Church: Part 1- Pages 1-54: History of St. Augustine's Parish, St. Augustine, Cambria Co, PA

Transcribed and submitted for use in the USGenWeb archives by:
  Judy Banja 
Every attempt was made to preserve the exact spellings and typographical
errors of the original, without the addition of new typographical errors.

************************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE:  These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in
any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons.  Persons or organizations desiring to use this material,
must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal
representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb
archivist with proof of this consent.
************************************************************************

                                 HISTORY
                                   OF
                          ST. AUGUSTINE'S PARISH

                        St. Augustine, Dysart P. O.
                          Cambria County, Penna.

                              Published by
                        The New Guide Pub. Co. Inc.
                                  1922

                                 ERRATA

   While there were no errors of orthography or punctuation in the manuscript
except the incorrect use of an apostrophe in the plural word Bishops, yet it
was the fault of the compiler, who read the proof, that they escaped his notice.
   The following are those noticed: On page 42 read "Defence" for "Defense;"
on page 50 read "wandering" and not "wondering;" on page 52, the surname
should have been Blaisdell; on pages 93 and 120, "Dumphy" was "Dunphy;" in
another place an apostrophe incorrectly appears in the plural years; in
official report of death of Arthur McGough, page 105, "Hers." should have
been "Hqrs." Other typographical errors may have escaped notice.
   Errors of fact: Date when Capt. John Barry raised flag on Alliance should
have been 1777; on page 91, for Charles Douglass read Joseph Douglass; on
page 109, read Sr. Immaculata; date of first interment in cemetery, 
February 5, 1845.
A couple of repetitions which should have been "killed" were overlooked.

                               INSCRIPTION.

   To the Right Reverend John J. McCort, Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona and
the Right Reverend, Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy of the Diocese, this
work is respectfully inscribed by
                                                THE COMPILER.

                              ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

   The compiler of this work gratefully acknowledges the valuable assistance
and encouragement he has received which have much aided him to make this
history of the parish, notwithstanding its imperfections, far more
interesting than it could otherwise have been. Besides the generous
encouragement extended by all the members of the congregation, the following
persons are deserving of especial mention: Rev. Father Joseph H. Farran,
rector of the parish; his brother Rev. Father Pollard W. Farran, of
Frugality, who during the absence in Europe of the former, rendered every
possible assistance; Rev. Father Ferdinand Kittell, of Loretto; Rev. Father
John V. Byrne, of Revloc; Msgr. Martin Ryan, of Pittsburgh; Rev. Father
Garret B. Welch, of St. Joseph's church, Portage; Messrs. Joseph Zerbe,
Theodore Storm, Patrick Mulligan, Sergeant James A. Wharton, Joseph Hoover,
L. A. Burgoon, Richard Delozier, Mrs. Mary E. Dunegan and Mrs. Margaret
Brooks, all of the parish; Sr. Martina McCans, of the Order of Charity,
Altoona; Mrs. Margaret Mary Delozier, of 1510 Second Avenue, Altoona; Mr.
John Martin, of Washington Avenue, Altoona; County Commissioner Dwight
Roberts, of Johnstown; and to P. J. Little, Esq., of Ebensburg, for his very
valuable and voluntary assistance in helping to search the county records for
important data used in the compilation of the work. Also to Miss Vesta
McDermott, the competent organist of St. Augustine's church, for typewriting
much of the manuscript.

                                                THE COMPILER.

                                 PREFACE

   The Author, having been engaged by the Reverend Father Joseph H. Farran,
the Rector, to compile with his assistance and that of his brother, the
Reverend Father Pollard W. Farran, Rev. Father Ferdinand Kittell, of Loretto,
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Martin Ryan, of Pittsburgh, the oldest living pastor of the
church, the neighboring priests and many of the present and some of the past
members, a historical sketch intended as a Souvenir of the Diamond Jubilee of
the Parish of St. Augustine which-occurs during the present year, respectfully
submits the result of humble, but arduous and devoted efforts to present a
comprehensive historical sketch of a parish which has had a glorious past, is
now enjoying a present as glorious, and will, we hope, be blessed with a
future even, if possible, more glorious, until Time shall be no more and its
many worthy members and pastors shall be found on the right hand of the Just
Judge and hear the happy sentence, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess
the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world."

                                                THE COMPILER.

[Page 5 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

                            Saint Augustine

                       PATRON SAINT OF THE PARISH

   St. Augustine, or Austin, once a great libertine and heretic, but after
his conversion in answer to the prayers of his holy mother, St. Monica, one
of the most learned and holy Doctors of the Church, was born on the thirtieth
day of November, A. D. 354, at Tagasta, in Numidia, in Africa, not far from
Hippo, of parents in moderate circumstances but not rich. His father,
Patricius (Patrick), was an idolater, but through the persistent prayers of
his wife was baptized a Christian shortly before his death. St. Monica, his
mother, was one of the most devoted and holy mothers known in the annals of
the Church.
   St. Augustine writes of one brother, Navigius, who had a family, and of a
sister who was an abbess.
   Augustine was very talented but vain and sensual. His father, recognizing
his talents, became imbued with the ambition to make of him a great scholar
and sent him to the best schools in Tagasti, and finally sent him to
Carthage, to a higher institution of learning, and although he was at first
somewhat indolent, through vanity to surpass his fellow, students, he finally
became a finished scholar which was of much use to him and to the Church after
his conversion. His mother more solicitious  for his eternal welfare than for
his temporal success, had carefully instructed him in his religion and taught
him his prayers; and he became a catechumen; and while going to school he
became dangerously ill and desired to be baptized, but growing better, the
administration of the Sacrament was deferred lest he should stain his
baptismal innocence by falling into sin. This ancient custom of deferring
baptism for fear that the recipient would fall into sin before he fully
realizes the great importance of the Sacrament, St. Augustine afterwards
denounced as an evil, and the Church long since ordered baptism to be
administrated in infancy to the children of Catholic parents.
   Augustine finally became an accomplished orator. Unfortunately, in his
sixteenth year had fallen into sensuality

[Page 6 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

and afterwards into the Manichean heresy; and although a companion who
belonged to that sect had been, during an attack of sickness, converted to
the Church, upon the convalescence of the sick man Augustine railed him about
his course and only desisted when told by the young convert that if he
persisted in his raillery, he would fly from him. The young man having taken
a relapse and having died a pious death, this circumstance had some effect
upon the surviving friend of the deceased.
   A biographer of Augustine says: "In his twentieth year, to ease his mother
of the charge of his education, he left Carthage, and returning to her, set up
a school of grammar at Tagasti; but she, who was a good Catholic, and who
never ceased to weep and pray for his conversion, forbore to sit at the same
table, or eat with him, hoping that by this severity and abhorrence of his
heresy, to make him enter into himself. Some time after, finding her own
endeavers to reclaim him unsuccessful, she repaired to a certain bishop, and
with tears besought him to discourse with her son upon his errors. The
prelate excused himself for the present, alleging that her son was as yet
unfit for instruction, being intoxicated with the novelty of his heresy and
bloated with conceit, having often puzzled several Catholics who had entered
the lists with him, and were more zealous than learned. 'Only pray to our
Lord for him,' said he, 'your son will at length discover his error and
impiety.' She still persisted, with many tears, importuning him that he would
see her unhappy son; but he dismissed her saying, 'Go your way, God bless you;
it cannot be that a child of those tears should perish,' which words she
received as an oracle from heaven."
   Once more Augustine left Tagasti and returned to Carthage; but disgusted
with the disorderly behavior of the students of that city went to Rome; but
on account of the dishonesty of the students there in changing masters to
cheat them of their salary, he went to Milan, of which see St. Ambrose was
the bishop, and here, in 386 occurred his conversion, he being then in his
thirty-second year.
   Finally, Augustine became disgusted with the Manichean doctrines and the
misrepresentation of Catholic teachings by teachers of that sect; and the
voice of the Holy Ghost appeared to speak to him in spirit and call him to a
life of chastity. After frequently reproaching himself for

[Page 7 - History of Parish of 5t. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

his cowardice and procrastination he appeared to hear from a neighboring
house the voice of a child singing, "Tolle Lege ! Tolle Lege !" (Take up, and
read: Take up and read"); and going some distance where his friend, Alipius,
had left a book of the Epistles of St. Paul, he picked it up, opened it and
read: "Not in reveling and drunkenness; not in chambering and impurities, not
in strife and envy; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provision for the flesh and its concupiscences."
   The procrastination of Augustine who, at one and the same time, longed for
repentance, yet still clung to sin was severely commented upon by himself in
words to the effect that he desired to be converted; but not yet for a while.
   These words touched his heart. His conversion was complete. He shut the
book, having put a mark upon the place and with a calm and serene countenance
told Apilius what had passed in his soul. Alipius desired to see the passage
he had read, and found the next words to be: "He that is weak in faith take
unto you;" which he applied to himself. Being of virtuous inclinations, and a
sweet disposition, he readily joined his friend in his good resolution. They
immediately went and told the good news to St. Monica, who was transported
with joy. She had followed her son into Italy, and came to him at Milan soon
after he had abandoned the Manichean heresy, and before he embraced the
Catholic faith, for which happiness she continued to pray, and for his
perfect conversion from vice and irregularities till she saw both accomplished.
   The person who indited the foregoing quotation closed a lengthy
dissertation on the danger of being in bad company by the following:
   "This company, this fond affection, this sacret  envy appears light at
first, but nothing is so rapid or so violent as the progress of vice."

"He that once sins, like him that slides on ice, 
Goes swiftly down the slippery ways of vice; 
Though conscience checks him, yet those rubs gone o'er 
He slides as smoothly, and looks back no more."

           The Beginning of the Christian Life of St. Augustine.

   Shortly after his conversion Augustine, or Austin, gave up his school of
oratory and retired with his mother, St. Monica, his brother, Navigius, his
son, Adeodatus, St. Alipius, his chief confidant, Trigitius and Licentius, two of

[Page 8 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

his scholars and his cousins, Lastidianus and Rusticus, and entered upon a
penitential retreat, and the education of those with him who were students.
   To prepare for Baptism, which, on account of his irregular life had never
been administered, Austin went to Milan where with his son, Adeodatus, then
fifteen years of age, and his friend, Alipius, he was baptized by St.
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan on Easter eve, 387.

                           Death of St. Monica.

   The mother of St. Augustine did not live long after his baptism. She died
on the 13th of November, 387, at Ostia, where her son was on the point of
sailing back to Africa with her and several of his friends, his purpose being
to live a life of solitude and retirement.
   St. Augustine then went back to Rome where he remained until the following
year, when he went back to Africa, landing in Carthage, September, 388, and
returning with his companions to his own house, lived there for three years
in meditation and good works. He settled his paternal estate on the church at
Sagasti on condition that the Bishop should furnish a yearly stipend for the
support of himself and his son amongst their religious brethren. All things
were in common in their house, and were distributed according to the
necessities of each, no one among them having anything at his disposal. The
religious order of the hermits of St. Austin dates its foundation from this
epoch, in 388. "He was ordained to the priesthood against his protest by
Valerius, Bishop of Hippo, about the end of the year of 390. The disorders of
his youth would have prevented his becoming a priest had it not been that he
received Baptism after having committed them.
   Adeodatus the natural son of the saint in his sinful days, died a happy
death while yet a young man. He had been the object of the tender solitude of
his father.
                  St. Augustine Becomes Bishop of Hippo.

   Rev. Alban Butler's "Lives of the Saints," from which work, which should
be in every Catholic home, this biographical sketch is condensed, says of the
elevation of St. Augustine to the Episcopacy: "Valerius, finding himself
sinking under the weight of his years and infirmities, and fearing lest his
church should be deprived of Austin by

[Page 9 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

some other city demanding him for their Bishop, procured privately the
consent of Saint Aurelius, Archbishop of Carthage, and the approbation of his
own people, and the neighboring prelates of his province of Numidia, to make
St. Austin his Coadjutor in the bishopric. Saint Austin strenuously opposed
the project, but was compelled to acquiesce in the will of Heaven, and was
consecrated in December, 395, having in November entered into the
forty-second year of his age. Valerius died the year following.
   "St. Austin in his new dignity was obliged to live in the episcopal house,
both on account of hospitality and for the exercise of his functions. But he
engaged all the priests, deacons and subdeacons that lived with him, to
renounce all property, and to engage themselves to embrace the rule he
established there; nor did he admit any to Holy Orders who did not bind
themselves to the same manner of life. Herein he was imitated by several
other bishops, and his was the original of "Regular Canons," in imitation of
the apostles. Possidius tells us that the saint's clothes and furniture were
modest but decent - not slovenly. No silver was used in his house except
spoons. His dishes were of earth, wood or marble. He exercised hospitality,
but his table was frugal; besides herbs and pulse, some flesh was served up
for strangers and the sick; nor was wine wanting; but a quantity was
regulated which no guest was ever allowed to exceed. At table he loved rather
reading or literary conferences than secular conversation, and, to warn his
guests to shun detraction, he had the following distitch written upon his
table:

   "This board allows no vile detractor place,
   Whose tongue shall charge the absent with disgrace."

St. Augustine would never talk to women except in the presence of a third
person; nor were women - not even his sister who was an abbess and his two
nieces who were nuns in her community - allowed to converse in his house. He
said that though no sinister suspicion could arise from the conversation of a
sister or a niece, yet they would be sometimes attended or visited by others
of their sex. He disengaged himself as much as possible from purely temporal
affairs that he might the better attend to things spiritual and to matters of
doctrine by which course the Church has profited much; for of all the Doctors
of the Church, there was none greater than he. He was doubtless one of

[Page 10 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

the most learned from the time of St. Paul to the fifth century, and his
writings were more numerous than those of any of his predecessors since St.
Paul's had been; and they were sources of inspiration and imitation for later
doctors, such as St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelic Doctor), and others.
   Because the subject matter of St. Augustine's controversy with St. Jerome
is not generally understood in its true light the following quotation is
taken from the introduction to Butler's account of this incident: "We have a
remarkable instance of St. Austin's meekness and humility in his controversy
with St. Jerome. The later in his exposition of the epistle of St. Paul to
the Galations, had explained the passage of his withstanding St. Peter for
withdrawing himself from the table of the Gentiles upon the arrival of Jewish
converts as if it had been a mere collusion between the Apostles to prevent
scandal to either party, and as if St. Paul did not think St. Peter in any
fault; because he allowed the observance of such legal ceremonies at that
time no less than St. Peter did.  St. Austin in 395, being only a priest,
wrote to St. Jerome against this exposition, showing that though the Apostles
agreed in doctrine, yet in this action of St. Peter there was certainly on
indiscretion of inadvertence which gave the Gentile converts an occasion of
scandal; and that if St. Paul did not blame him seriously he must have been
guilty of an officious lie (which cannot be denied), and by admitting such a
fallacy any passage in the scripture might be alluded to in a like manner.
   "St. Jerome afterwards tacitly came over to St. Austin's opinion."
   That there was no question of doctrine involved in this "withstanding of
St. Peter to his face" by St. Paul is evident by another occurrence when St.
Peter decided the question of the circumcision of converts. In this latter
case, St. Peter acted in his prerogative of infallibility, and none of the
Apostles even thought of opposing his decision, which conclusively shows that
the prerogative of papel infallibility was in the infancy of Christianity, as
it is now, by all Roman Catholics, believed and accepted by the Apostles.
   The writings of St. Augustine are voluminous. His "Confessions"
elaborately detail the unbounded mercy of

[Page 11 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

God in waiting for a quarter of a century for his conversion; and also the
efficaciousness of the persistence in prayer of his mother, St. Monica. His
opinions on matters of conduct and discipline of ecclesiastics and people are
most valuable; and the great services he rendered to religion in his writings
against the Arian, Nestorian, Manichaean, Donatist and other early heresies
are appreciated at their full merit by God alone. Like St. Paul, he was once
a great sinner; and like St. Paul, he became, after his conversion, one of
the greatest Apostles and doctors of the Church. He hid attended councils
against the heretics, and about the year of 407 a council at Hippo challenged
the Donatists to dispute with Catholic doctors matters doctrine; but they
declined, urging as their excuse the superior eloquence of St. Austin.
   In his last illness, says Butler, "he ordered the Penitential Psalms of
David to be written out, and hung in tablets on the wall of his bed. Not to
be interrupted in these devotions, he desired about ten days before his
death, that no one should come to him except at those times when either the
physicians came to visit him, or his food was brought to him. This was
constantly observed, and all of the rest of his time was spent in prayer.
Though the strength of his body daily and hourly declined, yet his senses and
intellectual faculties continued sound to the last. He calmly resigned his
spirit into the hands of God, from whom he had received it, on the 28th of
August, 430, after having lived seventy-six years, and spent almost forty of
them in the labors of the ministry. He made no will; for this poor man of
Christ had nothing to bequeath. He had given charge that the library which he
had bestowed on his church should be carefully preserved.
   Possidius adds, "We being present, a sacrifice was offered to God for his
recommendation and so he was buried in the same manner as St. Austin mentions
to have been done for his mother." The same author tells us that, whilst he
lay sick in bed, by the imposition of his hands he restored to health a sick
man, who, upon the intimation made to him in a vision, was brought to the
saint for that purpose; and he says: "I knew both when he was priest and when
he was Bishop, that being requested to pray for certain persons that were
possessed, he had poured out prayers to our Lord, and the devils departed
from them." An authentic account of several other miracles with which he

[Page 12 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

was favored by God, may be read in his life compiled by the pious and learned
Mr. Woodhead. It was ascribed to his prayers that the city of Hippo was not
taken in that siege which the barbarians raised after having continued it for
fourteen months. Count Boniface afterwards hazarded another battle, but with
no better success than before. He therefore fled into Italy, and all the
inhabitants of Hippo withdrew into foreign countries, abandoning the empty
town to the barbarians who then entered and burnt it. The saint's body which
was buried in the church of peace (called St. Stephen's, since St. Austin had
deposited a portion of that martyr's relics in it in 424, was respected by the
barbarians, though they were Arians; and his library escaped their fury. Bede
says in his "True Martyrology," that the body of St. Austin was translated
into Sardina, and in his time redeemed out of the hands of the Saracens, and
deposited in the church of St. Peter at Pavia, about the year 720. Oldrad,
Archbishop of Milan, wrote a history of his translation by Charlemagne,
extracted from authentic archives then kept at Pavia. He says that the
bishops who were banished by Huneric into Sardinia took with them these
relics about fifty years after the saint's death; and that they remained in
that island until Luitprand, the pious and magnificent king of the Lombards,
procured them from the Saracens for a great sum of money. He took care to
have this sacred treasure hid with the utmost care under a brick wall in a
coffin of lead enclosed in another of silver, the whole within a coffin of
marble, upon which in many places was engraved the name Augustinus. In this
condition the sacred bones were discovered in 1695. They were incontestably
proved authentic by the Bishop of Pavia, in 1728, whose sentence was
confirmed by Pope Benedict XIII in the same year, as is related by Fontanini
in an express dissertation, and by Fouron in his life of that Pope. The
church of St. Peter in Pavia from this treasure is now called St. Austin, and
is served both by Austin Friars and by Regular Canons of his rule. His
festival is mentioned in the Martyrology which bears the name of St. Jerome,
and in that of Carthage as old as the sixth century. In the life of St.
Caesarius, written in that age it is mentioned to have been then kept with
great solemnity. It is a holy-day of obligation in all the dominions of the
king of Spain. A general council being summoned to meet at Ephesus against
Nestorius in 431, the emperor, Theodosius, sent a

[Page 13 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

particular rescript, by a special messenger into Africa, to invite St. Austin
to it; but he was departed to eternal bliss.
   This saint was not only the oracle of his own times, but of the principal
among all the Latin Fathers that came after him, who often have only copied
him, and always professed to adhere to his principles: Peter Lombard, St.
Thomas Aquinas and other eminent masters among the school men have trodden in
their steps. The councils have frequently borrowed the words of this holy
doctor in expressing their decisions. On the great commendations which
Innocent I, Celestine I, St. Gregory the Great, and other popes and eminent
men have bestowed of his doctrine, see Orsi, Gordeau, Massouli, Gonet, Usher
and innumerable others. An abstract of his doctrine is given us by Ceillier,
and in a judicious and clear manner by the learned Mr. Brerelie in a book
entitled "The Religion of St. Augustine," printed in 1620. He shows how great
was the veneration which the first reformers generally expressed for this
father. Luther affirms that since the Apostles' time the Church never had a
better doctor than St. Austin, and that after the sacred scripture there is
no doctor in the Church to be compared to Austin. Dr. Coeul says that he was
a man far beyond all that ever were before him, or shall in liklihood follow
him, for divine and human learning, those being excepted that were inspired.
Dr. Field calls him "the greatest of all the Fathers, and the worthiest
divine of the Church of God ever had since the apostles' time." Mr. Forester
styles him "the Monarch of the Fathers." To mention one of our own times, the
learned and most celebrated professor at Berlin, James Brucker, in his
"Critical History of Philosophy," extols exceedingly the astonishing genius
and penetration, and the extensive learning of this admirable Doctor, and
tells us he was much superior to all the other great men who adorned that
most learned age in which he flourished. The same author, in his "Abridgment
or Institutions of the Philosophical History," calls him "the bright star of
philosophy." These testimonies agree with that of Erasmus, who calls St.
Austin "the singularly excellent Father, and the chief among the greatest
ornaments and lights of the Church." "Eximius pater, inter summa ecclesiae
ornamenta ac luminia princeps."
   This was not the St. Augustine known as the "Apostle of England."

[Page 14 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

                    History of St. Augustine's Parish
                          St. Augustine, Penna.

                              FIRST EPOCH.

The Introduction of Catholicity Into This Section by Captain Michael McGuire and 
His Cousin Michael McGuire - Visits of Catholic Priests - The Advent of
Father Gallitzin, "Prince-Priest and Apostle of the Alleghenies" -
Sketch of Father Gallitzin.

   Although Father Gallitzin is styled "Prince-Priest and Apostle of the
Alleghenies," and founder of St. Michael's Parish, Loretto, and also of the
town of Loretto, it was Captain Michael McGuire, a brave soldier in the
Maryland contingent in Washington's army during the Revolutionary War, and
possibly, a commander in Colonel Stephen Moylan's Maryland Riflemen, who
notwithstanding that it was a violation of the Puritanical laws of the colony
of Massachusetts for Catholics to enter the province, went to the aid of
Colonel Prescott, on that eventful seventeenth day of June, 1775, arriving,
after a forced march through Pennsylvania and New York, on the morning of
that day, when they were assigned to a position behind the rail fence which
ran from the redoubt on Breed's (not Bunker) Hill down to the Mystic River,
and did terrible execution on the ranks of the advancing British as did those
within the redoubt until after the second repulse of the redcoats the
ammunition of the patriots gave out and they were forced to retreat, and his
nephew, Michael McGuire, came in 1787, according to a history of Cumberland
County, and having built cabins to house their families, moved from Maryland
the following year to a sheltered location to the eastward of the present
town of Loretto.
   A priceless relic of the Revolutionary War, and also of the War of 1812,
is the sword worn by Captain Michael

[Page 15 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

McGuire in the former war, and by his son, Captain Richard McGuire, in the
latter war. This sword made of the best of steel with a substantial and
ornate hilt, now in the possession of the venerable Mr. Joseph Zerbe, a great
grandson of Captain Michael McGuire, who lives near St. Augustine, from whom
money cannot buy this precious heirloom descended from patriotic ancestors.
   The McGuires were devout Catholics and were visited, probably at irregular
intervals, by priests from Connewago. Captain Michael McGuire died on Nov.
17th, 1793, and his was the first corpse interred in St. Michael's cemetery,
the nucleus of which was blessed by Father Stephen Badin, probably at or
about the time of the funeral.
   We have undoubted evidence that at least one other priest visited the
McGuire colony before Father Gallitzin, in two receipts furnished by the late
Squire E. R. Dunegan of St. Augustine to Raymond J. Kaylor, and by him
published in the Cambria Tribune, of which he was Editor, October 29th, 1889.
A copy of the receipts are here reproduced
   "I received from Mrs. Rachael McGuire a dollar for her part of the sum
that ought to be spent in buying a horse for the priest serving the parishes
of Huntingdon, Sinking Valley, Allegheny, Path Valley, etc.
                                                "LEWIS SIBOURD, Priest."
"Allegheny, December 15th, 1794."
   "I have received from the inhabitants over Allegheny the sum of Sixteen
dollars for my maintenance for six months.
                                                "LEWIS SIBUORD, Priest."
"Allegheny, June 6th, 1795."

   It is a singular fact that in the Fort Stanwix purchase of 1768 the
stipulated consideration was $10,000; the reward offered by Gov. John Penn in
1764 "for an Indian enemy taken prisoner, $150.00; for an Indian enemy killed,
being scalped, $134.00; for a female Indian enemy taken prisoner, $130.00; for
a female Indian enemy killed, being scalped, $100.00, and smaller sums for
Indian enemies over 10 years of age, the later United States currency was
expressed, even down to the year of 1812, and accounts were kept in pounds,
shillings, pence and farthings and even after the currency of the country
came into general use and the

[Page 16 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

dollar ($) mark was used the cents were marked by an h after them for
hundredths at least down to about 1835.

            Father Gallitzin Comes to the McGuire Settlement.

   During the year 1796 Mrs. John Burgoon, a non-Catholic, having become sick
with what she feared to be a fatal illness and desiring, through the grace of
God to die within the fold of the Catholic Church, asked for a priest to
prepare her for death and Mrs. Luke McGuire, whose maiden name was O'Hara,
and another lady, set out on horseback through the wilderness to Conewago,
130 miles distant, to ask a priest to come to the settlement on this mission
of mercy. A priest then known as the Reverend Mr. Smith, now revered as
Father Gallitzin, returned with them, received the sick woman into the
Church; but she did not then die, but lived for many years afterwards.
   "Father Smith" made several visits to the settlement and being impressed
with the sublime solitude of the place with its dense forests of lofty pines,
its fertile soil and pure water deemed it a suitable place to locate a
Catholic colony to get people of his faith away from the temptations and
dangers of towns and cities, asked permission from his ecclesiastical
superior, Rt. Rev. John Carroll, first Bishop and afterwards first Archbishop
of Baltimore and the entire United States, for permission to locate in this
settlement, and in answer to his request, the good Bishop, ever his firm
friend, after stating that he had intended to give him a more important
mission, granted the desired permission; and about the middle of July, 1799,
the future Apostle of the Alleghenies, arrived at the McGuire settlement and
availing himself of the bequest of the late Captain Michael McGuire of 400
acres of land for the use of the Church, immediately commenced the erection
of the church of pine logs, chunked and daubed, with a roof of pine shingles,
25 by 40 feet in dimensions, and everything having been completed, the little
church decorated with festoons of evergreens, it was on Christmas morning,
1799, the last year but one of the eighteenth century, blessed by the pastor
under the protection and patronage of Blessed Michael the Archangel and under
the title of St. Michael's, the parish still exists although for some years it
was called St. Mary's, but its really only canonical name was restored to it
by the late Very Rev. Father E. A. Bush, when pastor of the parish.

[Page 17 - History of Parish of 5t. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

        Biographical Sketch of Rev. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin.

   Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin was the only son of Prince Dimitri
Gallitzin, of Russia, and his wife Amalia Von Schmettau Gallitzin, daughter
of Marshal Von
Schmettau, a noted Prussian General in the service of Frederick the Great.
   The Golizins or Gallitzins were for centuries a noted family of Russia,
famed for their military achievements, and were far superior in
intellectuality to the Romanoffs, or Romanzoffs, the then, and until
recently, the reigning family of Russia. "They were not," says a biographer
of "Doctor" Gallitzin, probably one Samuel Riddle, Esquire, a great admirer
although a Protestant, of Father Gallitzin, "of Slavic but of Asiatic
origin." They were feared and hated by the Romanoffs and one of them was
banished from Russia by Peter the Great for fear that he would marry Princess
Anna, a sister of Peter, and supplant him in the Czardom. Another of them - a
noted military commander, as most of them were - at one time with a military
force, drove off a horde of Turks who were besieging a convent of Nuns on the
southern confines of Russia, in gratitude for which service which saved the
community from a fate worse than death, the abbess presented the rescuer with
a silver reliquary containing a piece of the cross upon which Christ was
crucified. Of that reliquary, more further on.
   Prince Dimitri (Dimitri is Russian for Demetrius), having been appointed
by his government ambassador to Holland, stopped in 1769, on his way to the
Hague to assume the duties of his office, in Berlin, at the court of the king
of Prussia, Frederick the Great, and having there met the daughter of Marshal
Von Schmettau - Amalia - and being captivated by her charms, for she was both
beautiful and cultured, sought and obtained her hand in marriage and with her
proceeded to the Hague where the subject of this sketch was born in November,
1770, and two years later a sister - Marianna, or Mimi - was also born.
   Prince Dimitri, being, if he believed in Christianity at all, a member of
the schismatic Orthodox Church of Russia, and his wife probably leaning to a
branch of the Lutheran denomination, if, in fact, she was not a skeptic of
the school of Voltaire and others of that ilk, the home of the Gallitzin's
could not, according to the biographer from whom I quote, be called a
Christian home. The subject of religion was

[Page 18 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

never mentioned, and there was no religious literature to be found in the
Gallitzin library. The secular education of the children was, however, the
object of the anxious solicitude of both parents. The young Demetrius was
highly educated in the arts and sciences, particularly in the military
science and in the languages; but there was, fortunately, in his inmost soul
an intense longing for the spiritual; so having one day seen on the shelf of
a bookstore a Douay Catholic Bible, he purchased it and was not content until
he had become thoroughly familiar with its contents, and the result was his
acceptance of the faith of the Roman Catholic Church, and the conversion to
that faith, also, of his mother and his sister, the former of whom became an
ardent propagandist of religion and her son long afterwards said that it was
owing to her efforts that Count Von Stolberg was converted to the Roman
Catholic Church.

              The Evolution of the Apostle of the Alleghenies.

   In the year 1789, that political and social upheaval known in history as
the French Revolution, broke out in all its fury. The common people, goaded
to madness by the merciless exactions of "the farmers general," a corporation
which bought at a reduced rate the taxes levied by the extravagant Bourbon
monarchs and collected them in full from the distressed peasantry, having
appealed to the Minister of State - Foulon - for redress so that they might
not starve, and having been told by that heartless official to go and eat
grass, on the next day, or September 2, 1789, the Bastile, where political
prisoners were kept, was demolished, its inmates liberated and Foulon was
hanged on a gibbet. Eventually, Louis XVI, a well meaning but vacillating
monarch, and his amiable queen - Marie Antonnette - were led to guillotine as
were many of the nobles and members of "the farmers general" corporation, as
also many of the clergy who deserved a better fate, but because from the fact
that the Bourbon monarchs, as well as other monarch's, insisted on what they
termed "the right of investiture" or preconization of bishops, the pope was
not allowed to appoint a bishop without the sanction of the monarch those
appointees and their subordinate clergy were looked upon by the Jacobin
revolutionists as tools and apologists of the monarchs, met death under the
descending blade of the guillotine. It has been said that although many of
the clergy of earlier reigns "winked" at the sins of the profligate monarchs,
that the generality of those

[Page 19 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

who met death during the Reign of Terror were worthy ecclesiastics, and died
martyrs for the faith. This was perhaps to some degree at least, owing to the
fact that Louis XVI was an easy-going monarch and probably did not interfere
with the right of the pope to appoint prelates and the result was the
bettering of the morale of prelates and clergy.
   So subversive of the rights of the pope to freedom of action in the
appointment of prelates has been the interference of civil rulers, that Pius
IX once said, "The United States is the only country in which I am really
pope in the eyes of the government," and from the beginning of the American
Revolution every pope has been the friend of the American Republic.

                 The Thwarting of the Military Prospects of
                            Prince Demetrius.

   Prince Demetrius having secured through the influence of friends a
commission in the Austrian army was preparing to enter upon a military life
when in 1790 the Emperor of Austria died suddenly, it was believed by poison
placed in his food by an emissary of the Illuminati, a revolutionary
organization which it was believed was plotting the assassination of all the
rulers of Europe, an order was Issued by the Austrian government that
thereafter no foreigners should be received into the armies of the empire,
young Gallitzin was courteously but firmly informed that his services could
not be accepted.
   The young prince was now a Roman Catholic and in addition to his original
Christian name - Demetrius - had received as his confirmation name, at the
request of his mother, that of the great Bishop of Hippo - Augustine - so he
had no desire to go to the land of his father, and never set foot on Russian
soil.
   It was at that time, as it is now, considered proper for young men of
means before entering upon the activities of life to travel extensively, and
as Europe was then in a turmoil from the effects of the French Revolution, it
was deemed by the parents of the young prince expedient that he should travel
in the United States and South America. Prince Demetrius who had met and
formed a friendship for John Adams, American Ambassador Plenipotentiary at
the Hague and had also a great admiration for President

[Page 20 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

Washington and had an anxiety that his son should observe something of the
workings of American republican institutions, it was decided that the young
prince should first visit the United States; so after his mother had procured
for him a letter of introduction from the Bishop of Hildesheim to Bishop
Carroll, afterwards Archbishop of Baltimore, and in company with Rev. Felix
Brosius, a young priest coming to America to begin a missionary career, he
landed in Baltimore, October 28, 1792, and in company with his companion
immediately presented his letter of introduction to Bishop Carroll who -
received him with marked courtesy, and then and there commenced friendship
which was never broken. The good bishop gave him letters of introduction to
several persons of prominence throughout the country that he might have in
his travels throughout the land which he was expected to soon commence
facility of admittance into aristocratic society; but Gallitzin never had
much use for them.

        The Russian Prince Resolved to Become a Missionary Priest.

   While enjoying a period of rest and relaxation from the fatigue incident
to his voyage across the Atlantic, and closely observing things around him,
young Gallitzin was amazed at the contrast between the terrible social and
political state of France and the greater part of Europe and the calm
security of the social order of the United States, in which civil and
religious liberty had become the fundamental principles of the social
structure, at least for those of the Caucasion race, but, unfortunately, not
for all; and he determined to devote his life as a missionary priest to the
spiritual and also to the temporal welfare of the Catholics in the wilds of
America.
   It was with feelings of deepest regret that Bishop Carroll learned from
the young prince of his determination to renounce the "flattering prospects
of the world" and become a missionary priest, and endeavored to dissuade him
from attempting to carry out his resolution, but without effect. The Bishop
also wrote to Gallitzin's mother apprising her of the determination of her
son that she might use her parental influence to deter him from adopting the
course he had determined to pursue; but all protests were unavailing; so the
young aspirant for the priesthood was allowed by Bishop Carroll to enter the
Sulpician Seminary in Baltimore to take his theological course, he having been

[Page 21 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

already well educated in Latin, Greek, Russian and other European languages
as well as in military science.

           Prince Gallitzin Becomes a Priest - the First Person 
              to Receive Full Orders in the United States.

   On March 18, 1795, Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, having completed
his theological course, was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Carroll, to
him belonging the great distinction of having been the first in the United
States upon whom the full Orders of the priesthood were conferred, the Rev.
Shephen Badin, who had been previously ordained by Bishop Carroll, having
received minor orders before coming to America.
   Of Father Gallitzin, the writer in his report of the Loretto Centenary to
the Johnstown Tribune, wrote:  "Kings, tired of the cares of state, some
doubtless through remorse, but nearly all of them disgusted with
perplexities, have laid down the scepter and entered monasteries; but it is
doubtless if there is another instance of a man on the threshold of life
surrendering such "flattering prospects of the world" to follow the dictates
of his conscience, and immure himself for a lifetime in the solitudes of an
almost inaccessible wilderness."

                Father Gallitzin Gathers About Him a Colony of
                 Catholics Encircling the McGuire Settlement.

   Father Gallitzin, until 1808, generally known as Rev. Mr. Smith, the
anglicised form of his mother's surname, Schmettau, to prevent pecuniary
complications by reason of his change of religion, not that he was personally
afraid of them, but in order that he might not be deprived of his *bare of the
income from the patrimony of his father's estates in the province of Moscow,
Russia, which income he desired to use to plant his proposed colony, after
having built his church, already noted, and a log "house, 14x16 feet with a
kitchen," bethought himself of laying out a town for those who desired to
live near the church.

                    The Founding of the Town of Loretto.

   With the aforesaid purpose in view he, in 1799, had the site of a town
which he named Loretto, from the town of Loreto in Italy, with three streets
- St. John's, the principal street;  St. Mary's and St. Joseph's and various
cross-streets all bearing, if the writer mistakes not, the names of saints.
The lots were large and were sold for a small

[Page 22 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

monetary consideration, but a stipulation in the deeds of conveyance was that
the purchaser should build on the lot within two years, under penalty of the
forfeiture of the title thereto a two story log house not less in dimensions
than 20x24 feet, well chunked and daubed, with two rooms downstairs and two
rooms upstairs, with a chimney with a fireplace in one end of the house.
Father Gallitzin was anxious for the comfort of the family and seggregation
of the sexes.

                   Father Gallitzin Becomes a Land Agent.

   In order that he might assist those who wished to settle in his colony,
and not for profit, for according to the author of "Reminiscences of Doctor
Gallitzin," supposed to have been Samuel Riddle, Esq., an able attorney of
Huntingdon, he bought land for $4.00 per acre and sold it to settlers for
$1.00 per acre, he, after the 400 acres of land bequeathed to the church by
Capt. Michael McGuire, had been settled, became by virtue of a power of
attorney from Henry Drinker and Jacob Downing, dated July 8, 1806, to
Demetrius Augustine Smith, agent for the sale of 9,311 acres, 39 perches of land, 
known as "land of the Drinker heirs" in the townships of Allegheny and Cambria.

               The Vast Extent of Father Gallitzin's Missions.

   From east to west Father Gallitzin's missions extended from Huntingdon to
Greensburg, and from north to south the lines are not known, probably as far
north in Pennsylvania as Catholics were to be found, and as far south in
Cambria county as the bounds of the county extend. From the early thirties of
the eighteenth century he frequently said Mass and administered the Sacraments
at outlying stations - at Johnstown, in James Young's barn near Jefferson (Now
Wilmore) and often under an apple tree in his orchard in summer time when the
number of Irish laborers engaged in construction of the Allegheny Portage
Railroad became too numerous for the barn to hold; in the house of Joshua
Parrish, near the head of the Wilmore dam; in Ebensburg; at Hart's Sleeping
Place and in other places.
   The name Cambria is the Latin name of ancient Wales the division of
syllables being between r and i ; for illustration: Cambr-ia. It is remarkable 
to what extent that syllable ia is used, as in Hibern-ia, meaning western land;

[Page 23 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

Tibern-ia, Hispan-ia, our own Columb-ia (land of Columbus) and many countries
and even the continent of As-ia.

               The Development of Father Gallitzin's Colony - 
                        Early Roads and Settlements.

   When Father Gallitzin first came to the McGuire settlement in 1799, there
were but three public roads in what is now Cambria County. The first of these
was a road authorized by an act of legislature dated March 29, 1787, to
connect the waters of the Frankstown branch of the Juniata River with the
waters of the Conemaugh as a "portage" or road between heads of navigation of
these rivers. To survey and locate this route, the Supreme Executive Council
of Pennsylvania, of which Benjamin Franklin was president, on the 6th of
April following, appointed James Harris, of Cumberland County, surveyor;
Charles Campbell of Westmoreland County and Soloman Adams of Bedford County,
Commissioners.
   This road was located the same year, the Field Notes of Robert Galbraith,
prothonatary of Huntingdon County who made it, hence the name "Galbraith
road," or "Frankstown road," are as follows: "Beginning at buttonwood near
Dan Titus'; thence up Blair's Run; thence to a beech on top of the mountain;
thence to a branch of the Clearfield Creek; thence to a beech at Robinson's
improvement; thence to a beech on the north branch of the Conemaugh running
southward 620 probably feet or yards) to a chestnut thence across several
small branches of the river to the top of Laurel hill; thence to the mouth of
the Blacklick Creek below Blairsville." - Col. Rec. Vol. II, p. 656.
   The return of this survey was made December 17th, 1787, the entire length
of the road to the mouth of the Loyalhanna being 52.25 miles.
   On December 18, 1787, James Harris was paid £47, 7 s., and Charles
Campbell £34, 3 s., but as the writer has never been able to find out if
anything was ever paid to Solomon Adams, it is probable that he did not serve.
   Solomon Adams was a brother of Samuel Adams, Benjamin Adams and Rachael
Adams, who settled on Stony Creek on the site of the present Seventeenth Ward
of the City of Johnstown before the Revolutionary War, as the writer possesses
a copy of an affidavit to prove. Samuel Adams was killed in a fight with an
Indian in an ambush

[Page - 24 History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

by the Indians, and the Indian was also killed, and both were buried close
together, near Elton, this County, and Solomon Adams and Rachael Adams
escaped to Fort Bedford, and John Cheney and Thornton Bridges were captured
and carried either to Kittanning or Detroit, where they were kept prisoners
for several years. Solomon Adams afterwards became a soldier - one report is
a Captain, in the army of Washington; hence Cambria County had one
Revolutionary soldier who lived within its border before the War of
Independence.
   The making of the road was let to Robert Galbraith, prothonatary of
Bedford County, by the Supreme Executive Council, September 25, 1788, for
£393.
   Storey, in his "History of Cambria County," states that in 1789 Captain
Michael McGuire made affidavit that he had hauled with a team of horses over
this road a load of one ton and found the road and bridges in good condition
as far as he had occasion to travel it.
   On January 1, 1790, the Supreme Executive Council paid Robert Galbraith
£100, part of price of constructing this road, which is all the record of
payment found.
   The next road, the present Frankstown road was laid out in 1790, along the
line of a private road called "Smith's road," from the mouth of Poplar Run on
the Frankstown branch of the Juniata to the mouth of Stony Creek on the Conemaugh.
   The third road was laid out and opened from the town of Somerset to
Beulah. It crossed Stony Creek at the Beulah fording, in Johnstown, and the
South Fork at what is now called Lamb's bridge; the Little Conemaugh, near
Summerhill, and through New Germany to Beulah. The petition is signed,
"Approved June, 1798, Joseph Addison, President Judge."
   The "Courses and Distances" of the Beulah Road mentions Martin Cables,
which was a half mile to the west of the present town of Wilmore. A history
of Indiana County giving a biographical sketch of a certain Coleman family
contains the name of Hannah Coleman, nee Cable, born in Cambria County, who
died in Indiana County in 1830, aged 47 years. If this statement be correct,
the lady was born in 1783, the first birth of a white child born in Cambria
County, of which we have a record.

[Page 25 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   At the same session of Court, to Judge Addison was presented a petition
bearing the same signature, prayed for the laying out of a township to be
called Cambria Township from about the present northern boundary of
Quemahoning Township, Somerset County, embracing all that territory between
the line of Bedford and Huntingdon Counties on the east, and Westmoreland
County on the west (the counties of Indiana and Blair were not then formed),
to the "Dividing Ridge" between the waters of the Conemaugh and those of the
Clearfield Creek, Chest Creek and the West branch of the Susquehanna, this
territory containing within its bounds all of Cambria County afterwards taken
from Somerset County and the present township of Conemaugh in that County. The
place of holding elections was fixed at the house of Miles Philips in Beulah.
   On the petition of Joseph Johns and several others of the residents on the
Conemaugh stating that they labored under great hardship through an almost
unbroken wilderness in going to town meetings and elections across streams
that were almost impassable, and praying for the annexation to Quemahoning
township of that part of Cambria Township south of a line from the Conemaugh
river, where that stream leaves the county, to the forks of the little Conemaugh 
and South Fork, and thence by the latter stream to the Bedford county line. 
This petition was granted by the same judge at the December sessions, 1798; and
this is why Cambria township is eliminated from the map of Somerset, and the
reason why the Charter of the Town of Conemaugh, laid out by Joseph Johns in
1800, locates the plan of the town in Quemahoning Township, Somerset County.
   In 1798, also by order of Quarter Sessions court of Somerset County, a
road was laid out from the Galbraith road about a mile and a half to the
eastward of the present village of Munster to Beulah. Father Gallitzin at
first received his mail at Beulah "near here."

                    The Formation of Cambria County.

   Cambria County was laid out in accordance with an act of the Legislature,
dated March 26, 1804. The act for formation described its outline as
"Beginning at the Conemaugh at the Indiana County line; thence by a straight
line to Canoe Place; thence east along Clearfield County to south-west corner
of Centre County at the heads of Moshannon Creek; thence southerly along the
Allegheny Mountain to the Somerset County line; thence along lines

[Page 26 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine. Pa.]

of Somerset and Bedford, seventeen miles until a due west line will strike
the main branch of Paint Creek; thence down said creek to Stony Creek; thence
down Stony Creek to the mouth of Mill Creek; thence due west to Somerset and
Westmoreland County line; thence northerly along said line to the place of
beginning - the county seat to be not more than seven miles from the
geographical center of the county.
   This outline took in from Somerset County all of Conemaugh Township which
had been formed in 1803, north of the southern line of Cambria County and all
of Cambria Township which extended to the "Dividing Ridge" between the
headwaters of the Little Conemaugh and Conemaugh, on the south and those of
the West Branch of the Susquehanna, Chest Creek and Clearfield Creek on the
north.
   The township of Allegheny comprised all of Cambria County taken in from
Huntingdon County north of the "Dividing Ridge," mentioned. It was the
western part of Allegheny Township, Huntingdon County, which had been taken
in in 1793 from part of Frankstown township, which had been merged with
Huntingdon County when that County was formed in 1787. Frankstown township
was formed by order of the Quarter Sessions court of Bedford County, in 1775.
   By act of the Pennsylvania Legislature, March 29, 1805, the county seat of
Cambria County was fixed at Ebensburg. Cambria County, at the same session,
was annexed to Somerset County for election purposes.
   At the first election, held in 1805, the name of Demetrius Augustine
Gallitzin appeared as one of the election officers signing the returns.
   Some say that Father Gallitzin wished the county seat to be fixed at Loretto; 
but others say that he did not desire to have court held amongst his people.
   A tradition that the town of Munster was a rival with Ebensburg and Beulah
for county seat is probably not well founded, for Munster was laid out by
Edward V. James in 1806, while Ebensburg became the county seat in 1805.
   James was the first Prothonotary of Cambria County, and at one time the
leader of the opposition to Father Gallitzin and went to Bishop Carroll with
a letter against his pastor. That prelate reproached him for his conduct; or

[Page 27 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

dered him to leave his presence and to, apologize to his pastor, which he did
with much compunction and promise of reform, which he kept.
   The Court of Cambria County was organized for Judicial purposes on
December 7, 1807, Associate Judge Abraham Hildebrand, in the absence of
President Judge John Young, presiding. The other Associate Judge was Rev.
George Roberts, a Congregational minister.
   The first act of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the county was to
appoint, on petition of various citizens of the county, viewers to lay out a
public road from Ebensburg to Thomas Croyle's Mill, on the Little Conemaugh,
at the present town of Summerhill. This road was opened about the year 1808.
   The next road on record was one from "Dr. Gallitzin's church to the town
Munter." Next one, twelve feet wide, where George McGuire now lives to "Dr.
Gallitzin's church." The next public road of importance was one from town of
Munster to the second Frankstown road at farm now owned by Lyman and Milton
Sherbine in Croyle Township. The legal width of this road was set at forty
feet.  Main street in Wilmore is part of this road. 

                  Father Gallitzin's Persecutors in Court.

   About the year 1806 some of Father Gallitzin's congregation having become
rebellious, partly on account of his having endeavored to influence them in
politics, and partly because some of them were much addicted to the
immoderate use of liquor - he never using anything stronger than milk or
water to drink - attempted to mob him in the church and might have murdered
him but that John Weakland, a giant in stature and physical strength, passing
by heard the tumult, and snatching up a rail, entered the church and soon
cleared it of the mob.
   This melee was the cause of a criminal action being brought against the
rioters by Father Gallitzin which dragged in court from session to session
until, I believe, amicably settled, Father Gallitzin's object having been, he
says, to scare rather than to punish them.
   Sister Martini relates that her father, the late James P. McCans was
cognizant of the fact that when Mr. Weakland's body was being removed from
the grave in which it first reposed, his right hand and arm were found to be
uncorrupted.

[Page 28 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

                Father Gallitzin's Right Name Reestablished 
                         By Act of the Legislature.

   The Pennsylvania Legislature, on petition of Father Gallitzin, dated
December 5, 1809, stating that his real name having become known to many, and
that legal complications might arise on account of his disposing of property
as Demetrius Augustine Smith, he therefore prayed to be allowed to resume his
real name, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, and to enjoy, under that name, the
same benefits and privileges to which he became entitled by naturalization
under the name of Augustine Smith.
   This petition was on the sixteenth of the same month referred to a
committee composed of Messrs. McSherry, Bethel and Weiss, and an act granting
the request was passed.
   Father Gallitzin, early had a water-power saw-mill built on Clearfield
Creek, where B. P. Anderson's mill was afterwards located. He also built a
grist-mill on a small branch of the same stream near Loretto. This was about
the fourth grist mill built in the county - John Storm having built the
first, in 1792, on Clearfield Creek, afterwards Seibert's mill at Siberton
Station, C. & C. Railroad; John Horner built the second grist-mill and
saw-mill on Solomon's Run, Johnstown, in 1793; Thomas Croyle built a
grist-mill on the Little Conemaugh at Summerhill in 1801.
   To provide groceries and other necessaries for his colony, Father
Gallitzin periodically sent a team to Baltimore. It is related that upon one
occasion the driver gambled away a four-horse team and wagon, returning with
the whip alone, of all the outfit, and presented it to the priest. Father
Gallitzin, his patience taxed beyond endurance, took the whip and struck the
offender a blow across the face, when the latter turned the other side in
obedience to the injunction of Christ, "If a man smite thee on one side of
the face, turn thou the other." Father Gallitzin instantly dropped the whip
and thus ended the unpleasant incident.
   Coming home one moonlight night, at eleven o'clock, as was related to the
writer by the late 'Squire Joseph Miller, of Wilmore, who was raised by
Father Gallitzin, and often served Mass for him, Father Gallitzin saw through
the spaces between the logs in his log barn, a man in his hay-mow in the act
of shouldering a bundle of hay tied in a rope. Suddenly dropping his load and
unloosing the rope

[Page 29 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

which bound it, the man exclaimed, "Honesty is the best of policy," and left
the place. Going to his house, the benevolent priest called up Joseph Hott
and Joseph Miller and said to them, "Get up; hitch up my team; fill up a load
of hay on my wagon; take it over to - - - and if he says anything to you, say
to him, 'Honesty is the best of policy.' "
   At another time, Miller relates, of a Sunday afternoon, several young men,
himself amongst the rest, were lolling about in Father Gallitzin's meadow near
the grist mill, some of them drinking whiskey, when a quarrel started between
two of the men, and one of them grabbed a pitch-fork, which was nearby at a
rick of hay, and ran after the other who, to save himself, jumped across the
mill-race. Father Gallitzin happened to be walking in the Held near his
residence, and seeing the trouble, called out in a stentorian voice, "You H-" 
Instantly the pursuer dropped the pitchfork and forgot his resentment.
  On the eighth day of September, 1814, Francis Christy was plowing in a
field. Father Gallitzin being present, said, "Surely a battle is going on
somewhere - I can tell by the state of the atmosphere." In due time, news of
Perry's victory on Lake Erie, electrified the country.
   It was during this same year that, after the burning of the capitol at
Washington by the British, he urged the young men under his charge to enlist
in the company which Captain Richard McGuire was at that time raising. One
day when the captain was drilling his men on the green the church, Father
Gallitzin was passing, using his cane, when Captain McGuire approached him
presenting his sword in the attitude of fencing. The priest accepted the
challenge and after a few parries of sword and cane the cane was dexterously
wound about the sword which went high in the air.
   Captain McGuire and his company, after having been duly organized and
drilled, proceeded to Somerset County, where they were incorporated into a
regiment under command of one Lieut. Col. Ogle, and were to have been sent
against Black Rock, but the war ending shortly afterwards, they were allowed
to return to their homes.

      Fear of Indian Incursions During the War of 1812 Unnecessary.

   During the war of 1812, the people of Western Penn-

[Page 30 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

sylvania lived much in dread of Indian incursions into their settlements, and
those of Father Gallitzin's colony were perhaps more fearful than others by
reason of the closer proximity of the "Cornplanter" Indians on Oil Creek; but
this tribe was neutral. A representative of the government about the beginning
of the war visited them to ascertain their attitude and endeavor to promote
their friendship. Their chief, "Cornplanter," whose Indian name I do not now
recall, showed him 150 muskets belonging to the tribe, but assured him of
their friendship. There was a reason for this.
   "Cornplanter" was a half-breed, a natural son of one John O'Bayle, an
Albany trader with the Indians. During Pontiac and Guyasothe's war in 1763,
"Cornplanter," who was then leagued with Pontiac, captured his father and
standing before him thus addressed his captive: "You are my father. I am your
son. If now you choose to live with me, I will take care of you; but if you
choose to return to your white children, you may do so."
   The father chose to return to civilization and was allowed to return to
his home.
   Some local historians of the past, accustomed to "drawing the long bow,"
have handed down to us thrilling accounts of the dangers which beset the
pioneer settlers by reason of the hostility of the Indians, but while it is a
fact that Indians often visited the neighborhood, there is no authentic record
to prove that, since 1781, they ever committed any act of hostility. In that
year it appears that some Tories and Indians made an incursion into the
Juniata valley and killed some people near Sugar Creek. The surviving
inhabitants besought Capt. Albright, who, with a company of soldiers was
stationed at Holliday's fort to protect the frontier and to look for lead to
make bullets for Washington's army, to give pursuit to the retiring hostiles,
but he refusing, one Beatty and another man - Coleman by name, if I mistake
not, followed them along the Kittanning Trail to near Canoe Place (Cherry
Tree) without finding them, but while encamped for the night some place above
the present town of Chest Springs, on the morning following, two men named
Moses Hicks and one Gresham went out early to endeavor to shoot a deer, or
some other wild game for breakfast, when they were surprised by Indians and
carried to Detroit where they were kept prisoners until the close of the war.

[Page 31 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   This was the last act of hostility committed by Indians in this region, of
which there is any positive proof; and although a Mrs. Alcorn is said to have
mysteriously disappeared from the McGuire settlement, there is no proof that
the was killed or was abducted by Indians.
   Many years ago, the late Thomas Maloney, who lived near Ashville, told me
that one time, years before, his father, James Maloney, met at Cresson
Springs an Indian dressed in clothes of civilization, who said to him, "Did
not you at one time shoot a deer at the 'Great Elk Lick,' above the
Clearfields on Clearfield Creek?" The answer was in the affirmative. "Well,"
said the Indian, "when your gun cracked, I had aim on that deer." This
Indian, had he been hostile, could have shot Maloney while his gun was empty.
   Some time during the forties of the nineteenth century, William Porter
owned and operated a water saw-mill on a stream near the present town of
Lilly. The site was in a woods with a small clearing on which was a house
where he and his family lived. One day while he was in the woods at work, his
wife saw two Indians emerge from woods on one side of the clearing; and, of
course, she was scared almost to death, but the Indians hastened across the
inclosure and disappeared in the woods on the opposite side.

          Why the Shawnese and Delaware Indians Delaware Indians
                     of Pennsylvania Became Hostile.

   People not conversant with the history of the treatment of the Indians of
the United States, often wonder why they have often been hostile to the white
intruders on the homes of their fathers. The answer is, "They have been
hostile because of their inhuman and un-Christian treatment by the whites."
Where they have been treated in accordance with the dictates of humanity and
the spirit of Christianity, they have become docile, civilized, enlightened
and Christianized, as witness the Mission Indians of New Mexico, civilized
and Christianized by Spanish Catholic missionaries; many Indians in Canada,
converted by French Catholic missionaries; some in the New England States by
the Protestant missionary Eliot, and some in Pennsylvania by the Moravian
missionaries, under the patent patronage of Count Zinzendorf, the
Swedenborgian protector of Zeisberger and others, many of whose converts -
baptized Christians and friendly Indians were ruthlessly mur-

[Page 32 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

dered in 1763 at Bethlehem and Gnadenhutten (God's House), by Paxton boys,
"insatiate as fiends," for the simple reason that their victims were Indians.

                 "The Indians' Right of Occupancy on the Land"

   There was one right, and one right only, which the rulers of England,
France, Spain, Portugal and Holland acknowledged to exist in America, at the
time of the early settlements - "The Indians' right of occupancy on the land."
   Note well this admission of a right bestowed by the Great Creator at the
time of the creation of man, not only upon the Indians but upon all other
individuals of the human race; but mark well its inhuman supplement, "which
right remains to be extinguished by purchase or by conquest."
   Conquest never yet extinguished a right which is as inextinguishable as
God, the author of all rights bestowed upon mankind. Conquest has subverted
right - has in defiance of the justice of God, trampled them in the dust; and
so it was in the dealings of whites with the Indians of America.
   William Penn, it is true, essayed to purchase the Indians' "right of
occupancy" on part of the soil of Pennsylvania, but the consideration given the 
Indians was as infinitessimally small in proportion to the value of the land 
granted as a grain of gold is to the entire deposits of the mines of California.
   Penn's descendents for some time followed his example and Thomas Penn, in 1732, 
purchased lands at Tulpehocken, Berks County, that had been settled upon 
by whites; for the whites were ever encroaching upon the lands of the Indians; 
and on one occasion the Proprietaries, as the heirs of Penn were called, had 
the cabins of encroaching settlers burned, hence the appellation "Burnt Cabins."
   The first act of hostility between whites and Indians was committed by
whites when an Indian was killed. At this time, it was deemed necessary by
the Penns to placate the Six Nations of Indians, a powerful Indian confederacy 
in the north-eastern part of the United States, called at first the Five Nations, 
composed of the Oneydas, Onondagers, Senecas, Tuscaroras and Cayuses, which became 
by the accession of the Mohocks or Mohawks, the Six Nations.
   In 1786, one Frederick Stump and his servant, John

[Page 33 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

Eisenhauser (Ironcutter) massacred ten Indians, some of them women and threw
their bodies into a creek where they were found by their friends. For this
crime, Ironcutter was arrested but was released by a mob.
   Of course, these crimes incensed the Indians, but an effort was made by
the Proprietaries to "cover the bones" of the victims by presenting presents
to their relatives, expressing regret and protesting friendship for their
brethren, the Indians.

                            The Indian Walk.

   Antedating the outrage of Stump and his confederate was the infamous
transaction known in history as "The Indian Walk."
   Thomas Holme, Penn's agent, had in 1686 secured from certain Indian chiefs
of the Delaware and Shawnese tribes a treaty (some say it was a forgery), for
a tract of land to be bounded and described as follows: "Beginning at a
spruce tree at the Delaware River near Easton; thence west, northwest by the
foot of mountains to a corner whiteoak marked with the letter P, standing by
a path that leadeth to an Indian town called Playwickey; and from thence
extending westward to Neshamony Creek from which said line, the said tract,
or tracts thereby granted doth extend itself back into the woods as far as a
man can go, in a day-and-a-half's journey; and from thence by a line to the
aforesaid river Delaware; and from thence down the several courses of said
river to the first mentioned spruce tree P."
   Having by cajolery, and probably plying them with liquor, the
Proprietaries finally induced Teshakomen, Nootimus, Monochkkickau and
Lappawinzac, chiefs of the Delawares and Shawnese to agree to the walk; so
about the 20th of September, 1733, having had a line slashed out through the
woods, and having secured, on promise of 500 acres of land each, and some
money besides, Ed Marshall, Solomon Jennings and James Yeates, three men
reputed the best walkers attainable, the walk was commenced at sunrise and
continued until sunset on that day, and renewed the following morning at sunrise. 
The walkers were accompanied by men on horseback, who carried provisions 
for them to eat as they walked, and also by three Indians, one of whom was 
named Combush. Early in the walk - or almost run - Jennings, Yeates and two 
of the Indians gave out; but Combush kept on, complaining: "No stop to shoot

[Page 34 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

a squirrel; no stop to smoke a pipe; but lun, lun all the day long."
   When the walker came to the Kitoochtinny or Blue Mountains (sometimes
called the Lehigh Hills), beyond which a treaty made with the Indians in 1718
stipulated that no former purchase, or alleged purchase from the Indians
should go, Combush stopped, saying that the walk having gone thus far he did
not care how much farther it would go.
   Next day, Marshall continued his walk, and kept it up until about noon
when he fell faint against a sapling to which he clung for support, saying
that he could go no further.
   The Indians had thought that when the walk would have ended at the end of
a reasonable day and a half's walk, and with the compass turned at right
angles, the line would strike the Delaware River about Delaware Water-Gap.
Instead of that the line struck the river near the mouth of Shohola Creek,
now in Tioga County, taking in the rich Minisink Flats along the Delaware
River, containing the fertile farms of the Shawnese and Delaware Indians.
   These Indians, who generations before had been driven from the South by
Cherokee and probably Seminole Indians had been adopted by the Five Nations
and by them allowed to settle on the Minisink Flats, and when they found the
land on which they had spent so much labor "slipping from under their feet"
they refused to go; so the Proprietaries called upon the Six Nations to eject
them; and for this purpose a council of that powerful confederacy, at which
the Proprietaries and representatives. of the Shawnese and Delawares were
present met in Easton about September, 1738.
   At this council, after the case was stated, Tedyuscung, chief of the
Delawares, and other chiefs defended the rights of the Indians with much
vigor and eloquence, but to no avail. They were ordered by the chiefs of the
Six Nations, with the most insulting language to vacate their lands and to go
immediately. They were called women and reproached that they had already eaten
and drunk the price of their holdings: Says a historian in later years, "They
went with vengeance in their hearts; and the blood of Braddock's soldiers was
added to the price of the land."

[Page 35 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   That the Delawares and Shawnese sided with the French in the French and
Indian wars was quite natural, for people wronged as they had been;
nevertheless, some of them were friendly to the whites as Chief Logan, a
Mingo chief who first lived near Logan's spring in the Juniata valley, who
was the soul of good nature and honor, and who later removed to what is now
West Virginia on account of the scarcity of game where he lived in the
Juniata Valley.  He is the Logan made famous by the publication, by Thomas
Jefferson, of his address to Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia at the close
of "Lord Dunmore's war" of 1763; in which he and his tribe aided the Shawnese
and Delewares against the Virginians in revenge for the murder of his family,
it is now believed by one Captain Greathouse (not Capt. Cressop). 
   It is a notable fact that in this war the Indians committed no aggression
against the people along the border to the colony of Pennsylvania.
   At Chink-la-cla-moose (now Clearfield), lived another Logan, a friend of
the whites, who often warned the people in the Juniata Valley of intended
incursions of hostiles from the Indian town of Kittanning.
   By the sale to Thomas and Richard Penn by the Six Nations, by the terms of
the treaty of Fort Stanwix, November 5, 1768, of what is known as Purchase No. 6, 
comprising west of the Allegheny Mountains all of the present counties of Cambria, 
Somerset, Fayette, Allegheny, Westmoreland and a part of each of Armstrong, 
Indiana and Clearfield, the Indians within its borders were once more forced 
to move westward, once more, of course, with "vengeance in their hearts."
   The only Indians to have a residence within the present borders of Cambria
County were the Shawnese, who lived at the junction of Stony Creek and the
Little Conemaugh, now within the city of Johnstown.
There were many relics of the Indians in Northern Cambria. Through it ran the
old "Kittanning Path or Trail" which coming up through the Kittanning Gap past
Kittanning Point on the eastern slope, came down the western slope of the
mountain to "the clear fields" on the Clearfield Creek, which derives its
name from these fields at the present town of Ashville; thence westward
through Chest Manor, laid out by the Penns, near the present town

[Page 36 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

of Chest Springs and on a couple of miles to the north-east of Carrolltown;
thence to Canoe Place (now Cherrytree), and from thence to the Indian town of
Kittanning, on the Allegheny, then known by the Indian name of "O-he-o' (Ohio).
   It is said that this path extended from the red pipe stone quarry in
Minnesota into Canada, and over it we can fancy in imagination Longfellow's
legendary Hiawatha passing with giant strides to the land of the Dakotas, to
woo and win and bring back as his bride, Minnehaha (Laughing Water), to the
old home of Nakomis.
   The "clear fields" were three small patches of cleared land - the largest
of them about an acre and a half in size where the Indians raised maize, as
was attested by the fact that when the first settlers came to the region
there were yet standing thereon stubbles of corn stalks. The Indians
fertilized their corn by placing fish from the streams in the ground under
the hills. The cultivation was done by the use of mussel shells, or other
shells, for hoes. Succotash is an Indian mixture of corn and beans,
considered a nourishing article of food.
   A circular piece of clear ground about 300 feet in diameter with a red oak
tree in the center and an Indian cemetery near by on land of the Noal heirs
near St. Augustine was visited by the writer thirty years ago, as also an
excavation on land of the late Silas Douglass, where the Indians dug yellow
ochre to burn, it is said, to produce a pigment like Venetian red, and near
it a place where pottery was burned, and what was the most interesting of all
the site of an ancient earthwork with an Indian cemetery near by, in White Township.
   In connection with this earthwork lie the circumstances by reason of which
the writer is reputed to be a local historian, although others with the
advantages he has enjoyed might have far surpassed him.
   Having learned from his good friend, the late 'Squire E. R. Dunnegan, some
additional facts in regard to an earthwork mentioned in Day's Historical
Collections, of an earthwork near Slate Lick Run, that the late Father James
Keough, when assistant pastor of St. Augustine had been conducting an
investigation in regard to the supposed migration of a company of Catholics from 
Maryland, fleeing to Canada in the time of Claiborne's rebellion in that prov-

[Page 37 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

ince. He had traced this company as far as Chest Creek, but there lost the
trail, but he thought that probably they might have built the redoubt as a
place of defense against pursuers.
   Some correspondent, having written for The Johnstown Tribune, an account
of an ancient breastwork on "Breastwork Hill," in Somerset County, I
furnished that paper an account of the breastwork on what is known as Fort
Hill (emphasis on Fort), the result of which was that I was sent to
investigate what was in the tradition, if anything, one result of which was
that I reported that I believed that it had not been built by white men, and
another that I have done a great part of the local historical work for The
Tribune ever since, for which I have always received remuneration to the full
amount of the bills presented; so that to the managers of that newspaper
publication, past and present, to whom Cambria County is more indebted than
to any other source for the preservation of its local history, the credit is due.
   Recently, Mr. Joseph Zerbe related to me that once when descending the
Allegheny River in a steamboat, a follow passenger told him that the
breastwork was built by Washington during the French and Indian war; but
Washington was never within the bounds of Cambria County. Of course, it might
have been built on his suggestion. 

        Incursions On the Kittanning Path During the French and
             Indian Wars - Armstrong's Expedition to
                         Reduce Kittanning.

   After the defeat of the Braddock expedition against Fort Du Quesne at the
battle of the Monongahela, July 9, 1755, by a force of French, Delaware,
Shawnese and other Indians under Bojeau, and after the death of Gen.
Braddock, Col. Washington led back into Virginia the remains of the defeated
army, and the frontier settlements were open to the incursions of hostile
Indians and French, parties of hostiles from the Indian stronghold of
Kittanning from time to time, made incursions into the settlements in the
Juniata Valley. To put an end to these incursions, an expedition under
command of Lieut. Col. John Armstrong, of the Second Battalion, Pennsylvania,
consisting of 307 men, of four companies, the captains of which were Hugh
Mercer (afterwards Gen. Mercer), Hamilton, Ward and Potter, left Fort Shirley
August 31, 1756, and in two

[Page 38 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

days came to Beaver Dam near Frankstown. The expedition camped over night at
the "clear fields," near Ashville, a couple of nights following, and thence
proceeded most cautiously towards Kittanning, having noticed that an Indian
and an Indian boy had but recently preceded them. They arrived near
Kittanning late in the evening, intending to surprise the town early in the
night; but to their dismay, scouts whom they had sent ahead reported that
they had seen the fire of a party of Indians encamped on the path, leaving
Lieutenant Hogg with a party to watch and attack them in the morning, by a
detour of several miles they arrived near the stronghold which was located on
the west bank of the Allegheny as the day was breaking and hastily attacked
the Indians, killing many, including Capt. Jacobs, chief of the Delawares, a
noted warrior, and completely destroying the town, not however, without loss.
On their return they found that Lieut. Hogg's party had fared badly, the
Indians they attacked, outnumbering them, so they were defeated. This
successful expedition put an end to Indian depredations during this war.
   After the capture of Fort Du Quesne in 1758, these tribes were compelled
to go to north-eastern Ohio, but during Pontiac's war in 1763, they besieged
Fort Pitt, commanded by Capt. Ecuver, to whose relief Col. Bouquet, a noted
Belgian soldier in the service of Great Britain, who in 1758 cut out the road
for the Forbes expedition, went to his relief, and being ambushed at Bushy Run
by a large force of Indians, escaping defeat only by the most adroit strategy,
dispersed the Indians, relieved Fort Pitt, again defeated the confederated
tribes and compelled them to make peace.
   During the Revolutionary War quite a number of the Delawares fought on the
side of the patriots, but some of them espoused the cause of the British.
During that war the Kittanning Path was often used by hostile Indians and
British from Kittarning. Felix Skelly and his cousin, a Mrs. Elder were
captured about the beginning of 1778 in Blacklog Valley and taken over this
path. At Kittanning Skelly or O'Skelly, escaped across the Allegheny River,
and afterwards joined the army of Washington, and fought until the close of
the war as did several of his brothers, one of them, Patrick Skelly, having
been killed at Yorktown. Felix Skelly died on his farm near the present town
of Wilmore, July 3, 1835, and his remains are interred in St. Michael's
cemetery, Loretto.

[Page 39 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   At another time, in 1778, Capt. Logan, the friendly Indian already
mentioned, notified the patriots in the Juniata Valley, that a man named
Preston, a Tory, had gone with a number of companions to Kittanning, he
thought, to lead an incursion into the valley. A company under Capt. Thomas
Blair, was formed to-intercept this band and near Chest Springs they captured
two of the party who related to them the tale of their unfortunate
adventure.  When near the stronghold, being almost famished with hunger, they
started on a run, which act the commandant mistaking for a hostile movement,
they were fined upon, and ten of the twelve killed. The survivors were taken
to Holliday's fort and hanged upon the lintel over the sallyport, but their
captors relented and cut them down, and one of them, Hess by name, afterwards
became a soldier in Washington's army.

      Violation of the Most Solemn Treaty by the United States Government.

   After the close of the Revolutionary War and the institution of the
Federal government, one of the early acts President Washington's
administration was to execute a treaty of peace and amity with the Indians of
the North-West as Northern Ohio was then called. By the terms of this treaty,
the Delaware, Shawnese and other Indians had the eastern boundary of their
lands fixed and their holdings most solemnly assured to them, President
Washington assuring them, "We don't want your lands." More than this, they
were empowered to eject encroachers on their lands as they saw fit.
   White adventurers, perhaps not knowing of the assurances and powers given
to the Indians, and probably little caring, did encroach; the Indians
proceeded to eject them; trouble arose; but instead of sending a force to
eject the intruders, troops were sent by the government to force the Indians
back; they resisted; a bloody war ensued; Gen. Leger St. Clair lost 1,200
troops, in the vain effort to force the Indians back from the lands they held
by virtue of the treaty. Finally, about the latter part of 1794, Gen. Anthony
Wayne, the hero of Stony Point (Mad Anthony), was sent against them with a
large force. As the fox steals upon his intended prey, this ruthless warrior
stole upon the Indian settlement, intending to annihilate them; but one of
his soldiers, possessed of more humanity than his merciless

[Page 40 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

commander, notified the Indians of the intended surprise, and they escaped.
In his report to Secretary of War Arthur St. Clair, Wayne writes: "But for
the defection of this villain, I would have dealt them a telling blow. The
village for five miles above and below here (Miamis of the North and Au
Glaize), shows the work of many hands; nor have I seen such immense fields of
corn from Georgia to Canada."
   Wayne destroyed this corn; the Indians came in his absence and replanted
it; he destroyed it a second time; again it was replanted, and a third time
was it trampled to earth.
   The Indians were forced back by this "general who never sleeps" as the
Indians styled Wayne; a new treaty was made with them; again were they
assured of a fixity of tenure on the land which their "Great Father" was
pleased to allot to them; but now they are circumscribed in a small area in
the Indian Territory; but notwithstanding all the barbarous treatment they
have received at the hands of our government, during the civil war, while
Massachusetts sent one defender of the Union out of sixteen of a population
(the largest ratio of any state), the Delawares sent the one-half of their
fighting men with their own officers - 62 in all; and when they returned to
their homes an order was issued to disarm them - to deprive them of arms to
protect them from the raids of horse thieves who were systematically stealing
their horses. This order, however, was not carried into effect.
   The treatment of the Delaware and Shawnese Indians by our government is a
fair sample of its dealings with all Indians. Even now Blackfeet Indians are
starving near the mountains of Montana because our government has not kept
faith with them. - See Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson's, "A Century of Dishonor,"
and Seth Humphrey's "Uncle Sam, Trustee; or, The Indian Dispossessed."

           Father Gallitzin Builds His Second Church - Becomes
                     the Patron of Higher Education.

   In 1817, the first log church which was built by Father Gallitzin in 1799
and enlarged to double its size in 1808, having become too small for the
ever-increasing congregation, a frame building, forty by eighty feet in
dimensions, was built. It was used until 1854 when it was replaced by a brick
church, and having fallen to decay, it was torn down by Father Ferdinand
Kittell in 1891.

[Page 41 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   In 1819, an act of the Pennsylvania Legislature was passed authorizing the
establishing in Ebensburg of an institution for the imparting of the higher
branches of education to be called "The Ebensburg Academy," and pledging a
gratuity of $2,000 by the state whenever the subscribers should raise the
one-half of that amount, with the condition that five pupils of poor parents
should be taught gratis, no one pupil to be taught for a longer period than
two years.
   Storey in his "History of Cambria County," gives the names of the trustees
of the Academy as follows: "The Rev. D. A. Gallitzin, the Rev. George Roberts,
Associate Judge; Abraham Hildebrand, Associate Judge; James C. Maguire,
Prothonotary; John Murray, Moses Conan, James Meloy, Charles B. Seeley, John
Agnew, William O'Keefe, Cornelius McDonald, Richard McGuire and Samuel McAnulty.  
   From a copy of "The Ebensburg Sky," of March 7, 1833, edited by Moses
Canan, loaned to him by Charles Hasson, Esq., the writer notes the advantages
of the Academy set forth by that newspaper: "The salubrity of the climate; the
good character of the people of Ebensburg; the cheapness of the cost of
living, boarding ranging from $1.25 to $1.62 1/2 per week."

                      "The Cirriculum of the Academy."

   "Price of Tuition by the Quarter:
   "1st class - Reading, writing, arithmetic and bookkeeping, $2.
   "2nd class - English grammar, composition, declamation, history and geography, $3.
   "3rd class - The Latin; Greek and French languages, and the different
                branches of mathematics, $5."
   From "Stock Book of the Academy" from 1833, loaned by M. D. Kittell, Esq.,
the following list of stock-holders and the amounts of their stock is taken:
"Rev. D. A. Gallitzin. $100; Charles Murray, $20; William Smith,
Philadelphia, $20; John Murray, Sr., James Murray (by transfer), $20; Owen
McDonald, $30; Philip Noon, Esq., $25; David Wins, $ 10; David H. Roberts,
$10; John Lloyd, Esq., $10; Cornelius McDonald, $30; William O'Keefe, $20;
William O'Keefe, Jr., $10; P. Emerson, M. D., $15; John Agnew, $12.50; John
Rhey (near Blairsville), $20; Thomas Williams, $l2; Richard McGuire, Esq.,
$16.91; Samuel Mc-

[Page 42 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

Anulty, $10; Dennis Brawley, $10; Stanislaus Wharton, $10; James C. Maguire, $20; 
Abraham Hildebrand, $10; John Young, $20; James Meloy, $10; Peter Levergood, $10; 
Isaac Proctor, $10; Silas Moore, $10; Charles Litzinger,$24.47; Johnston Moore, $10; 
and other smaller subscriptions making in all $828.383 3/4."
   A biographer of Rev. Morgan John Rhees, the founder of Beulah, claimed
that Rhees had founded, in 1803, at Beulah, the first free school in Cambria
County, but that Father Gallitzin had previously started a subscription
school. Commenting on this statement, the late George T. Swank, when editor
of The Johnstown Tribune, said that Father Gallitzin having served St.
Michael's parish as pastor for forty years without one cent of salary, the
people of Loretto could well afford to pay for the education of their children.
   Archibald Christy, who had been a Revolutionary soldier was probably the
first teacher who taught subscription school. The Hon. George M. Wertz in a
little booklet issued by him about the Walnut Grove schools published a fac
simile cut of a bill presented by Christy to the County Commissioners for the
tuition of three poor children under what was opprobriously known as "the
pauper law," passed in 1809, for the education of children of the poor.
   John Miller, father of the late Charles Miller, of Loretto, Joseph Miller,
Esq., of Wilmore, and Mrs. Francis Eberly, also taught school under Father
Gallitzin. He was a splendid penman, as many of the old-time schoolteachers
were. 'Squire Miller related to the writer that one day Father Gallitzin came
into the room in which his father was sitting, in a state of perturbation of
temper and exclaimed, "Miller, I do believe that if the Evil One with
'Damnation' written across his forehead would run on the Democratic ticket
some people would vote for him."

                 Father Gallitzin As a Controversialist.

   The writer has before him a copy of a little work entitled "A Defense of
Catholic Principles," published in 1816 by Father Gallitzin and printed by S.
Engles, Pittsburgh, and another little book entitled "Letters to a Protestant
Friend" as a supplement to the former, printed by Thomas Foley, which works
were kindly loaned by P. J. Little, Esq.
   That "Protestant Friend" may have been the Rev. Rees Lloyd, a
Congregational minister, founder of the

[Page 43 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

town of Ebensburg, with whom according to the statement of the late John
Lloyd, of Ebensburg, grandson of Rev. Rees Lloyd, Father Gallitzin was on
terms of intimate friendship and often called to see him when in Ebensburg
and which friendship was reciprocated by the former who sided with Father
Gallitzin in his troubles with rebellious members of his congregation.
   Mr. Riddle tells the circumstance which led to the publication of these
works as follows:
   "In 1814 or 1815, the Government had directed the observance of a 'day of
humiliation and prayer.' It was during the war commenced with England in
1812. The pastor of the Presbyterian church at Hartslog, in Huntingdon
County, preached a sermon on that day which was published in the Huntingdon
Gazette.
   "It was in some respects a very disastrous affair. It said to be a re-cast
of a sermon delivered about the time of Braddock's campaign by William Smith,
D. D., of Philadelphia, proprietor of the town of Huntingdon, an
Episcopalian. Something was said in it of 'our papist and heathen neighbors,'
and also of 'popish superstitutions,' referring to the French in Canada.
   "The Democratic wing of the congregation took offense at things said
against the administration of Mr. Madison and 'seceded.' And Dr. Gallitzin,
through the medium of the Gazette, demanded an explanation or retraction as
to 'our popish neighbors,' etc.
   "I have never read or heard of a retraction in a theological dispute, to
the best of my recollection. Of course, none was given, and there was as is
to be expected in such cases a 'piling up' of ridicule and abuse in the reply.
   "For some time the correspondence was in the Gazette, published by John
McCahan, recently deceased. It, however, became too voluminous for a little
newspaper and was discontinued there. But the Presbyterian minister, who by
way, was also a worthy and estimable man, apart from his sectarian
proclivities, published a pamphlet against Dr. Gallitzin and his religion. As
a general reply, the latter published in 1816, 'A Defence of Catholic
Principles.' It circulated freely in Huntingdon County, and, amongst
Protestants some said it was the abler expose of the two.
   "I have reason to believe that these observations in particular instances
reached Dr. G., and induced him to

[Page 44 - History of Parish of 5t. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

think that a state of mind existed in the Protestant community favorable to
such a view of the general subject as is presented in his 'Letters to a
Protestant Friend,' printed in Ebensburg by Thomas Foley, in 1820. As to the
work Mr. Johnston speaks of as 'An Appeal to the Protestant Public,' I
presume it grew out of the controversy spoken of above. I do not particularly
recollect it - of the other two, I have copies.
   "In his 'Letters to a Protestant Friend,' in the preface, Dr. G. speaks of
'My Address to the Protestant Public,' which is possibly the same spoken of by
Mr. Johnston. It may have been contained in his communication to the Gazette,
and not separately published.
   "The late Moses McLean, of Harrisburg, no mean critic in literary matters,
once observed to the writer of these remarks: "If Dr. Gallitzin had resided in
Italy, or even it Europe, when he published the two works (spoken of above) he
would have been made a Cardinal.'"
   That Father Gallitzin was right in his opinion that a state of mind
favorable to the views expressed in "Letters to a Protestant Friend" existed
in the Protestant community is evidenced by the fact that so many
non-Catholics applied to him for instructions for admission into the Catholic
Church that he was obliged to publish a notice in the Cambria Gazette in 1820,
that on a certain Sunday in June of that year he would receive them into "the
Holy Roman Catholic Church with the rites and ceremonies" of that Church.
   So great was the demand for "Defence of Catholic Principles" that the
first edition having been exhausted, the work was republished in 1834, by
Canan & Scott, publishers of The Ebensburg Sky.
   A copy of this edition having descended to the writer, was being by him
preserved as a precious heirloom from his parents. He loaned this copy to a
relative to read, and when, after a reasonable time, he suggested to the
borrower that it was about time for its return the latter replied: "It is
lost; but you ought to be glad, for it made a convert."

               Father Gallitzin's Financial Embarrassment.

   By reason of the cutting off of income from his father's estate by the
Russian government on account of his having become a Roman Catholic, and the
further deprivation

[Page 45 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

of relief from his mother after her death, and afterwards from his sister,
who having married a spendthrift - Count de Salm - who when his wife was
dying had a pen placed in her hand and compelling her to sign a fraudulent
will, Father Gallitzin, who had spent at least $150,000 in planting his
colony found himself in financial straits, burdened with debt which he could
not meet, so as a matter of conscience he felt himself in duty bound to
appeal to the charity friends to assist him to pay, at least, part of the
debt. The appeal which is in his handwriting, was intrusted to tie writer by
Rev. Fr. Ferdinand Kittell, in 1899, from which Mr. Swank had a cut made
which was first published in The Johnstown Tribune in account of Centennial
of Loretto in 1899, and afterwards used by Father Kittell this "Souvenir of
Loretto Centenary," and is herewith reproduced on the following page.
   It may be well to state that at the time Father Gallitzin was educated,
more capital letters were used than now, verbs and adverbs and common nouns
often were capitalized. The orthography was also different as in "Deface,"
"segars," "embassador" and some other words.
   Charles Carroll, of Carrolltown, the last surviving signer of the
Declaration of Independence under date of November 13, 1827, endorsed the
appeal. Following is the list of some notable contributors to the fund in the
handwriting of each except Cardinal Capellari, which is in the writing of
Father Gallitzin:
Ch. Carroll, of Carrollton         $100.00 p'd
Robert Oliver                       100.00 p'd 
Baron de Maltitz                    100.00 p'd
Jo. Silvestro Rebello               100.00 p'd
Cardinal Capellari                  200.00 p'd
Matthew Carey                        20.00 p'd
Cash                                 20.00 p'd
Jos. Reiley                          10.00 p'd
Collected along the canal below Blairsville say $370.
   This latter entry also in Father Gallitzin's handwriting.

[Page 46 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

                     Father Gallitzin's Appeal.

[Page 47 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   Robert Oliver was legal adviser and attorney of Father Gallitzin; Baron de
Maltitz was the Russian "embassador" ofwhom more to follow; Jose Silvestro
Rebello was Portugese ambassador; Cardinal Capellari afterwards became Pope
Gregory XVI. ; Matthew Carey was probably the father of Henry C. Carey, the
noted political economist of the past generation.
   Appropos of this appeal, and doubtless antedating it, the following
quotation from Reminiscences of Dr. Gallitzin to which reference has already
been made, will be explanatory: "And, perhaps, emboldened by his kind and
condescending manner, I said, 'Doctor Gallitzin, if you were join the Russian
National Church the Greek Church)your estates would be restored. Is the
difference between the Latin and Greek Churches impassable?' 'I deem the
difference,' he said with a smile, 'sufficient to keep me where I am. But to
your query about my property: I am dead in the law, in view of Russian
Courts, and my cousin, Prince Gallitzin is the legal heir. He now owns them.
I have reason to believe him to be an excellent man. I never saw him for I
never was in Russia. He manifests much personal regard and kindness towards
me, as I learn from the Russian Embassador in Washington. It is through his
influence, I believe, that I have met with so much kindness from that gentleman.
   "'Some time ago, I expected money from Europe, but was disappointed. The
Embassador knew my expectations their failure, and insisted on my accepting a
loan from him. My need was urgent and the prospect of being able before long
to return the money almost certain, I accepted a loan of $5,000, for which I
gave my bond. But I was further disappointed, and finally, I concluded to go
on to Washington, and have a personal interview with him.
    "'He invited me to dine with him, and, perhaps, as a gratification to me,
invited Mr. Clay; the Minister of the King of Holland (formerly my college
mate, Prince of Orange), and others. After dinner some smoked segars and for
their accommodation a lighted candle was placed on the table. I chanced to
sit near the candle, and noticed the Russian Embassador rolling up a paper
very carefully to make a light. My eye involuntarily followed his hand till
the paper was put to the candle. Then I discovered my name on the paper. It
was my bond for $5,000 he was

[Page 48 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

burning. When I spoke to him on the subject, which I did at the first
opportunity he declared it settled. Nor would he hear anything more from me
about it.'"
   After relating how the king of Holland, having found out through agents
where his college chum was immured, offered him assistance which was
declined, but as an excuse to befriend him he had his minister tender
Gallitzin $2,000 for a watch and some rings the latter had left with him when
they parted in Holland, which was ten times more than they were worth, which
the conscientious priest was loath to receive, but accepted knowing that a
refusal would hurt the feelings of his old-time friend, Mr. Riddle continues:
"At the very time of this conversation, his homestead at Loretto was
advertised for sale by the Sheriff of
Cambria County; and I could not suppress all emotion in view of the hardships
that appeared to menace his old age.  And I ventured to say something to that
effect. But he replied, smiling, "My son, the Lord has provided for me
hitherto and will hereafter. I have no doubt of that.'
   "But when the laborers on the canal, then in progress, learned the
condition he was in, the money was raised and the debt was paid."
   The next time the two friends met, Father Gallitzin at once referred to
his late embarrassment and the payment of the debt. "The noble Irish," said
the latter, "relieved me at once. They raised the money and the debt is paid."
   As the writer believes in giving honor where honor is due, he notes that
not only the Irish laborers employed in the construction of the Pennsylvania
Canal, but also those engaged in the building of the Allegheny Portage
Railroad contributed to the fund to pay the debt and he remembers the names
of many of said contributors.

              The Founding of Other Parishes in Cambria County.

   Owing to the fact that a number of Catholic families had settled in
Ebensburg by reason of that town being the county seat, and the further fact
that at first none of the officials of the county except the County
Commissioner were elected directly by the voters, but were appointed by the
governor of the state, it is true, generally, but not always, upon the
expression of the choice of the people by the medium of the ballot; and as
the governors then belonged to the Republican, since the Democratic, party, the

[Page 49 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

generality of these appointees were Catholics for the reason that most of the
non-Catholics belonged to the Federal party - the party of Father Gallitzin himself.
   There were of Catholics, James C. Maguire, first county Treasurer and
afterwards Prothonotary; James Meloy, the first Sheriff; Edward V. James,
also Prothonotary, and later on David T. Storm, Prothonotary; Cornelius
McDonald, Philip Noon, Associate Judge and afterwards Sheriff; John Murray,
Sheriff, later on, and others who with their families formed a congregation
of respectable size.
   It must not be supposed that the early governors of Pennsylvania appointed
people solely from political or religious predilections. President Judge John
Young was a Swedenborgian, Associate Judge Abraham Hildebrand belonged to
some Protestant denomination, Associate Judge George Roberts was a
Congregational minister and probably a Federalist.
   About the year 1816, Father Gallitzin organized in Ebensburg the church of
St. Patrick, which in reality is the canonical name of the present church and
parish. The first pastor was Rev. Patrick Rafferty. Afterwards Father Felix
McGirr, who lived on a farm near Ebensburg and also assisted Father Gallitzin
at Loretto, attended the congregation. Fathers P. Duffy and Bradley also
served this congregation, before Father Lemke.

               The Grave of the First Priest to Die Within the 
                    Bounds of the Diocese of Altoona.

   Underneath a brownstone flag placed horizontally on supports about
eighteen inches high, underneath the figure of an urn and the usual I. H. S.
with a cross on the H, is following inscription:

  HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF REV. THOMAS GAHAGAN, A NATIVE OF THE PARISH OF TUBBER-   
                    CLAIRE, COUNTY OF WESTMEATH, IRELAND,  
                                   AND  
                   FORMERLY PASTOR OF MANAYUNK AND TRENTON,  
                  LATELY ASSISTANT PASTOR OF ST. PATRICK'S,  
                                PITTSBURG,
      Who departed this life at Newry on the 15th day of July, 1833, in the 33rd
      year of his age and the third of his ministry, respected and beloved for
      his amiable man-

[Page 50 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

      ners, unfeigned piety and untiring zeal. "Being made perfect in a short
      space, he fulfilled a long time!!" 
      Wisdom IV, 10.
                                R. I. P.

   Underneath is a Latin Cross.
   Father Henry Lemke after he came to Cambria County was for a time
stationed in Ebensburg.

                    St. Joseph's, Hart's Sleeping-Place.

   The next congregation to be formed was at Hart's Sleeping-Place, about two
and a half miles to the northwest of Carrolltown, where a settlement of
Germans and some other natives of Europe, and a couple of Irish Americans -
James and Michael Kennedy, had located. This congregation was organized some
time about 1830 and Father Gallitzin sometimes said Mass there.
   Hart's Sleeping-Place derives its name from the fact that Joe Hart, a
German trader with the Indians used to sleep there at night on the leaning
trunk of a cherry tree, his pack-horses loaded with peltries tethered near a
fire to keep wild animals away from them. This sleeping-place was located a
few hundred feet to the northward of the old Kittanning Path as the writer
has seen from a map constructed by P. J. Little, Esq.
   Hart, who, Mr. Little says, was the first white man to use the path must
have been acquainted with it at an early day as Conrad Weiser, a noted
interpreter, and Frederick Post probably used it as early as 1732; and his
last known travel over it was in one of the French and Indian wars, perhaps
as early as 1744, when arriving one day at Blacklog Valley he saw outlined
with charcoal on the trunk of a fallen chestnut tree used by the Indians as a
bulletin board, hieroglyphics made by Indians, indicating that they had gone
on the war-path to which was added, "No hurt Hart." Hart, deeming "discretion
the better part of valor," kept aloof from them.
   Father Gallitzin was the first to serve the people at this mission. A
church was built about 1834, a fac simile of a subscription list for the
building of which was published in Caldwell's Atlas of Cambria County. The
name of Emericus Bender for $20 heads the list, and subscriptions down to one
as low as 50 cents are noted. Emericus Bender was, about 1828, one of the
County Commissioners

[Page 51 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

of Cambria County. He was the ancestor of numerous descendants amongst whom
are E. A. Bender, of Carrolltown and A. E. Bender, better known as "Bert"
Bender of the Bender Hotel, Ebensburg.
   Later on Father Lemke, who first attended the church from Ebensburg,
became resident pastor, as a list of subscriptions headed by handwriting of
Father Gallitzin indicates. Father Gallitzin styled the then new pastor "Rev.
Henry Lamke."
   This church was long in disuse, but owing to the influx of foreign miners
to the mines at St. Benedict, is now attended by a Benedictine Father from
Carrolltown.
   The next congregation to be organized was that of St. John Gaulbert,
Johnstown, in 1835. A brick church was erected on a lot donated for the
purpose by Peter Levergood on Church Street, near where the Southern Cambria
Street Railway goes down the steep grade to the old American House.
   This church bore the unique distinction of having been the only church
within the Diocese of Pittsburg which was ever sold for debt by the sheriff.
It was, however redeemed from the purchaser, who, if the writer mistakes not,
was Peter Levergood.
   This church was probably first attended by Father McGirr from his farm
near Ebensburg and perhaps some times by Father Lemke, about once a month.
Later on appears from "Souvenir of Loretto Centenary" which contains on page
47: "Register of Baptisms, Marriages, etc., of the mission which comprises
Ebensburg, Summit, Jefferson, Johnstown, Reservoir from the 1st of October,
1841, when I, Matthew William Gibson, received jurisdiction from the Rt. Rev.
Francis Patrick Kenrick, Bishop of Philadelphia, etc."
   Father Gibson was an English priest. It is said that he built more
churches than any other priest who ever lived in Western Pennsylvania, one of
which was in Hexham, England. He was a brother to the wife of the late Joseph
McDonald, Esq., of Ebensburg. His remains are interred in Ebensburg in the
old cemetery where also are those of Fathers Terence McGirr and R. C. Christ,
as well its those of Gather Gahagan, already noted.

[Page 52 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   The local Register of St. John's, as well as of that of St. Bartholomew's,
Wilmore, and probably that of St. Aloysius, Summit, was commenced in 1844 by
Rev. A. P. Gibbs, who was succeeded by Rev. Tobias Mullen, later Bishop of
Erie, who served St. Aloysius', St. Bartholomew's and St. John's on Sundays
and holydays by riding from one mission to another. He was the first resident
pastor at St. John's.
   St. Bartholomew's, Jefferson (now Wilmore), was the next congregation
formed. Although a chapel was erected at Carrolltown in 1836, Father
Gallitzin, from early in his pastorate at Loretto, often said Mass in the
house of Godfrey Wilmore, and during the making of the Allegheny-Portage
Railroad at Jefferson, in the barn, or orchard, of James Young, when there
was no Mass said nearer at hand, walked to Loretto to Mass, and farmers even
miles beyond Wilmore as Felix Skelly, for instance, generally rode on
horseback, sometimes two on the same horse. The same is true of the people of
"The Loup" as the present township of Clearfield was called, that name being
derived from the name given a branch tribe of the Shawnese Indians by the
French, who called the principal tribe "Chouanans." The laborers on the
Pennsylvania Canal and the Allegheny-Portage Railroad, at Johnstown, often
walked to Ebensburg to Mass before St. John's Church was built.
   St. Aloysius,' Summit, was the next congregation to have a church of
considerable dimensions. It was dedicated September 12, 1844.
   At Summit was located a theological seminary and also a Catholic
newspaper, The Crusader, of which Rev. Fr. Thomas McCullagh, one of the most
talented priests of his day was the editor. The seminary was burned, and the
students sent to St. Michael's Seminary, Pittsburg, and The Crusader was
merged with the Pittsburgh Catholic. The late Henry A. McPike was the
publisher of The Crusader.
   As already noted, a chapel was built by Father Lemke at the present town
of Carrolltown in 1836, but St. Benedict's church was not dedicated until 1850.

                      Death of Father Gallitzin.

   Physically disabled by a fall from his horse years before, which ever
after prevented him from riding on horseback, so that when traveling over
rough roads in winter

[Page 53 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

and summer he used a small, wooden-sole sled hauled by two horses, the driver
seated on the leader, worn out by the labors of forty-five years, his
constitution, never robust it is said, doubtless more enfeebled by cold in
his church, in which he never allowed fire, on Easter Sunday morning, 1840,
he said early Mass and heard confessions and at the Mass which was said by
Father McGirr, he preached the Resurrection, one sentence of which sermon,
related to the writer by one who heard it was "If Christ had not risen, this
man and I (referring to Father McGirr), would be the greatest imposters in
the world." The closing words his sermon were, "It is consummated," truly
prophetic words and his last to his congregation. The Mass over, he was
compelled by reason of a chill he had taken to take his bed, and Fathers
Lemke, of St. Joseph's, and Father Heyden, of St. Thomas', Bedford, were
summoned, Father McGirr
being present, the last rites of the Church were administered and his
physician, Dr. Aristides Roderigue, of Ebensburg, was summoned to his
bedside, but his malady was beyond the power of medical skill to cure, and he
died Wednesday, May 6, following.
   The funeral, which took place on Saturday, May 9, was attended by about
five thousand people, gathered from all parts of the county. The Requiem Mass
was celebrated by Father Heyden, who preached in English from the text "The
just shall live in everlasting remembrance," a text prophetic of the
remembrance in which the memory of the "Apostle of the Alleghenies is now
held, and Father Lemke, preached in German, his text also being exceedingly
appropriate "Of whom the world was not worthy; wondering its deserts, and
dens, and in caves of the earth." 
   The interment was made, according to the request of the deceased between
the church and the chapel but seven years later the remains were moved to the
tomb erected for purpose in which they now repose, beneath a handsome monument
surmounted by a life-size bronze statue of Father Gallitzin, the gift of
Charles M. Schwab, who at its unveiling in 1899, proposed to build at his own
expense the present beautiful church, consecrated by the late Rt. Rev. E. A.
Garvey in 1901.

[Page 54 - History of Parish of St. Augustine, St. Augustine, Pa.]

   During his last illness, Father Gallitzin, as a memento offered his friend
and physician, Dr. Aristides Roderigue, his choice between the religuary
already mentioned and a gold watch said to have belonged to his father.
Roderigue chose the religuary, which is yet cherished as a sacred heirloom by
one of his descendants. The watch was purchased at the sale of Gallitzin's
personal property by John C. O'Neill, who sold it to his uncle, "Charley"
O'Neill. The latter sold the watch to the late 'Squire Joseph Miller, of Wilmore, 
who bequeathed it to his grandson, Guy Blairsdell, who prizes it so highly 
that it is not for sale even at a price far in excess of its intrinsic value.

                                    *