Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-12-26
Fathers WalwOrth and Hewitt
Were Descendants of Old
American stock.
Labor When Catholicity Was
Not i'm Favor in the Empire
State.
BIRTH OF FIRST CONGREGATION
BY James A. Rooney, LII. D.

Inc writer's earliest recOlleCtlOn
of the Rev. Isaac Thomas Hecker, C.
S. P., one of the founders and the
first Superior of the Missionary So
ciety of st. Paul the Apostle, whose
death, on December 22, 1888, is well
remembered in New York, was as
ten-year-old altar boy serving his
first mass every morning for a week
during a mission he gave in 1852 to
the Catholics of st. Mary's, then the
only church in the village OF
Schenectady, N. Y, of which the Rev.
John McGeough was the pastor. He
was then in the prime of his splendid
manhood at thirty-three. Assisting
him part of the time in the confess
sional and in preaching some of the
wonderful three daily sermons that
attracted and held spellbound
throngs of the village people, others
from Scotia and settlements along
the Mohawk all the way from
Amsterdam to Cohoes, as well as
numbers of the Irish Catholic
laborers still working along the line
of the Erie canal, were Father
Augustus Francis Hewitt and Father
Clarence A. Walworth, all converts,
all Americans. all Redemptorists and
all fresh in the mission field of the
diocese of Albany, coming at the in
vitation of Bishop John McCloskey,
later our first Cardinal. It was
time when Catholicity was not in
favor in those parts, when all adher-
ents of the faith were classified as
'Irish," when the spirit of Know
nothingism was yet alive and in the
atmosphere though dying with great
reluctance; when Catholic boy who
wore a ..Patrick Cross. on March II
knew that he might have to defend it
and was ready. With all this the
non-Catholics could not keep away
from the Catholic mission.
Father Walworth was an Ameri-
can of the Americans, descendant
of the old PATRONS, with family
record going back to 1889. and the
son of Chancellor Walworth, the last
holder of that distinguished title.
Besides all this he himself was an
alumnus OF Union College, having
graduated in 1898 when eighteen
years old. He was then in his thirty
second year. with a magnetic per-
sonality. a dramatic delivery and an
indescribable power over the emo
tions of his hearers: so II there's a
Union man i'm the church today who
heard Father Walworth then he
probably owes to him his conversion.
Father Hewitt was Of Connecticut
Congregational stock, the son of a
minister of that sect, the grandson
of United States Senator Hillhouse,
from that State, and a graduate of
Amherst in the class of '39. Like
Father Walworth he came to Rome
through the Episcopal church, after
he had abandoned Calvinism as a
failure. and groping his way to the
truth mainly through such Prot
estant influences as Ranke's His
tory of the Popes" and Guizots ellis
tory of European Civilization" He
was baptized by the Right Rev. Pat
rick ~ Lynch, Bishop of Charleston,
s. c., on Easter Sunday in 1916,
making his first communion the same
day He was ordained March 25
the next year He was an orator Of
great power and no one today, unless
he can transport himself in spirit
into the environment of that New
York village in 1859, can appreciate
the furore produced in the com
immunity by the sermons of these en-
thusiastic missionaries.
The altar boy attached himself to
Father Heckor. and the missionary
even spent some time In his fathers
house. meeting there two of his
aunts and discovered to them their
vocation to the religious life. He in
| troduced them afterward to the Rev.
Mother Mary Agnes in the old
Houston street Convent of Mercy,
where both later took the habit, one
to serve as the Rev. Mother M.
Augustine. founder of the House OF
Mercy and war time nurse in the
South; the other as Sister Mary
Francis, the first Sister of Mercy to
receive the habit in the original
Brooklyn convent.
Father Hecker was born in New
York City. was thoughtful and
studious and Of religious tempera-
ment. a far-sighted young workman
who took up the social crusade early
and In the political campaign OF
1884 he met Orestes A. Brownson,
already famous as a social reformer.
Young Heeker was looking for the
truth. He spent six months at the
Brook Farm colony in 1s43. where
he was known as Ernest, the
Seeker" His search ended in the
Catholic church. into which he was
admitted August 1, 1s44, by Bishop
Mccloskey. In the following year he
entered the Redemptorist novitiate
In Tronde. Belgium. and was or
dained by Cardinal Wiseman, Octo-
Der 23, 1S47. After two years on
the English mission he returned 10
America and from 1881 TO 1857 was
engaged in the work OF giving mis-
sions all over the country, himself
and Fathers Walworth. Hewitt.
Deshon and Baker, all native Ameri-