First American-Born Priests and Catholic Religious of New England

By Roy A. Lucier

First American-born Priests and Religious in N.E.

A history of the first American-born priests and Catholic religious in the, early 1800s, when the diocese of Boston comprised all of New England. All of them were converts to the Catholic faith. There is the unique family of Virgil and Jerusha Booth Barber who separated in order to enter Catholic religious communities. Virgil, born in Simsbury, Connecticut became a Jesuit priest. Jerusha (Booth) Barber, his wife, born in Newtown, Connecticut became a Visitation sister. Their five children likewise entered religious communties. Their son, Samuel, born in Watertown, Connecicut became a Jesuit priest and later an early president of Gonzaga College. Their daughter, Josephine, born in Fairfield, New York became a Visitation sister and their other three daughters Mary, Abey, and Susan who were born in Watertown, Connecticut and became sisters in Ursuline communities in the United States and Canada.

The Rev. Virgil Barber, S.J. returned to Claremont, New Hampshire in 1823 and built the first Catholic Church in New Hampshire. He also opened the first Jesuit school in New England. In the space of but eight short years, in a town where there had been no Catholics, St. Marys Church came to number 150 parishioners who lived in the Claremont or the surrounding area. This meant that in 1826 there were more Catholics in Claremont and the surrounding area than in the entire state. Before becoming a Catholic priest, the Rev. Virgil Barber had been the second principal of Fairfield Academy at Fairfield, New York with its attached medical school, it being the fifth medical school to be established in the young nation.

There was the family of Noah and Nabby (Barber) Tyler whose son William became the first American-born born bishop in New England. Their three daughters born in Derby, Vermont or Claremont, N. H., Rosetta, Martha, and Catherine were among the very early members of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg, Maryland.

There is also the story of Fanny Allen the daughter of General Ethan Allen of Revolutionary War fame and Frances Montressor Buchanan Allen, born in Sunderland, Vermont who became the first American-born woman in New England to become a Catholic religious sister.

In Cornish, New Hampshire we have the story of Sarah Chase, the daughter of Doctor Solomon and Sarah March Chase, who became an Ursuline sister at Mount Benedict, in Charlestown, Massachusett. In the Revolution Colonel Chase served as Surgeon General to three New Hampshire regiments.

Then in Claremont, N.H. their is the story of the daughter of Colonel Joseph and Esther York Alden, Caroline Alden who also entered the Ursulime community at Mount Benedict. Her father, Joseph Alden, was a direct descendant of John Alden who came over on the Mayflower whose name was made famous by Longfellows poem of John and Priscilla and Captain Miles Standish.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 30, 2005
• ISBN: 9781465329462

Roy A. Lucier

Did undergraduate studies at St. Anselm’s College, Manchester, NH and St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO. Studied theology in the seminary at Niagara University, Niagara, NY and the seminary at Laval University, Quebec City, Canada. Took courses in the graduates schools of Social Service and Sociology at St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO.

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Copyright © 2001, 2006 by Roy A. Lucier.

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Scriptural quotations are from the New American Bible.

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Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

1     

The Catholic Church in the Early 1800s in New England

2     

The Reverend Daniel Barber Comes to the Union Church in Claremont, New Hampshire, at the Beginnings of the Town 1795-1818

3     

Virgil and Jerusha (Booth) Barber and the Find That Changed Their Lives 1795-1814

4     

Fairfield Academy and Medical College, Fairfield, New York 1814-1816

5     

Georgetown, Maryland 1817-1833

6     

St. Mary’s Church, Claremont, New Hampshire, the First Catholic Church in New Hampshire and the First Jesuit School in New England 1822-1834

7     

First American-born Native of New England to Become a Catholic Bishop First or Among the First American-born Catholic Religious of New England, and the Largest Catholic Community in New Hampshire 1818-1899

8     

Fanny AllenNew England’s First Catholic Religious Sister 1784-1819

9     

Founding of the Ursuline Community in Boston, the Burning of Mount Benedict Academy, Charlestown, and the Barber Children, Mary, Abey, Susan, Josephine, and Samuel 1826-1881

10     

Rev. Virgil Barber in Maine, Maryland, and Pennsylvania 1827-1847

11     

Sisters Augustine and Josephine Barber and Their Missions on the Banks of the Mississippiand the Gulf of Mexico 1833-1887

Sources And Bibliography

to all who answer the call of God

whose love hovered over the void

at the dawn of creation

The beginnings of Catholic life in New England as manifested in the lives of thirteen converts to the Catholic faith who were the first or were among the first American-born persons to become priests or Catholic religious in their New England states.

Foreword

I never thought that I would be writing the history of the Barber family who had lived at Claremont during the early 1800s. The thought of doing so occurred to me while looking for a material to write the one hundredth anniversary of St. Mary’s School. During this search, I came across more on the Barber family than I had thought was readily available. Until that time, I had seen only short booklets on this most unusual family. However, with time, I learned that there had been only one complete book written on the family. This book had been written by Bishop Goesbriand of Burlington, Vermont, and was printed in 1886, and it is now out of print. His book was a collection of very valuable material but written in a style that modern readers would find difficult to read. In the years that proceeded 1886, it was not easy to collect and compose material in a chronological order; now, even with a computer, it is not easy when the material that is found lacks many dates and names. However, after several years of research, writing, and extensive travel, I have a better understanding of perhaps why no full-length book had been written. My research brought me to many towns and cities in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and to sixteen libraries, some as far away as Georgetown University, Washington DC, and to St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. I traveled to eight archives such as those in Hartford and Simsbury, Connecticut, Boston, Massachusetts, while writing to others.

Mr. Theodore J. Rouillard, Sr., who was a reporter for our local newspaper, then called the Claremont Daily Eagle, had written articles over the years for the newspaper about the family and St. Mary’s first Catholic Church. In his later years, he was in the process of writing a short book about the family. His health deteriorated, and I, along with others, encouraged him to finish it. However, he was unable to complete it before he died. He never showed me the book, but I knew it would be a good one. He told me it would be about sixty-five pages.a

Writing this story of the lives of the Barber family was similar to trying to build a house out of field stones. Field stones are ill shaped and do not fit neatly together. The members of the Daniel and Virgil Barber families as well as those of Daniel Barber’s sister, Nabby (Barber) Tyler, and her children were humble people. Their quiet lives were lived for God’s eyes and not for any historical record of man. They kept no journals. The most complete record of the family was that of Josephine Barber who wrote down that part of the history of her family as told to her by her mother, at the request of Bishop Quinlan, at the time of her mother’s last illness in 1859. To this account, she added other facts that were told her by her mother over the years and was further augmented by dates and facts as her sisters and brother lived out their lives. She was the youngest member of the family and lived with her mother the longest. She was the last member of the family to die.

Other bits and pieces were gleaned from the four booklets that Daniel Barber wrote, as well as from family letters and some records where they existed. This was fleshed out by placing these facts in the historical context of the time. In an attempt to add intimate details about the lives of the members of the family, an earnest effort was made to find as many copies of family letters as possible. However, in respect to the letters that were found, one must say that letters written with a quill pen on a small sheet of paper, which when folded became the envelope, is a place where words are not wasted. Many records that would be readily available in today’s world were not available in the 1700s and early 1800s, a time where making a living was a real struggle for everyone.

In regards to the historical background, an earnest effort was made to give as accurate an account as possible. I also tried to be as accurate with less-important matters as well. In chapter 4, in the section titled The Reverend Daniel Barber, the Union Church, and Life in the Early Days of Claremont, New Hampshire, George Upham had written about boat and barge traffic on the Connecticut River; now, could this river traffic be seen by the Barber family when they traveled down Town Hill Road to the Summer Landing? Elsewhere, Upham writes about how the floods and Indian burnings in the early days kept vegetation from growing along the banks of the river.

Up to this time, almost nothing has been written about the Barber family years at Fairfield, New York. However, someone from Fairfield, New York, while looking for information on Rev. Virgil Barber, brought to my attention a book written on Fairfield Academy and other material pertaining to Virgil. Then I discovered Mrs. William Wilgus’s unpublished booklet in the Fiske Free Library. Her booklet was a most carefully researched, well-documented work of forty-five pages. It was gleaned mainly from Daniel Barber’s four booklets, along with other sources. Thus, piece by piece, as I came across other unpublished material elsewhere, the book has evolved.

The four booklets that Daniel Barber wrote—it is felt—were to explain why he became a Catholic and also perhaps to gain some income after he was no longer a minister. However, his booklets were an aggregation of scattered facts, stories, and poems. And so often, he only used a letter or two of a person’s name, with no date and only a vague reference to something, such as while on a trip. If it hadn’t been for the unpublished writings of Josephine Barber dictated to her by her mother, plus other facts told her by her mother over the years, and her other writings, large sections of this book wouldn’t exist.

In researching the lives of the members of the Barber family, I came across material on the lives of other families as well; such as that of the Chases, the Allens, the Tylers, and the Aldens, and they have, of course, been included in the book.

Included in the book are more dates and names than one might normally place in a history of this type, but it was done to save time for others who might be led to do further research in certain areas. It is hoped that the book will move certain Tyler relatives who might possess copies of two letters to come forward with copies of them, which a search did not locate. One would be a letter which Nabby Tyler must have written to her brothers and sisters telling them of the birth of her first child Rosetta. The letter would be a positive proof of what state she was born in. The other would be the letter sent by Rev. John McElroy, SJ, in July of 1839 to Bishop William Tyler on the death of his sister Rosetta (Sister Genevieve) who died on July 2, 1839, at St. John’s Institution, Frederick, Maryland. This letter might clear up some of the differing versions on the cause of her death.

This was a story that I felt needed to be told, and so it was painstakingly done over a period of several years.

Roy A. Lucier

Claremont, New Hampshire

Acknowledgments

A book dealing with persons who lived in the early days of this country, where so few records exist, is not written without the kind help of many archivists, librarians, and others who help to locate those elusive facts.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Ray and Lauretta Seabeck for interrupting their work to help in the painstaking task of copy editing and critiquing this book. Then there is Nell Bateman to thank, who furnished so much information regarding the early history of Claremont. Likewise, credit is due to Beverly Richmond for her kind help with the records of the Union Church. Thanks is owed to Edgar Boadway for the thoughtful consideration of passing on the important copies of articles from the Claremont newspaper the Spectator and the submission of a copy of Burrill’s records of the Catholic cemetery and other helpful material which he gave to me from time to time.

A very special thank is due to Mrs. Bonnie Weatherly, assistant archivist with the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg, Maryland, whose multiple researches made what we have written on the Tyler family possible. More than once, she went back to do further research. Likewise, a note of thanks is due to Mrs. Lois Martin, archivist of the Sisters of Charity at Evansville, Indiana. Most of chapter 13 of this book is due to the memorable help given by Sister Louise Gordon of the Visitation sisters, in St. Louis, Missouri, who furnished copies of much of the unpublished material written by Sister Josephine on Kaskaskia, Illinois, for the many copies of Barber family letters, and for part of an afternoon of pleasant conversation. Special gratitude is extended to Sister Margaret Elizabeth of the Sisters of Mercy of Windham, New Hampshire, who furnished the extremely important copy of the unpublished book of Sister Josephine Barber, which was not only a source of important facts, but it acted as a compass for many parts of the book.

Appreciation goes to Jane Dieffenbacher, town historian of Fairfield, New York, for the material on the Fairfield Academy, which made what we have written on the academy and medical college possible; to the staff of the Georgetown University Lauinger Library, Special Collections Division, Tricia Pyne, Scott Tylor, Jon Reynolds, and Lynn Conway, who saw that copies of the documents in the archives were made available or were copied to those who aided me when I was there; and to R. Emmett Curran, SJ, Jesuit Community archivist.

Gratitude is extended to Sister Mada-Anne Gell, VHM, of the Visitation convent at Georgetown, for pointing out to me the home of Mrs. George Fenwick, knowing its location brought better understanding to some of the facts of the book, and for her bringing to my attention the most helpful book A Story of Courage, Annals of the Georgetown Convent.

Appreciation is extended to Sister Mary Gilbert Lemieux, OSU, for part of a memorable afternoon at the Ursuline convent in Dedham, Massachusetts, and her helpful information on the beginning days of the Ursulines in Boston, and to Sister Marie Marchand, OSU, of Les Ursulines in Quebec, Canada, for her research regarding Sister Mary Barber and Sister Ursula Chase. A note of thanks is also extended to Sister Therese Pelletier, SCIM, of the Diocese of Portland, Maine, for her information on several churches. A word of thanks is extended to Kathleen Dobkins of St. John Parish, Waterbury, Connecticut, for her research on Rev. Virgil Barber and family in the parish records. I want to also thank Father Nicholas Ingham, OP, for his help on the life of Father Augustine Hill, OP, and likewise to Father David F. Wright, OP, who also helped in this matter. Credit is due to Mrs. Mozelle Booth for sending me the booklet The Genealogy of the Booth Family. Appreciation is extended to Mr. Daniel Cruson of the Newtown Historical Society for the time he spent researching the Booth family; to Robert Johnson-Lally and his search of in the records archives of the Archdiocese of Boston.

A special thanks to Mrs. Mary L. Nason, archivist of the Simsbury Historical Society, for the material she located for me when I was there; to Judith Fosher of Museum of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, and the copies she made of files which are so memorable when you are just starting your research. A note of thanks is extended to Marilyn Nagy, Colin Sanborn, and the staff of the Fiske Free Library, Claremont, New Hampshire, who are remembered for their kind assistance. Appreciation needs to be given to the support of Rev. Michael Ciullo, the pastor of St. Mary’s Church and Claire Lessard, the parish administrative assistant. Appreciation is also given to Melissa DiLeonardo who did the final job of copyediting at Xlibris. Credit is due Edgar Boadway who in reading the first printing brought attention to a few things that needed changing.

Roy A. Lucier

1     

The Catholic Church in the Early 1800s in New England

This book manifests the remarkable action of the Spirit on a small group of people in the early 1800s during the formation of the Catholic Church in New England. It is a carefully documented history of the lives of thirteen individuals from seven families whose members were the first or were among the first American-born persons to join Catholic religious communities from New England. All of them were converts to the Catholic faith.

One unique story is that of Virgil and Jerusha Booth Barber who separated in order that they might enter Catholic religious communities. They were the only known American-born family at that time in the United States to have done so. Virgil, the son of Rev. Daniel and Chloe Case Barber, born in Simsbury, Connecticut, became a Jesuit priest. Jerusha, his wife, the daughter of David and Abigail Booth, born in Newtown, Connecticut, became a Visitation nun, and all of their five children also entered religious communities. Their son Samuel, born in Watertown, Connecticut, became a Jesuit priest and the fifth president of Gonzaga College and an early vice president of Georgetown College. Their daughter Josephine, born in Fairfield, New York, became a Visitation sister and was stationed at Kaskaskia, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Mobil, Alabama. Three daughters—Mary, Abey, and Susan—born in Watertown, Connecticut, entered the Ursuline community. Mary was present at the burning of Mount Benedict Academy in Charlestown by the Know-Nothing Mob in 1834. Abey and Susan lived out their lives in Canada at Three Rivers and Quebec.

After his ordination in Boston by Bishop Cheverus in 1823, Father Virgil Barber, SJ, returned to Claremont, New Hampshire, to begin his ministry. He built the first Catholic Church in the state and opened St. Mary’s Seminary, the first Jesuit school in New England. In the space of just eight short years, in Claremont where there hadn’t been any Catholics and in a state where there had been almost none, St. Mary’s parish came to number 150 Catholics living in the town or in the surrounding area. This meant that in 1826, there were more Catholics living in this town and the surrounding area than in any other town in the state—and research leaves little doubt—and in the state as a whole. Before becoming a Catholic priest, the Reverend Virgil Barber had been the principal of Fairfield Academy and its attached medical college in Fairfield, New York. The medical college was the fifth to be established in the young nation.

Then there is the story of Noah and Nabby Barber Tyler whose son William became a priest and the first bishop of Hartford, Connecticut. Born in Derby, Vermont, he was destined to be the first American-born priest to become a bishop of a New England diocese. Their four daughters—Rosetta, Martha, Catherine, and Sarah Maria—were very early members of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg, Maryland.

From Cornish, New Hampshire, we have the story of Sarah Chase, the daughter of Dr. Solomon and Sara March Chase, who became an Ursuline sister at Mount Benedict, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. In the American Revolution, Colonel Chase had served as surgeon general to three New Hampshire regiments. He was a cousin of Salmon P. Chase who became a chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Again from Claremont, New Hampshire, comes the story of the daughter of Colonel Joseph and Esther York Alden who likewise entered the Ursuline community at Mount Benedict, Charlestown, Massachusetts. Her father was a direct descendant of John Alden who came over on the Mayflower and whose name was made famous by Longfellow’s poem about the life of Captain Miles Standish.

Along with these, there is the story of Fanny Allen, the daughter of General Ethan Allen of the Revolutionary War fame and Frances Montressor Buchanan Allen, born in Sunderland, Vermont, who became the first American-born woman in New England to become a Catholic religious sister.

All the above thirteen persons who entered Catholic religious communities in the early 1800s were converts to the Catholic faith.

2     

The Reverend Daniel Barber Comes to the Union Church in Claremont, New Hampshire, at the Beginnings of the Town 1795-1818

In the year 1795, during George Washington’s second term as president and two years after the cornerstone of the Capitol had been laid with Congress still holding its sessions in Philadelphia, the Reverend Daniel Barber came to the Union Church in Claremont, New Hampshire. The records of the Union Church show that on March 15, 1795, Barber baptized three children there. His arrival was but twenty-seven years after the selection of the first lots for the town had taken place in Winchester, New Hampshire, in 1767.

In 1741, Governor Benning Wentworth had been commissioned governor of the province of New Hampshire by King George II. Three years following this, on October 26, 1764, he placed his seal on the charter of the town of Claremont, granting the tract of land named Claremont to Josiah Willard and Samuel Ashley, along with sixty-eight others. The town consisted of 6 square miles divided into 75 equal shares of 320 acres, with 4 shares of glebe land being set aside for the mission of the Episcopal Church of England. Of the original seventy grantees, only three ever settled in Claremont, with the remaining proprietors holding out inducements to attract people from towns in Connecticut, such as New Haven, Farmington, Hebron, Colchester, and elsewhere.

Barber had come with his family from Manchester, Vermont, where he had been the rector of the Episcopal Church there for four years, his second assignment after ordination. While rector of the church in Manchester, he had been the church’s deputy to the Episcopal Church’s Convention in Arlington, Vermont, and had been its secretary from 1791 to 1794.

Daniel Barber was born in Simsbury, Connecticut, on October 2, 1756, the first son of Daniel Barber who was the son of Sergeant Thomas Barber of Simsbury, Connecticut, a member of the Standing Order parish called Hop Meadow.¹ His mother was Martha Phelps, the daughter of Jonathan and Martha (Lomis) Phelps, born on February 16, 1732 or 33, in Westfield, Massachusetts. Daniel was to be followed by nine brothers and sisters. He was a sixth-generation descendant of the Thomas Barber who had sailed from London on the Christian under the command of John White in 1635. He was one of the twenty apprentices who landed in Windsor, Connecticut, who were bound to Francis Stiles, a master carpenter, who had been contracted by Richard Saltonstall to build houses for those who were to follow.²

A year after his father’s death, Daniel, after serving as a fifer to Simsbury’s seventy-five-man militia in the Revolutionary War, at about age twenty-three, married Mrs. Chloe Case, born in 1746, the daughter of Judge John Owen and Esther (Humphreys) Owen. Chloe previously had been the wife of Captain John Case, Jr., a close friend of Daniel, who, four years before, had died of wounds received at the battle of Long Island on November 16, 1776. Three children were born to Chloe as the wife of Captain Case: Chloe, born August 16, 1770; Deziah, born September 8, 1772; and John, born September 12, 1774.

After their marriage, Daniel and Chloe remained in Simsbury for seven years, during which time three children were born to them: Trueworth, born July 26, 1781, followed by Virgil Horace on May 9, 1783, and their only daughter, Laura, sometimes called Rachel, whose birthday is unknown, but who was baptized August 6, 1786.

Daniel was raised as a member of the Congregational Church, known at that time in Connecticut as the Standing Order, of parents who were well versed in the Bible. In Daniel’s younger years, there was an incident which was to later change this. He writes about a neighbor whom he calls D. P. who had given him a book on the apostolic succession of the priesthood. This book challenged the notion that ministerial power could be granted by one person to another. Daniel had brought the book to his minister who dodged the question by saying, "There had already been enough said on the subject. Not satisfied with such a simple reply, Daniel brought the matter to another minister who told him that the first minister had said the right thing, for if he had attempted to answer the question, he would very soon have brought an old house down about his ears." Daniel could not forget the matter and wrestled with it for an entire year.

Daniel remained a faithful member of the Standing Order until he was twenty-seven. Then after a full year of prayer and reflection, he made the extremely difficult decision of joining the Episcopal Church in 1783, the year his second son Virgil was born. Daniel gave, as the reason for his decision, the issue of the succession of the priesthood.

Becoming a member of the Episcopal Church was a most difficult decision for Daniel, and he did so only after an intense struggle. Not only was this a serious religious question but it a serious social one as well, for the colonies had just ended a war with England, and now, he was joining the English Church. However, he was convinced