Report26Gleisp3336.pdf

GERMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES IN MARYLAND DURING

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

By PAUL G. GLEIS

Maryland, the "Land of the Sanc-

tuary" had, by the beginning of the

eighteenth century, lost much of her

original Catholic imprint. Only about

one-tenth of the population was Catho-

lic, while three-fourths of it was Prot-

estant. English Jesuit missionaries in

New York and Maryland in their reports

to their superiors in Europe, in the

eighteenth century, do not mention Ger-

man Catholics in Maryland until about

thirty years before the American Revo-

lution. Anti-Catholic sentiments in

Colonial times did not fail to discourage

immigration of German Catholics to

America, and to daunt the spirit of

many Catholics, yet, about 1750, there

were quite a few German Catholics in

the Middle Atlantic States.

In Maryland, also, there remained

scattered over the province some Cath-

olic Germans, although shunned and

isolated, on farms, without religious

guidance and without the comfort of

church services. It must have been

humiliating to them, that they could

not even own, in their own names, the

soil they were tilling. The acts for

naturalization passed in the years 1700-

1742 limited this privilege to Prot-

estants. At this time, religious gather-

ings of Catholics could be held only in

private. Often Catholics were not per-

mitted to worship at all, nor to have

schools.

The history of German Catholics in

Maryland begins 200 years ago. The

German Catholic colonists were mostly

ordinary folk, farmers, servants, poor

tradesmen, who were often in need of

charity, but they were capable in their

humble positions, honest, pious, con-

servative, energetic, peace-loving, re-

specting authority and public order,

and thus contributing to the common

good.

When Father Henry Neale, S.J., ar-

rived in Maryland from London, in

1740 (we learn from one of his letters,

dated April 25, 1741, Philadelphia), he

wrote of German Catholics in Maryland

as being rather numerous, but poor,

and engaged in agriculture. According

to this letter, their frugality was ex-

pected to guarantee the support of a

priest whose salary was to be twenty

pounds annually. This salary should

enable the priest to keep a horse for

riding from one farm to another over

the country. That was a little after the

time when Baltimore was founded

(1730). Father Neale met several Ger-

man Catholics in person, but deplored

his own ignorance of their language.

He therefore asked his superiors in

Europe for priests for them, and wrote

impatiently: "The German gentlemen

(two priests) are not yet arrived. Their

presence is very much wanted: My

heart has yearned when I've met with

some poor Germans desirous of per-

forming their duties, but whom I have

not been able to assist for want of lan-

guage. . . ."

In 1741 there finally arrived in Mary-

land two learned Jesuit fathers, Theodor

Schneider and Wilhelm Wappeler.

These were the "German gentlemen" to

whom Father Neale referred in his let-

ter. Father Theodor Schneider was born

in Germany, in the Palatinate, near

Speyer, in 1703. He was about thirty-

eight years old when he came to Amer-

ica. After he had held the chair of

Philosophy and Apologetics at the

Jesuit school at Liege, he became rector

of the Jesuit house of studies in the city

of Heidelberg. The faculty of philoso-

phy of the University of Heidelberg was

in charge of the Jesuit Fathers since

1716. Rev. Schneider was a member of

this faculty and in addition to being

a preacher and university professor,

commanded respect as a physician. He

was elected to the highest office of the

university, that of Rector Magnificus

[33]

for the school year 1738-1739. This

rapid rise to important positions proves

that he was an unusually gifted and

able scholar. Physically he was de-

scribed as a strong man, and this was

to his advantage in Colonial Maryland

and Pennsylvania. On September 19,

1740, he was ordered to go to America.

A few days later he departed from

Heidelberg, going by way of Cologne

and Aachen to Liege, and thence to

London to leave for Maryland in March

1741.

Why was such a brilliant, scholarly

man sent to Colonial America? The

answer probably is this: first of all,

Theodor Schneider wanted to go. He

had studied medicine with a view of

using that knowledge in foreign mis-

sions. There was, moreover, the pos-

sibility that many Catholic Germans in

America in the "Age of Enlightenment"

were falling away from the Catholic

religion. The so-called "Great Awak-

ening" of 1740-42 under Whitefield,

Tennent, and others, had its counterpart

also among Germans. The famous

Lutheran minister Mühlenberg, writing

from America to a theologian of the

University of Halle, Germany, on Au-

gust 12, 1743, stated: "There is no lack

of Atheists, Deists, Materialists, and

Free Masons. In short, there is no sect

in the world that is not cherished here."

The English Jesuits were not blind to

this serious crisis for German Catholics,

for whom they could not do much on

account of the lack of knowledge of

their language, and therefore they ap-

pealed for help and called for a man

of ability and eloquence. Thus Rev.

Dr. Schneider was selected, and he

proved himself a splendid man in his

new field of labor which was in Penn-

sylvania and in Maryland. He was es-

pecially welcome, of course, as a medi-

cal doctor, in any settlement. Being a

priest, he had to travel through the

country in disguise. He visited every

farm and settlement, and despite his ex-

tensive travels, he found time to copy

two complete missals of seven hundred

pages each. He died in 1764, after

twenty years of hard, eager toil in

Maryland and Pennsylvania, and is

buried at Goshenhoppen, now Bally,

near Philadelphia. Archbishop Carroll

praised Father Schneider as a person

of "great dexterity in business, consum-

mate prudence, and undaunted mag-

nanimity."

His friend, Father Wilhelm Wappe-

ler, was born in Westphalia, Germany,

in 1711. When he arrived in America,

in 1741, he chose as central location

for his labors, a place called Conewago.

Tradition has it that German Catholic

priests came quite early to the Germans

settling in the extensive Conewago-

Mission, close to the Susquehanna River,

after the "Digges-grant" of ten thou-

sand acres was made in 1727. Father

Wappeler, of course, travelled all over

the land, from York to Lancaster, to

Cumberland and to "Bohemia Manor."

Conewago Chapel was the parent church

from which the Catholic religion spread

over Southern and Western Maryland

and along the frontiers of Pennsylvania.

Broken in health, Rev. Wappeler was

forced to return to Europe in 1748, and

died in Bruges, Belgium, in 1781.

The gap made by Father Wappeler's

departure was filled by another able

German, Father Mathias Sittensberger

(1719-1775), whose name in America

was anglicized into "Mr. Manners." He

was born in the old city of Landsberg-

on-the-Lech, in southwestern Bavaria,

twenty miles south of Augsburg, in

1719. Coming to America in 1752,

thirty-three years of age, he went to

Conewago and into Western Maryland.

In 1764 he appears to have been ap-

pointed superior of "Bohemia Manor,"

Cecil County, Maryland. In his capacity

as superior here, he paid 260 pounds to

Rev. Mosley to cancel the debt on the

land in Talbot, Md., in 1765. His labors

in Maryland were of course similar to

those of other missionaries in the colony,

like those of Father Mosley himself at

Tuckahoe, and Father Lewis at Newton,

St. Mary's County, Maryland. He died

at Bohemia Manor, in 1775, of dysen-

tery, which then reached epidemic pro-

portions on the Eastern Shore.

Another German pioneer of the eight-

eenth century in Maryland was Father

Ferdinand Steinmeyer, who was born in

Württemberg in 1720. For a time he

was professor at the University of Frei-

[34]

burg in Breisgau. He arrived in Mary-

land in 1751 or 1752. His name was

translated (from Meyer) into "Mr.

Farmer." He, too, labored not only in

Maryland, but also in Pennsylvania. In

Lancaster, in 1756, he had a flock of

285 Germans and 109 English-speaking

Catholics scattered in the counties of

Lancaster, Chester and Cumberland,

Md., and in thirty years of travel his

fleet horse carried him over hill and

dale, over swamps and rivers to Dela-

ware and Maryland, to "Bohemia

Manor." He was in "Bohemia Manor"

in 1766, deputed to meet Father Mosley

on February 2, according to the latter's

own words. He, too, was a physician

and devoted to science, and in 1768

was made a member of the American

Philosophical Society, which surely was

a great distinction for him at a time so

hostile to his church. He corresponded

with Father Meyers in Germany, who

was astronomer to the Duke of Bavaria,

and a celebrated mathematician. He

dared to visit the battlefields, the mili-

tary camps and hospitals, during the

war of the Revolution, since there were

Catholics also among the so-called

"Hessians" and those Germans who

were serving under the French flag of

the Counts of Pfalz-Zweibrücken and

under Lafayette. His sympathies were

on the American side as he took the

oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth

of Pennsylvania in 1779. Meanwhile,

he was honored by the University of

Pennsylvania when in 1779 he was made

a trustee of that institution. After the

war, he was instrumental in inducing

Father Graessel to come from Germany

to the United States. Father Graessel

became the first coadjutor for Bishop

Carroll in Baltimore, the first of the

hierarchy of the United States. In 1747

he went to the "Bohemia Manor School"

at the time when Father Wappeler made

frequent visits there. Father "Farmer's"

(i. e., Steinmeyer's) name heads the

list of subscribers of the address of

thanks to George Washington. He died

in 1786 in Philadelphia at the age of

sixty-six.

Father Jacob Frambach was born in

1723 at Nideggen, near Jülich (Rhine-

land), Germany. He came to America

in 1757 or 1758, at first to Lancaster,

Penna., and York County, but in 1773

he seems to have gone to Frederick,

Maryland, From there he is reported to

have made missionary excursions south-

ward into Maryland and Virginia. Near

Winchester there lived (in 1743) a Ger-

man Catholic by the name of Stefan

Schmidt; several others had settled in

the neighborhood. There was no way

of knowing where German Catholics

might be found in the fertile valleys of

Western Maryland and Virginia. Father

Frambach was on the lookout for these,

of course, and tradition has it that he

was pursued and shot at several times

by bigots. One of the well-known lo-

calities visited by Father Frambach

from his church in Frederick was

Hagerstown. Jonathan Hager deeded a

Catholic graveyard over to him in 1786.

Father Frambach was also in Cumber-

land, Md., in 1780. He must have been

of powerful physique as the radius of

his missionary labors was not small in

the mountainous country. His assistant

was Father Sewall. As pastor of "St.

Stanislaus" of Frederick, Father Fram-

bach took part in the "White Marsh"

meetings of Catholic clergymen in 1783

and 1784, in Maryland. ("White Marsh"

Church is between Washington and An-

napolis.) He was also at the first Cath-

olic National Synod. He was in some

financial difficulties which were, how-

ever, settled at "White Marsh," in 1784.

He retired from Frederick, Maryland,

about 1788 and was placed on the in-

valid list, was allowed thirty pounds

annually, and went to Bohemia Manor;

after 1790, he acted as Vicar General

of Bishop Carroll; in 1794 he is men-

tioned as pastor emeritus of Frederick,

Md. He died in 1795 of fever, after

having spent 37 years of his life amidst

hardships in the missions of Maryland.

Three or four other Catholic German

pioneers of Maryland and the East

should be mentioned. Father Jakob Pel-

lentz, born at Nesenich, near Trier in

the Rhineland, in 1727, who arrived in

America in 1758, and was stationed at

Conewago until 1764, and afterwards in

Lancaster, Penna. In 1786 he figured in

the establishment of Georgetown Col-

lege and was appointed one of its direc-

[35]

tors. In 1789 he appears as a promoter

of the first Catholic Bible to be printed

in the United States, Seeing the need

of German-speaking priests, he wrote to

Germany with the result that three

priests arrived in the year 1787. In

1795 he went to Port Tobacco, Mary-

land.

Other missionaries are Father Lukas

Geissler, in America from 1769 to 1786,

born at Ehrensbreitstein-on-the-Rhein;

Father Frederick Leonard, in this coun-

try from 1760 to 1764, who died in

Port Tobacco; Father J. B. Diederick,

a Luxemburgian. The latter came to

Maryland in 1771, and was stationed

in Baltimore and Elkridge from 1775

to 1784. He died at Notley Hall, Mary-

land, in 1793.

The work of the Catholic Church in

the English Colonies in America during

this period was almost exclusively car-

ried on by English Jesuits. When the

Revolutionary War broke out, ecclesias-

tical relations between Bishop Challoner

of England, and the Catholic Church

in the Colonies came to an end. After

the Treaty of Paris in 1783, it was rec-

ognized that it would be impossible for

the Vicar-Apostolic in London to exer-

cise his jurisdiction over the Church in

the new republic, and accordingly, a

General Chapter of the American

Clergy was called at "White Marsh,"

Maryland. In 1784, John Carroll was

appointed Prefect-Apostle, and in 1789,

first Bishop of the newly created Dio-

cese of Baltimore, thereby becoming the

first Bishop of the United States. Born

at Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1735,

he, too, was a Jesuit, and a missionary

in Maryland (1779-1789). As a boy

he had attended the Bohemia Manor

School in 1747-1748, where he met Ger-

man missionaries. He died in Balti-