andria from Georgetown, erected a square brick building, the site being in the northwest corner of the present cemetery. This church was used for several years, but was never completed, and was finally abandoned as too remote from the city and the homes of the Catholics. This church was apparently under the direction of Rev. Mr. Neale and attended generally from Georgetown. Rev. Mr. Eden became resident pastor about 1804, and Rev. Mr. Gousy is mentioned as in charge of the Catholics of Alexandria in 1805. About four or five years after that date, Rev. Mr. Neale purchased for $900 a Methodist meeting-house on Chapel Alley, the money being raised by subscription. Here, chiefly by the pious bequest of Mr. Ignace Junigal, a church and tower were erected.'

As we have seen, the Rev. Mr. Thayer was at Alexandria in 1794, but did not remain."

In 1798 Bishop Carroll extended his visitation to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and also to Elizabethtown, twenty-five miles distant, where Father Farmer had founded in 1752 the mission of St. Peter. The Catholics here soon reared a log church on the farm belonging to Henry Echenroth. In this the faithful worshipped till Rev. Louis de Barth took charge of the mission. The congregation had increased by this time to about two hundred souls, and in 1796 Rev. Mr. de Barth secured a site for a church within the town limits. He then undertook to collect funds to erect the sacred edifice. visit of the Bishop reanimated the faithful and they proceeded energetically with the work. On the 10th of July Bishop Carroll conferred the sacraments of baptism and confirmation at St. Peter's. John Egle, one of those confirmed

The

1 Carna, "A Brief Sketch of St. Mary's Church, Alexandria, Va.," in Proceedings 4th Ann. Conv. of C. B. U. of Va., Norfolk, 1874; W. L., xiv., p. 97.

2 Bp. Carroll to Rev. J. Thayer, July 15, 1794.

DEATH OF WASHINGTON.

495

that day by the founder of the American hierarchy, was born in 1786, and lived to our days, dying on the 11th of October, 1881, his aged eyes beholding the original diocese divided and subdivided, till the hierarchy numbered fourteen archbishops and fifty-five bishops, and holy mass was said throughout the land in more than six thousand churches and chapels by as many priests.

The corner-stone of the new church was laid May 30, 1799, and though in time it proved inadequate to the wants of the Catholic body, the old shrine was respected, and an addition made.'

Bishop Carroll made another visit to Pennsylvania in the following year, as he wrote from Conewago in September.

On the death of General Washington in 1799, the Bishop issued a circular to his clergy in regard to the celebration of the 22d of February as a day of mourning, giving directions for such action as would be in conformity with the spirit of the Church, while attesting to the country the sorrow and regret experienced by Catholics at the great national loss. It has been made a question by some whether Washington died a Catholic, but Bishop Carroll certainly had no suspicion that such was the case, for he compares him to "the young Emperor Valentinian, who was deprived of life before his initiation into our church.” His own discourse, delivered on the occasion in his pro-cathedral, was regarded by all who heard it, as well as by those who read it in print, as one of the most masterly uttered on that day. Robert Walsh, a scholar of fine literary taste, says of it: "We have heard

1 Letters from S. M. Sener, Esq., who has also kindly furnished a copy of an old picture of the church. The Register begun by Rev. Mr. de Barth in 1795 is still preserved. The addition to the original church was made by Rev. M. Curran in 1834.

from some of the most intelligent and observant of his auditors, when he delivered his masterly funeral panegyric on Washington, in which he recited the terrors, the encouragements, the distresses and the glories of the struggle for independence, that he appeared to be laboring under intense emotions correspondent to these topics to be swayed like the ancient minstrel of the poet, with contagious influences, by the varied strains which he uttered." 1

The esteem and regard entertained by Bishop Carroll for Washington are shown not only in the discourse delivered after his death, but appear frequently in his correspondence. Writing to Archbishop Troy in 1794, he alluded to the

1 Circular of Bishop Carroll to his Clergy on the Death of Washington, December 29, 1799. "A Discourse on George Washington; delivered in the Catholic Church of St. Peter, in Baltimore, February 22, 1800. By the Right Rev. Bishop Carroll." Baltimore: Printed by Warner & Hanna. An oration delivered at Albany on the occasion, by Rev. Dr. Matthew O'Brien, is reprinted in "U. S. Catholic Hist. Mag.," i., p. 187.

ESTIMATE OF WASHINGTON.

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machinations of French revolutionary agents in the United States, and said: "To oppose the mischief meditated by, and fomented through the machinations of these societies, we stand in need of the firmness, the undaunted courage, the personal influence and consummate prudence of that wonderful man, our President Washington. It is impossible for a person not thoroughly acquainted with our situation, to know how much depends, at this time, on one man for the happiness of millions." 1

The next year the country was again menaced by that terrible scourge, the yellow fever, which had already swept so many away. Bishop Carroll looked with alarm at his little band of clergy, already so disproportioned to the work before them.

Of the missions in New Jersey, at this time mainly attended from Philadelphia and New York, we find few indications. The mission at Trenton was attended in October, 1799, by Rev. D. Boury, who in 1802 received into the church Cornelius Tiers, a native of New York State, who became a firm and active Catholic. Bishop Carroll, as we shall hereafter see, was called to Trenton by troubles in the congregation there in 1803. About this time Catholics seem to have met at the corner of Queen and Second Streets."

1 Bishop Carroll to Archbishop Troy, July 19, 1794.

2 Woodstock Letters, ii., pp. 173–4.

3 Raum, "History of the City of Trenton," Trenton, 1871. p. 134.

CHAPTER II.

RIGHT REV. JOHN CARROLL, BISHOP OF BALTIMORE-RIGHT REV. LEONARD NEALE, COADJUTOR, 1800-1806.

ALTHOUGH the Rev. Leonard Neale had been elected by the Holy See as coadjutor to Bishop Carroll, the bulls dispatched at that time, and subsequently in duplicate, never reached the hands of Dr. Carroll. In January, 1800, they were forwarded, for the third time, from Venice by Cardinal Stephen Borgia, and were received at Baltimore in the

summer.

It was at first proposed to fix the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin for the ceremony of consecration, but the yellow fever again broke out, and the clergy, who would have been summoned to take part in the ceremonies, were called to face death in the discharge of their sacred ministry. Bishop Carroll viewed with alarm the danger to which they were exposed. In a pastoral to his flock, he said: "It is not possible for religion to bear in its present state in our country a continuation of such heavy losses. The number of clergymen is so reduced that many numerous congregations are deprived of all spiritual assistance." If his zealous priests were cut down there would be but few to minister to those subsequently prostrated by the disease. He therefore urged on all Catholics to prepare themselves for death by approaching the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist; that, as the disease spread, the priest might be free to visit those who in health were unable to avail themselves of