Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-12-05
Their Old Missions, Stations and
Chapels Can Yet Be
Traced.
Father Patrick Kelly Celebrated
First Mass i'm City of
Buffalo.
WERE AIDED BY FATHER BADEN
By James A. Rooney, LII. D.

BY James A. Rooney, LII. d.
The first division of the great
diocese of New York by the estab-
lishment of the diocese of Buffalo,
April 23, 1847, with the Right Rev.
John Timon, G. NJ, as the first
Bishop, relieved Bishop Hughes OF
the care of its sixteen churches. The
diocese included twelve counties, a
great region that had been for un-
known years the habitat of the
Seneca and Cayuga Indians, tribes OF
the blood-thirsty, treacherous and
warlike confederacy of the Iroquois,
and 1t was to bring Christianity and
the light of the faith to these saw
ages that the early French Jesuit
missionaries from Quebec and Mon
treal penetrated their wilderness,
nearly two hundred year before the
date mentioned. Traces of their old
missions, stations and chapels still
remain and the tragic record of their
labors and sufferings is part of the
history of the church in New York
State.
Among the first to come were
Father James Fremin and his COM
panions. He was the Superior OF
the missions and took up the work
in response to the request of the
Seneca chiefs for priests. He ar
rived in the country of this tribe on
All Saints day, 1868, and the next
year visited the home of the
Cayugas, near the present village OF
Cayuga. not far from Auburn, at the
head of the Cayuga lake. In August,
1863, Father Fremin presided at a
synod of his missionaries held on
Indian Hill, near the recent village
Pompey, where was the Great Coun-
Gil house of the Onondagas. With
him at this first ecclesiastical synod
in the State we're Fathers James
Bruyas, John Pierron, stephen de
Carheil and Julien GARNER.
Father Pierron took up his per-
manent residence at the Seneca town
near the present village of Victor in
1911, and Father Carheil built a
chapel in the principal village of the
Cayugas, near Union Springs, in
1868. There was a chapel of the
immaculate Conception near the
preesnt village of Lima, where the
Senecas had another of their large
towns. All these missions were
located in what is now the diocese
of Rochester, but there were also
many Jesuit missions within the
boundaries of the present diocese OF
Buffalo, which prospered until the
wars between the French and Eng
lish. The Iroquois took sides with
the latter and the French Jesuits
had to fly for their lives, taking
with them many OF their Christian
Indians to new homes on the st.
Lawrence.
The first mass within the limits
of the present diocese of Buffalo OF
which there is any definite record
was probably that celebrated by
Father Louis Hennepin, Franciscan
of the Recollet branch, the date be-
ing fixed as December IL, 1878.
We know that La Sale, who was
once a Jesuit scholastic, and Father
Hennepin entered the mouth OF the
Niagara river from Lake Ontario on
December 6. The next day with a
party of Indians Father Hennepin
padded up the river and made a
landing on the Canadian side near
the present suspension bridge at
Lewiston. 1t may not have present.
ed so favorable a location as the
American side, and on December IL
their canoes grated on the river
beach on the American shore, not
far away from which the party found
a convenient camping ground with a
fine spring of water. Father M. j..
Rosa, G. M, one of the Vincentian
missionary band, whose home Is in
Niagara University, located on the
direct road of the old Indian portage
which Hennepin travelled to reach
the Falls, has explored this whole
region. He Is of the opinion that
Father Hennepin's first mass in New
York State was offered at the above
spring, now known as Brands
Spring." and still to be seen about
400 yards from ravine which
would have offered a splendid land
ing place to Hennepin's party.
AS for the first mass in the city
of Buffalo the celebrant seems to
have been Father Patrick Kelly and
the date 1891, when he was ordained
by Bishop Connolly and sent to the
northwestern part of the State. He
was stationed at Auburn and
Rochester and the same year visited
Buffalo, where he offered the holy
sacrifice in a frame building on
Pearl street.
Father Badin, the first priest or
dained in the United States. whose
field was In Kentucky, also visited
Buffalo. and Il was he who prompted
the Catholics to organize congrega7
ton and build church. Louise LIE
Couteulx donated the site at the
corner of Main and Edwards Streets
The deed was presented to Bishop
Dubois when in 1871 he ifcluded
Buffalo In his episcopal visitation,
finding about 700 Catholics where
he had been given to believe there
were only sixty or seventy.
In I440 HufIor NIchuIoa Morfx