Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-08-22
BISHOP M,MAhON DEAD.

Taken With a Sudden and Fatal Illness Il
 at Lakevnle-Sketch of the Life Work of
 the Dead Prelate.
 The Right Rev Bishop McMahon died | at the Catholic parsonage in Lakeville | at $50 last evening, after an illness of | four days. The bishop went to Lake | vile last Tuesday, not feeling very well | and thinking the rest and change would | benefit him, but instead of recovering | he seemed to gradually grow worse, dysentery setting in. but no alarm was felt by those who were near him until yesterday afternoon, when a change for the worse appeared. \ He was conscious up to the last mo- ment and his death was as peaceful as a child's. The priests present at the bed side were the Rev T. F. Ramon and Nj. J. O'Connor of Lakeville, Rev Father Leo of Winsted and Rev Walter J. Shanley of Hartford. Miss Rose Mo | Mahon, the bishops sister, was also present.
 The bishop had been in failing health
 for nearly year. He was too feeble to say mass at his anniversary celebration
 on August 10, but he was able to make | a speech, thanking the priests for their | good wishes. He started last Tuesday
 to go to Saratoga for his health. A stop
 was made at Lakeville to break the journey.
 | AS SOOu aS "OEu OI Ln6 DlSnOpS ueALn
 was received at the cathedral the Rev William A. Harty, the rector, decided
 to start at once for Lakeville. He left l on the 1925 D. m. train and will take charge of the remains and make ar ! engagements for having them brought to Hartford.
 Bishop McMahons brother, the Rev
 John McMahon of Charlestown, Mass, is | in Rome, where he has been quite sick. | The Rev William Maher sailed for New York Saturday on the Fulda to meet
 him and accompany him to this country. l The Rt Rev Lawrence s. McMahon ! was born in New Brunswick in 1885
 and came to the United States when he | was four months old. His early educa- tion was obtained in Boston, after
 which he entered the Holy Cross college at Worcester and remained there until | the destruction of the institution by fire suspended his studies for & time. He continued his course in Montreal and St Mary's seminary, Baltimore. He be- gan his theological course in the Col | lege of Aix. but completed it in Rome, | March 24. 1860. He was ordained that year in the Basilica of St John Lutheran, hv the cardinal vicar. Returning to the United states, he was first stationed in I the cathedral at Boston, but in 1863 ac- companied the twenty eighth Massachu- setts regiment to the field as chaplain. After the war he was appointed first pastor at Bridgewater, from which parish he was on the first day of July, l 1865, transferred to New Bedford. Here
 he erected the church in honor of his
 patron saint, St Lawrence. He also es-
 tablished a hospital for the sick and | wounded ln New Bedford.
 | When Providence became a separate
 see in 1870, Bishop Hendricken ap-
 pointed the Rev Father McMahon his vicar general, and the next year the
 jealous and energetic priest received the
 degree of doctor of divinity from Rome.
 He remained fourteen years at New | Bedford, until he was chosen for the see
 of Hartford and consecrated by Arch
 bishop Williams on August 10. 1879. | Immediately after his conservation | Bishop McMahon undertook the legacy
 that had been left of continuing the
 work of the cathedral, and in this he
 has been not only wonderfully success full, but has lived to see it consecrated. He found it with debt of $60 900, and
 his first labor was to remove that debt and then to put into reality the plans of his predecessors. At the end of fifteen years of labor he has completed the work, and also organized forty eight new parishes, dedicated seventy new churches and established many schools, The cathedral has been erected by the sacrifice of his own income and the voluntary contributions of the Roman Catholics of the diocese, as no tax or as-
 sessment was placed upon any parish.
 Within ten years he has expended over
 $500, ,000 on its construction and embel-
 lishment. To do this the bishop not
 only sacrificed his means, but his health
 and to restore the latter he went to
 Europe in April, 1891. The grand edi-
 flee was consecrated on May 8, 1892.