West Sixteenth Street in 1850. Loyola School was opened by the Jesuits in 1899 at Park Avenue and Fifty-third street. As has been said, the state appropriation for education was divided at first among all schools. Public education in New York, at the opening of the nineteenth century, was denominational, and under the direction of the Public School Society organized in 1805 “to provide a free school for the education of poor children in the city who do not belong to, or are not provided for by any religious denomination”. In 1808 the name was changed to the “Free School Society of New York” and again in 1826 to the “Public School Society of New York“, with power “to provide for the education of all children not otherwise provided for”. This society gradually became, under the control of intolerant sectarian ministers, a combination against Catholic interests so that, when, in 1840, the eight Catholic parish schools, with an attendance of about 4000 pupils, made a demand for the share of the school appropriations to which the law entitled them, it was refused by the Board of Aldermen after a memorable hearing of the Catholic petition in the City Hall on 29—October 30, 1840, at which Bishop Hughes made one of his greatest oratorical efforts. As a result of this contest the Public School Society was soon after abolished, and the present system of public school control was enacted. The Catholics of New York also determined to organize and maintain their own system of free parish schools. “Go”, Bishop Hughes told them, “build your own schools; raise arguments in the shape of the best educated and most moral citizens of the Republic, and the day will come when you will enforce recognition”.
To supply priests for the diocese Bishop Dubois established a seminary at Nyack-on-Hudson, in 1833, but it was burned down just as it was ready to be opened. Cornelius Heeney then offered the bishop the ground in Brooklyn on which St. Paul’s church now stands, refusing, however, to give the diocese the title to the property immediately, and the design to build in Brooklyn was abandoned. In 1838 the estate of John Lafarge, Grovemont, in Jefferson County, was purchased and the seminary begun there. The place was then so inaccessible and impracticable that it was given up, and, on June 24, 1841, Bishop Hughes, administrator of the diocese, opened with thirty students the new St. John’s seminary and college at Fordham, then a village just outside the city. The Rev. John McCloskey, later Archbishop of New York and first cardinal in the United States, was its first president. The seminary remained at Fordham until October 24, 1864, when it was moved again to Troy, where St. Joseph‘s seminary began with fifty-seven students transferred from Fordham. The faculty was composed of secular priests from Ghent, Belgium, under the direction of the Very Reverend H. Vanderhende. Here the seminary remained until 1896, during which period more than 700 priests were ordained there. The building was then given over to the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Diocese of Albany as a novitiate and training-school, and, on August 12, 1896, the new provincial seminary at Dunwoodie was solemnly dedicated by Cardinal Satolli, then Apostolic delegate to the United States. The care of this seminary was entrusted to the Sulpician Fathers, but these retired in 1906, and the work was continued by the secular clergy of the archdiocese. A further step in providing facilities for seminary training was taken up by Archbishop Farley in September, 1903, by the opening of Cathedral College for the preparatory studies of ecclesiastical students.
In the cause of education the work done by the Catholic publishers must be noted; for New York, with the increase of its Catholic population, developed also into a great producing and distributing center for Catholic literature of all kinds. It is claimed for Bernard Dornin who arrived in New York in 1803, an exile from Ireland, that he was the first publisher of exclusively Catholic works in the United States. His edition of Pastorini’s “History of the Christian Church” (1807) was the first Catholic book published in New York. The next year he issued an edition of Dr. Fletcher’s “Reflections on the Spirit of Religious Controversy”, for which he had 144 city subscribers. There were 318 for the Pastorini book, and these two lists make an interesting directory of Catholic New York families at the opening of the nineteenth century. Dornin left New York for Baltimore in 1809. He was followed in New York by Matthew Field who published “at his library 177 Bowery within a few doors of Delancey St.” the first American year book, “The Catholic Laity‘s Directory to the Church Service: with an almanac for the year 1817″. About 1823 John Doyle began to publish books at 237 Broadway, and, up to 1849, when he went to San Francisco, he had issued many books of instruction and devotion. Most of the Doyle plates were taken over by Edward Dunigan, who had associated with him in business his half-brother James B. Kirker. He was the first publisher to encourage Catholic authors to give him their writings. John Gilmary Shea’s early histories were published by this firm, as was a fine edition of Haydock’s Bible (1844) and many school-books and standard works. In 1837 Dennis and James Sadlier began to issue Butler’s “Lives of the Saints” and an edition of the Bible in monthly parts, and thus commenced what later developed into one of the largest book concerns in the United States. The list of their publications is as varied as it is lengthy, and remarkable for the time was their series of “Metropolitan” school books. Patrick O’Shea, who had been associated with the Dunigan concern, began for himself in 1854 and, until his death, in 1906, was a very industrious producer of Catholic books, his publications including, besides a great number of school books, many editions of valuable works, such as Darras’ “History of the Church“, Digby’s “Mores”, Brownson‘s “American Republic”, Lingard’s “History of England“, Wiseman’s and Lacordaire‘s works. Benziger Brothers, in 1853, opened the branch of their German house that developed into the great concern, covering all branches of the trade. Father Isaac T. Hecker, C.S.P., as part of his dream for the evangelization of his non-Catholic fellow-countrymen, founded, in 1866, the Catholic Publication Society. Into this enterprise his brother, George V. Hecker, also a convert, unselfishly put thousands of dollars. Its manager was Lawrence Kehoe, a man well versed in all the best ideals of the trade, who sent out its many books, bound and printed in a lavishness of style not attempted before.
Charities.—New York gave early evidence of the characteristic of heroic charity. In a letter written by Father Kohlmann, March 21, 1809, he mentions “applications made at all houses to raise a subscription for the relief of the poor by which means $3000 have been collected to be paid constantly each year”. New York then had only one church for its 16,000 Catholics. An orphan asylum was opened in 1817 in a small wooden house at Mott and Prince Streets, the “New York Catholic Benevolent Society“, for its support and management, was incorporated the same year by the Legislature—the first Catholic Society so legalized in the state—and Mother Seton sent three of her Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg to take care of the children. This asylum was moved in 1851 to the block adjoining the Cathedral in Fifth Avenue and remained there until this property was sold and the institution located in Westchester County, in 1901. A Union Emigrant Society, to aid immigrants, the precursor of the Irish Emigrant Society and the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank was organized in 1829. St. Patrick’s, the first New York Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, was affiliated to the Paris Council in 1849, and in the steady increase of the organization throughout the diocese opened a new field for Catholic charity. The sturdy fight that had to be made against the raids on poor and neglected Catholic children in the public institutions was mainly through its members, and out of their efforts, in great measure, also grew the great Catholic Protectory, the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, the Foundling Asylum, and the more recent Fresh Air and Convalescent Homes, Day Nurseries, and other incidental details of modern philanthropy.
V. STATISTICS.—The following religious communities now have foundations in the diocese (1910): Men.—Augustinians Augustinians of the Assumption, Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament, Benedictines, Capuchins, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, Fathers of Mercy, Fathers of the Pious Society of Missions, Missionaries of St. Charles, Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, Redemptorists, Salesian Fathers, Brothers of Mary, Christian Brothers, Marist Brothers, Brothers of the Christian Schools, Missionaries of La Salette. Women.—Sisters of St. Agnes, Little Sisters of the Assumption, Sisters of St. Benedict, Sisters of Bon Secours, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Christian Charity, Sisters of the Divine Compassion, Sisters of Divine Providence, Sisters of St. Dominic, Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic, Felician Sisters, Missionary Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis, Sisters of St. Francis, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Helpers of the Holy Souls, Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, Marianite Sisters of Holy Cross, Sisters of the Holy Cross, Sisters of Jesus Mary, Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Misericorde, School Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, Little Sisters of the Poor, Sisters of the Atonement, Reparatrice Nuns, Religious of the Cenacle, Presentation Nuns, Religious of the Sacred Heart, Religious of the Visitation, Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, Ursuline Sisters, Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart.
The progress of the diocese is shown by the records kept of the gradual growth of population which made a great metropolis out of the small provincial city. The notable increase begins with the immigration during the canal and railroad-building period, after 1825, the exodus from Ireland following the famine year of 1847, and the German flight after the Revolutionary disturbances of 1848. In 1826 in New York City there were but three churches and 30,000 Catholics; and in the whole diocese (including New Jersey) only eight churches, eighteen priests, and 150,000 Catholics. The diocesan figures for 1850 are recorded as follows: churches, 57; chapels, 5; stations, 50; priests, 99; seminary, 1, with 34 students; academies, 9; hospital, 1; charitable institutions, 15; Catholic population, 200,000. In 1875 the increase is indicated by these figures: churches, 139; chapels, 35; priests, 300; ecclesiastical students in seminary, 71; colleges, 3; academies, 22; select schools, 18; hospitals, 4; charitable institutions, 23; religious communities of men, 17, of women, 22; Catholic population, 600,000.
In 1900 we find these totals: churches, 259 (city, 111; country, 148); chapels, 154; stations, 34; priests, 676 (regulars, 227); 112 ecclesiastical students; 60 parish schools for boys in city, with 18,953 pupils; 61 for girls, with 21,199 pupils; parish schools outside city for boys, 32, with 3743 pupils; for girls, 34, with 4542 pupils; in colleges and academies, 2439 boys and 2484 girls; schools for deaf mutes, 2; day nurseries, 4; emigrant homes, 5; homes for aged, 3; hospitals, 15; industrial and reform schools, 26; infant asylum, 1; orphan asylums, 6; total of young people under Catholic care, 68,269; Catholic population, 1,000,000. The figures for 1910 are: archbishop, 1; bishop, 1; churches, 331 (city, 147; country, 184); chapels, 193; stations (without churches) regularly visited, 35; priests,; 929 (secular, 605; regular, 324); theological seminary (Dunwoodie), 1; students, 165; students (Rome), 11; preparatory seminary, 1; students, 235; pupils in colleges and academies for boys, 3407; in academies for girls, 3812; parish schools, New York City, for boys, 90, with 27,899 pupils; for girls, 90, with 31,004 pupils; outside New York City, 58, with 6377 male pupils, 6913 female; total in parish schools, 72,193; schools for deaf mutes, 3; day nurseries, 15; emigrant homes, 5; homes for the aged, 4; hospitals, 23; industrial and reform schools, 36; orphan asylums, 7; asylums for the blind, 2; total of young people under Catholic care, 101,087; Catholic population, 1,219,920. Besides those for English-speaking Catholics, there are now churches and priests in New York for Germans, Italians, Poles, French, Hungarians, Bohemians, Lithuanians, Greek Albanese, Greek Syrians, Greek Ruthenians, Slovaks, Spaniards, Chinese, for colored people and for deaf mutes.
JOSEPH F. MOONEY.