The Church Builder in Newark Who Became the Hero of a Willa Cather Novel

THE HISTORICAL TIMES NEWSLETTER OF THE GRANVILLE, OHIO, HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume X Number 2 Spring: 1996 THE CHURCH BUILDER IN NEWARK WHO BECAME THE HERO OF A WILLA CATHER NOVEL Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the first resident Roman Catholic Pastor of the Church of St. Luke in Danville, had the Catholic community of Newark as part of his pastoral circuit. In 1842, Lamy, who eventually became the Archbishop of Santa Fe, built the first Catholic Church in Newark and named it after one of his favorite early modern French saints, Francis de Sales. Lamy's life was fictionalized by Willa Cather in her famous American novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop. The Church-builder in Traveling from Newark to his Newark mission stop on Jug Street, Lamy who Became the Hero of a certainly must have ridden his Willa Cather Novel horse through the streets of Granville. One looks in vain, however, in Lamy's letters a n d Many of us have read Willa reports for any reference to Cather's Death Comes for t he Granville. Archbishop, which is the charming tale of Bishop Jean The Son of Clermont-Ferrand Marie Latour, the courageous clergyman of the nineteenth Jean-Baptiste Lamy was born on century American Southwest. October 11, 1814 in the village of Latour, as Willa Cather's novel Lempdes near the city of goes, was a French priest who, in Clermont-Ferrand in central the years i mmediately preceding France. First educated in his the Civil War, became the Roman village, at the age of nine he Catholic Archbishop of Santa Fe, entered the Jesuit school at Billom, New Mexico. a short distance from Clermont- Ferrand. On his eighteenth Yet few of us realize that the birthday, Lamy decided to fictionalized hero portrayed in embrace the religious vocation of Cather's famous American novel the priesthood. indeed had a real-life counterpart, Jean-Baptiste Lamy. Fewer still He matriculated at the Petite know that Lamy spent his early Seminarie of Clermont-Ferrand years in the United States as a where he undertook the classical Roman Catholic pastor and circuit course then in vogue as a rider in Knox and Licking Counties. preparation for the later Furthermore, Lamy established theological studies necessary for and built the first Church of Saint ordination as a Roman Catholic Francis de Sales in Newark. In priest. He continued his education addition, a circuit mission for at the Grand Seminarie of Mon t- Lamy was a small community of Ferrand, which was then Irish farmers living on what is administered by the members of today Jug Street in northern the Sulpician Order, historically Jersey Township in Western the group of teachers e n t r u s t e d Licking County. Eventually a with the education of future church, named in honor of Saint members of the Roman Catholic Joseph, was built on the Jug Street clergy. There, under the code of site, where today only a small strict discipline then common in burial ground and a modest Sulpician schools, the young Lamy historical marker remain. grew in knowledge, perseverance 2 and spirituality, all of which were to bode him well in his life's work. While a student at Mont-Ferrand, Lamy became a close friend with another French seminarian, Joseph P. Machebeuf. These young men became life-long friends, living and working near one another in the United States for most of their productive lives. Machebeuf was two years older than Lamy, born in Riom near Vichy on August 11, 1812. Both were from middle class French families and were accustomed to the amenities of nineteenth century French village life, so different from their nearly half century work in the United States. In Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, Machebeuf is portrayed as "Father Vaillant." Missionary Life in America While students at the Grand Joseph Machebuef as Bishop of Denver Seminarie, Lamy and Machebeuf in his later years. read voraciously about the work of their ecclesiastical comrades in apostle, Flaget undertook his the newly established republic in missionary work in Indiana, America. In 1833, both Lamy and Maryland and Kentucky for nearly Machebeuf attended a talk by the forty years, with almost a quarter then elderly Bishop of Bardstown, century administering the diocese Kentucky, Benedict Joseph Flaget, of Bardstown. At the time of h i s on the needs of the fledgling appointment as bishop in 1808, American Catholic Church. Bardstown became the administrative center for the only Flaget a half century earlier had Catholic diocese west of the been a student at Mont-Ferrand Allegheny mountains and and, in 1791, journeyed to the encompassed most of t h e new American republic in order to hardscrabble frontier of Kentucky, escape the revolutionary terror in Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan and France. A veritable frontier Ohio. 3 second Bishop of Cincinnati, following the death in 1832 of the original Cincinnati prelate, Edward Fen wick. As a missionary circuit rider in Ohio and then as Bishop of Cincinnati, Fenwick had made early visits to Licking and Knox Counties. In 1818, Fenwick established the first Roman The St. Francis de Sales Church Catholic Church in Ohio, St. Complex in 1870 indicating the Joseph's, located southeast of Church and Rectory Lamy built in Somerset in central Perry County. 1842. The Diocese of Cincinnati which Purcell inherited encompassed all In addition to Catholics from of Ohio. Purcell desperately Maryland moving west, many needed ordained clerics to help in European Roman Catholics were this vast area. beginning to emigrate to the n e w American nation, and especially to As ordained priests in the Roman the area west of the Alleghenies. Catholic Church, Lamy and The need for ordained clergy was Machebeuf were serving small almost insurmountable. The village churches in the French elderly bishop visited several countryside. But they had never European seminaries in the hope forgotten their earlier desires for that a sufficient number of young religious adventure a n d men, both priests a n d commitment in America. Both seminarians, would answer his call were deeply affected by the plea for assistance and embark on t h e of Purcell and resolved to return life of a frontier missionary priest with him to the new country and and circuit rider. work in what Purcell referred to as the vineyard of the Lord. The Influence of Bishop Purcell Crossing the Atlantic, Traversing the Alleghenies, Five years later, in 1838, the then and Going Down the Ohio bishop of Cincinnati, the energetic River thirty-nine year old John Baptist Purcell, was touring Europe Leaving France on July 8, 1839, seeking missionary circuit riders Lamy and Machebeuf, along with to help in the still pioneer country several other priests, sailed with of Ohio. Purcell was named the Purcell from the port city of Le 4 Havre, the point of departure for accustomed to their new so many Europeans emigrating to homeland. the United States. Their ship was the veteran North Atlantic wooden Within three weeks of t h e i r ship, the Sylvie de Grasse, with arrival, however, Purcell gave about sixty passengers quartered them their new ecclesiastical with Lamy and Machebeuf. Many assignments in frontier Ohio; more poorer emigrants were in Machebeuf to the northern Ohio the steerage. On their forty-third village of Tiffin with charge of day of passage, the cry of "Land! what today is known as Fremont Land!" was heard and the ship and Sandusky, and Lamy to t h e began the entry voyage into the Catholic village of Danville in Port of New York. eastern Knox County. With little time for getting used to Ohio, Purcell's party docked at the Machebeuf and Lamy were off to South Street docks, paid a quick begin their work as Roman visit to Bishop Dubois of New York, Catholic pastors and circuit riders and then journeyed to Baltimore in the Diocese of Cincinnati, which to pay their respects to the leader then encompassed all of the state of the American Catholic Church, of Ohio. Archbishop Eccleston. There they transferred from canal boat to Lamy to Danville stage coach for the long t r e k across the Allegheny Mountains to Danville is a quiet pastoral village Wheeling on the Ohio River. From nestled in the rolling countryside Wheeling, the group traveled by of Eastern Knox County. Originally steam packet down the Ohio River known as Sapp's Settlement-- to Purcell's Episcopal see city of named after its founders, George Cincinnati. Lamy and Machebeuf and Catherine Arnold Sapp, native arrived in Cincinnati on September 19, 1839, after a full two months of arduous t r a v e l from the port city of Le Harve. Once in Cincinnati, Lamy and Machebeuf thought they would have sufficient time to continue learning English, which lessons they had begun in earnest during the two month trip from France to southwestern Ohio. They also An Early Photograph showing to the hoped for time to become b e t t e r left, the Steeple of Lamy's Church and the Rectory he built in Newark. 5 Marylanders from Lord Baltimore's Catholic community, who emigrated to Knox County early in the nineteenth century-- Danville's Roman Catholic community built what was to become the seventh oldest Catholic Church in Ohio, St. Luke's, dedicated in October, 1824. Circuit Riders from the Dominican Order's Priory of St. Joseph's, founded in 1818 near the Perry County village of Somerset, t h e first Roman Catholic Church in Ohio, cared for the Danville community and the log church of St.

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