BOSTON
704
BOSTON
ligious feelings of the Canadians with whom friendship
and an alliance was then being sought. The stay of
the French fleet in New England waters and the
settling of some of the allies there after the war had
ended laid the foundations of the first Catholic parish
in the heart of Xew England. There appeared in
Boston, in 1788, a Frenc-li priest who called himself
Claudius Florent Bouchard de la Poterie, "Priest,
Doctor of Divinity, Clerk, and Apostolic Missionary".
He had faculties from the prefect Apostolic, Dr.
Carroll, and aimomiced his advent in a pompous
"pastoral letter". He secured the old French Hu-
guenot church at wliat is now No. 18 School Street
and opened there on All Saints' Day, 1788, imder the
patronage of the Holy Cross, the first Catholic church
in New England. The report of the celebration of
the first Mass on that date can be read in the Boston
"Independent Chronicle", 6 November, 1788. To
the aid of this church subscriptions were received
from Canada, and the .A.rchbishop of Paris, in answer
to an appeal from the little French colony in Boston,
sent a needed outfit of vestments and vessels for the
altar. He also notified them that the Abbe de la
Poterie was an unworthy priest (Campbell in U. S.
Cath. Magazine, VHI, 102). His conduct in Boston
proved this, and the prefect Apostolic, finding he had
been imposed on, sent the Rev. William O'Brien, O. P.,
of New York to Boston to depose de la Poterie.
A violent pamplilet printed in Philadelphia (1789)
followed. It was dedicated "To the new Laurent
Ricci in America the Rev. Fr. John Carroll, Superior
of the Jesuits in the United States also to the friar-
monk-inquisitor William O'Brien", and represented
de la Poterie as a victim to their wiles.
After his suspension de la Poterie went to Canada and was succeeded in Boston by the Rev. Louis Rousselet, who was in turn suspended and went to Guadeloupe, where he was killed in a revolution. In 1790 the Catholic colony numbered less than two hundred, and the Rev. John Thayer, a convert, was sent to take charge of the church which he found "dilapidated and deserted" after his predecessor's departure. Thayer had been a Congregationalist minister, and chaplain to Governor Hancock. At the close of the Revolution, being in his twenty-sixth year, he went abroad, and became a convert in Rome 25 May, 1783. He determined to become a priest in order to labour for the conversion of New England to the Catholic Faith and was ordained at St. Sulpice in Paris, in 17S7. He returned to Boston 4 Januarj', 1790. The first of a genuine New England family to enter the priesthood, he retained much of his inherited Puritanical oppressiveness, and, as Bishop Carroll said of him, he lacked "amiable and con- ciliatorj' manners" and was not a success as an ad- ministrator. Rousselet, who did not lea\'e Boston immediately, set up a rival church and divided the little congregation, the French element siding ^ith him and the Irish with Thayer. In the spring of 1791 Bishop Carroll had to visit the parish to restore unity. He was received with courtesy by all citizens and was made the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the most important social and militarj' organization there, the Ancient and Honorable Ar- tillerj- Company. Governor Jolm Hancock attended Mass as a mark of respect for him. " It is wonderful ", the bishop ■nTote, "to tell what great civilities have been done to me in this town, where a few years ago a Popish priest was thought to be the greatest mon- ster in the creation. ... If all the Catholics here were united their number would be about one hun- dred and twenty" (V. S. Cath. Magazine, Baltimore, VIII, 149).
Father Thayer having failed as a pastor he was relieved by the Rev. Francis A. Matignon, one of the many French priests exiled by the Revolution, and to whom the Church in the United States owes so
much. Bom in Paris, in 175.3, he was ordained pries
in 1773 and taught theology in the College of Navarre
Having arrived in Boston, 20 August, 1792, he sooi
healed all the local dissensions and by his zeal, elo
quence, piety, and winning courtesy made an ini
mediate success of his pastorship. In 1796 he in
vited his old friend and associate, the Rev. Johi
Louis de Cheverus, then an exile in England, t'
Boston to help him, and to his great joy the call wa
heeded. The Abbe de Cheverus arrived on the thiri
of October of that year. He remained in Bostoi
with Father Matignon vmtil July, 1797, when h
went at Bishop Carroll's request to visit the India
missions in Maine. On his way, he looked after th
scattered Catholics between Boston and the Pt
nobscot. According to a report then made to Bisho
Carroll of the Easter Communions of 179S ther
were 210 Catholics in Boston; 15 in Phnnouth; 21 i:
Newbur j-port , and 3 in Salem. Outside Boston th
only important Catholic colony was at Damariscotta
Lincoln County, Maine, where Roger and Patric
Hanly, two Irishmen, had settled some time before
and their descendants and friends made up the com
munity. The leading merchants and shipbuilder
of Newcastle, James Kavanagh (father of Edwan
Ka\-anagh. later Governor of Maine, the hero c
Longfellow's novel "Kavanagh", and the first Cathc
lie governor of a New England State) and Matthei
Cottrill, built a chapel and later, in 1808, a brie
structure, St. Patrick's church, for the use of thei
fellow Catholics. This was the only church in Nei
England outside Boston. Having put these mission
in order Father Cheverus returned to Boston an
with Father JIatignon exhibited heroic courage an
charity during the yellow fever epidemic of 179J
By this time the old church in School Street was n
longer fit for Divine service and another site o
Franklin Street near Devonshire Street, was seciu-e
for S2,o00. Speaking at the centennial observanc
(29 September, 1903) of the dedication of this churcl
Archbishop Williams said: "We bought that Ian
from the Boston Theatre. Remember the site c
the old cathedral was in the most beautiful part of th
tovm — at the end of Franklin Square — and th
theatre o^\Tled both sides of the lower part of th
street. The theatre people agreed to sell us that Ic
at one-half what they could get for it when we bougl
it. And remember in that street in those days wer
some of the principal families of the city. I remen
ber the Bradleys, the Wigglesworths. the Amory
and others who lived each side of the street, showin
what a choice spot it was and one of the select street
of the city." The Spanish consul-general, Don Jua
Stoughton, father of the Don Tomas Stoughton, wh
had so much to do with the building of St. Peter'
the first church in New York, lived opposite the sit
selected. .A.t a meeting held 31 March. 1799, he an
John Magner, Patrick Campbell, Michael Burn:
Owen Callahan, John Duggan, and Edmund Connc
were named the committee to take charge of the nc
project. From the congregation they collecte
S16.000. Members of the leading Protestant familic
headed by President John Adams added SI 1,000 t
this, and from Catholics in other places and othc
sources .?5,500 more was received. The famov
architect Charles Bulfinch. also a Protestant, wh
designed the capitol at Washington and the Stat
House in Boston, supplied the plans without chars
for a brick building 80 feet long and 60 wide of loni
style, severely simple but impressive. Ground w£
broken for it on St. Patrick's Day ISOO and it \vs
ready for dedication 29 September, 1803, havin
cost S20,000. Prominent among this first congrc
gation, besides those already mentioned, were Jam(
Kavanagh, John Ward. David Fitzgerald, Stephe
Roberts, John DriscoU, William Daly, Daniel Englisl
Thomas Miu-phy, Jolm Hanly, Abraham Fittoi
