CHAPTER XLII.

CATHOLIC.

BY REV. DENNIS A. CLARKE, A. M.

Early Missions.-The very earliest records of the Catholic Church in Central Ohio are found incorporated in the history of French Missionary Fathers of the Society of Jesus, familiarly known as "Jesuits." In pursuit of their sacred calling they penetrated the thick forests of this State and adjoining territory, and amid untold dangers, in great sufferings and with many privations, converted tribes of Indians to the Christian faith.

Under the fostering care of the French Government these zealous missionaries erected stations and gathered about them the children of a savage life, teaching them the arts of peace under the benign influence of the religion of Christ. We have no records, however, identifying the location of Columbus as a particular station of these early Missionary Fathers, but we do know that they labored in various portions of the State, their zeal carrying them beyond the paths of explorers and the courses of streams navigable by the canoe. The "black gown "- the Indian appellation of the Catholic priest was very generally known and received with great respect, and Ohio's dusky aboriginals have left evidences that the missionary's labors among them were not in vain. The languages of the different tribes and the names of localities attest the fact that the French Jesuits had influenced their manners and customs and effected a deep and lasting impression. With the advent of British explorers, however, the Catholic Missionaries from France were compelled to relinquish their established stations, and Chiefs in the interest of the English government exerted an influence that could not be overcome by the weaker power. This circumstance did not, in the least, diminish the zeal of the Jesuit missionaries, or lessen their labors of love in the cause of saving souls, for they followed their subjects to further western points, continuing among them those ministrations that had already borne such great fruit. But the work begun where the Jesuits first planted the Cross must be continued, and hence we find other missionaries soon following the paths of the earlier explorers. This time, however, they do not belong to any of the religious orders of the church, for they are "seculars," no less zealous than their saintly and learned predecessors. Among them were many apostolic men whose memories are still held in benedic

tion by the descendants of early Catholic immigrants who sought homes and fortunes within the present boundaries of our State.

The missions, or stations, in Ohio and adjacent territory came under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Carroll, the first bishop in the United States, who as a Jesuit, enthused his priests with the spirit that animated all the earlier missionaries. At stated periods of long intervals these stations were visited by the priest, whose presence was ever a source of great joy to the few scattered Catholic families, who were eager for the ministrations of their religion and the consolations they afforded. With the increase of immigration the Catholic Church grew rapidly in all the territory west of the Alleghanies as far as the Mississippi River, and the need of more missionaries and more direct episcopal jurisdiction became very pressing. Bishop Carroll had long recognized the necessity for a bishop in this vast region, and accordingly recommended the appointment of Rev. B. J. Flaget to the see of Bardstown, Kentucky, then newly erected by Rome. Bishop Flaget was consecrated in 1810, but did not make his visit to the missions of Ohio until 1812, having entered the State for the first time on the seventh of October of that year, in company with Rev. Stephen T. Badin, who was the first priest ordained in the United States. During this first journey through Ohio the good Bishop and his companion cheered the hearts of a number of Catholics whom they found in central and eastern portions of the State. Near Somerset, Perry County, containing settlers from Pennsylvania and other eastern States, they discovered a spot that Providence had evidently destined as the center of active missionary labors in Ohio. The Catholic settlers of that region, strong in the faith and zealous in its practice, as far as their forlorn condition would admit, made a deep impression on the Bishop and he promised them regular attendance of a priest as soon as he could arrange for one.

The Dominican Fathers, composing an "Order of Preachers," founded in the thirteenth century by St. Dominic, had already established a nursery of Catholicity near Doctor Flaget's see in Kentucky. Their active missionary life in that State induced the Bishop to place the Ohio missions under their charge. Very Reverend Edward Fenwick, then Provincial of the Dominican Order, resigned his office to comply with the Bishop's request, and repaired immediately to Perry County, Ohio, where he permanently founded the mission which became the "Cradle of Catholicity in the State. Here, in 1818, Father Fenwick had the happiness of dedicating in honor of St. Joseph the first Catholic church and of establishing a convent whence should go forth active missionaries to various parts of the State and surrounding regions, ministering to the Catholic families here and there, as they were to be found, and erecting at different places permanent missionary stations. Father Fenwick and colaborers visited the locality of the future capital and prepared the way for the rapid growth of the Catholic Church in this city. A witness of his great zeal and labors is found in the introduction to a baptismal register preserved in his own handwriting in St. Joseph's convent:

In the years 1817-1818, I baptized in different parts of Ohio State one hundred and sixtytwo persons, young and old, whose names and sponsors cannot now be recollected, as I was then an itinerant missionary and such persons were generally discovered and brought to me accidentally. Rev. Mr. Young, during his journey to Maryland and back to Ohio, this year of 1818, baptized about thirty persons in a similar manner. -Edward Fenwick. "Glory be to Thee, O Lord, and on earth peace to men of good will."

Father Fenwick's missionary zeal was everywhere attended by a renewal of religious fervor among the Catholic settlers and by numerous conversions to the faith. Father Dominick Young, of the same religious order, was his almost constant companion on these missionary tours.