The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1914-09-05
Impressive Ceremonies Mark
Passage of Old Cathedral

and Willis A. German the governor
of the territory of Minnesota; on the
eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, the
twenty-seventh day of July, at the
close of the solemn Mass, about mid
day, the Corner stone of the Cathed-
raj of St. Paul was put in place, with
due ceremonial according to the
Roman Ritual, under the invocation
of the Blessed Paul the Apostle"
The twenty-seventh day of July. in
the year of our Lord 1856! Few
they are, within the Cathedral, on
this thirtieth day of August, in the
year of our Lord 1914, privileged to
have witnessed the scene of fifty
eight years ago. Death has swept
the multitude from the land of the
living. Cretin and Timon are gone:
Ravoux, Keller, Caillet and Oster are
gone: the multitude of devoted spec
tators are gone. The few alone sur
vive. These few I salute with re-
spect and fondness. Their right is
undisputed to honored seats as we
ring out the closing hour of the dear
old Cathedral. And piously and low
ingly I salute those that are gone,
whose spirits are now descending
from the. skies to be with us on this
meaningful occasion, led hither, I
am confident, by the two heroes to
whose zeal the Cathedral in very
especial manner owes it's creation,
whose hearts were wont, as those of
none others, to go out to it in love,
in sacrifice-Cretin and Ravoux.
The Cathedral that we honor to-
day is not the first Cathedral of st.
Paul. This included, three there
were-each one entertwining to it's
self memorable associations, each
one epochal in the annals of City and
of Diocese.
On November the first, 1841, FIR.
Lucian Galtier dedicated the chapel,
from which the city of to-day has it's
name. 1t was built of roughly hewn
trunks of tamarack trees: it was
eighteen feet in length and sixteen
in breadth: two small windows
brought light to it's nave and sanct-
uary: the cost, outside of the free
labor of the workmen, totalled the
sum of seventy-eight dollars. In size
and poverty it was the fitting symbol
of the village that clustered around
it, In the year Of 1847, the village
growing, the chapel grew in length,
though scarcely in comeliness; and
as then fashioned, it became the first
Cathedral of St. Paul, July the
Second, 1851, when Joseph Cretin
read from it's altar step the apostolic
letters, appointing him first bishop of
st. Paul.
The village meanwhile increased
in population. A new Cathedral was
built. This was the edifice construct
ed of brick, situated on Wabasha
and Sixth streets-so shaped as to
house church, school-rooms and resi-
dence of bishop and priests. 1t was
the wonder and the delight of the
village as it rose into it's three-fold
staging, though here and there, we
have been told, mutterings were
heard that it was too remote from
the center of civilization. 1t was be-
gun soon after the arrival of Bishop
Cretin. Though yet unfinished and
upholstered, it opened its doors to
public worshop in the winter of the
year 1851. The cost was in the
neighborhood of seven thousand dol
lars, paid for with the money the
Bishop had obtained from his pattern
al estate in France.
And still st. Paul was growing in
population: and, also, in conscious
ness of it's future Importance. I'm
migration was moving in rising
waves towards the rich woodlands
and prairies of Minnesota. A pros
porous future seemed secure to city
and to territory. A new Cathedral
this time a great Cathedral, that
should long adorn the future, was
thought to be the pressing need OF
religion, in st. Paul. This, the dear
old Cathedral, to which we are now
bidding farwell.
Plans were drawn and work begun
upon the foundation in the year 1854
The plans indicated an edifice, mark
ed by stateliness of proportions and
RIGHTEOUSNESS of form-different
from what later the Cathedral was
ordered to be. Buttresses there
were to strengthen and variate the
lateral walls: a towering steeple was
to dominate it's front. A newspaper
at the time described its plans: The
basement of the new Cathedral is
one hundred and seventy-five feet
long by seventy-five feet wide. When
the steeple is added. it will make the
whole length Of the building two
hundred feet. The steeple is to be
two hundred and fifty feet high (this
many believed to be bit Of journal.