Lamy of Santa Fe. Paul Horgan

friend. When he arrived, he found instead that Machebeuf was simply recovering from a fever. There was joy all around, and another of the French missioners referred to the invalid who had deceived death as “Monsieur Trompe-la-Mort.”

      Loving all which they were overcoming in the name of what they believed, they were content. Machebeuf wrote to Riom, “I declare to you that for all the gold in the world I would not return to live in Europe,” and Lamy in one of his letters written from abroad some years later, said he was preparing himself “to return to my Beloved Ohio.” Still, the call of their early home was strong in their early days in the Middle West. They had fine plans for a visit to Auvergne. They knew how they would go—the Lake Erie steamboat from Sandusky to Buffalo, the great canal to the Hudson River and down to New York, and from there, no such antiquated an affair as a ship under canvas but a steamer, which would reach Liverpool in fourteen days. “From Liverpool to Paris by railroad and the Straits of Dover, two days would be enough,” wrote Machebeuf to his father. “Then from Paris to Riom is but a hop-step-and-a-jump for an American. This is the way Father Lamy and I have fixed up our plan.” Yet there was a condition which had to be met first. “But it cannot be carried out until we have each built two churches, [Lamy] at Mt Vernon and Newark, I, at my two Sanduskys [then known as Upper and Lower Sandusky]. So, if you can find some generous Catholic who can send us at least eighty thousand francs for each church, we can leave within a year. Merci.…”

      v.

       Self-Searchings

      AND THERE IT WAS—the material struggle from which neither would ever be free. Lamy knew moments of self-doubt—there was “grade deal to be done”; he wrote the bishop in 1841; “if I had only that sacerdotal zeal.” He need not have worried—the bishop referred to him as a “fervent pastor.”

      Yet the obstacles were not merely local. The nation was undergoing a great financial depression, and despite all the good will, strong arms, and community work in the remote countrysides, materials still cost money, labor must be paid; the pressing needs of a growing population always increased the goal to be achieved. Machebeuf wrote to his brother, his sister, and his father in turn, describing the national condition. “Since the declaration of independence,” he declared, “no one ever saw here such stagnation in business affairs. Not only is this true of Ohio, but in all the States of the Union.” There was not a tenth of the money in circulation in 1842 which had been known in earlier years. Most of the banks failed; those which survived would not lend money; paper money, much mistrusted as issued by banks which later failed, destroyed confidence; employers defaulted on wages to workmen. Through the months, work was discontinued on all large enterprises. It hardly paid to raise grain crops. Food prices were depressed, but those who raised their own could not starve. Immigrants kept pouring in, not to take jobs, but to claim land and cultivate their own produce. It was obvious that support of existing churches and the construction of new ones was almost impossible. Machebeuf—and the same must have been true for Lamy—had the greatest trouble keeping up his own dwelling, and said, “I have had to sell my dear little buggy which was so useful.”

      Yet, all sharing, the pastor’s work went on, however humbly. Lamy’s rectory at Danville was “pretty well finished” in April 1841. He later said to someone else that he found it harder to furnish a house than to put it up out of rude materials.

      Even before St Luke’s at Danville was completed, Lamy was continuing work on his new church at Mt Vernon. He called it St Vincent de Paul’s, after his “favorite saint,” While it was going up, he said Mass in various private houses. Overseeing the erection of the church, Lamy had a helper in “old Squire Colopy,” who was “in such good earnest, that he has scarcely any rest, till he sees it enclosed. It will be a very handsome building, at the moment I write to you,” Lamy told Purcell, “they have employed 60000 bricks. We think that it will be an ornament to the town.”

      But people were not always as strong as bricks. Squire Colopy fell ill, and a Mr Brophy had to take time from his own work to oversee the construction. Lamy to Purcell in December 1841:

      this church in Mt Vernon would have been enclosed two months ago if it was not for the accident that happened to Mr Brophy (the little Irish tailor) he had one day a fall, and has been lame since, though he is getting better, he was the man to attend to the building, but after he had that fall, the church was little neglected; Mr Colopy has not been very well, there was only Mr Morton who has done all he could; the mecanics that had to put on the roof have also been sick, but now all that is wanting, is to have the shingles on. all the timbers for the roof are fixed on the wals that church looks very handsome.

      The church was finally roofed and plastered when fire, “by some unknown means,” on the evening of 2 March 1844, burned away all but the brick shell of St Vincent de Paul’s, and that was weakened.

      Purcell came to see the wreckage, preached in the court house to a large crowd, and the citizens subscribed six hundred dollars to rebuild the church. The rebuilding would be slow—”not so much for want of means as of materials, in the getting out whereof some unavoidable delays have occurred.”

      But Lamy was already at work on plans for his new church at Newark, twenty-four miles from Mt Vernon, thirty-six miles from Danville. He was in constant touch with Purcell, projecting hopes, reporting progress, asking permission for various moves. In December 1841, there was as yet no deed to the Newark property where he meant to build. He wanted this settled before spring, so that he could count on beginning the work when the weather broke fine. He would be able to buy windows and altar from the church at Zanesville, and he intended to get them “very cheap.” If he had to go into debt to build, might he have permission to sell a portion of the deeded land?—for the deed, in February 1842, was now secure—though it would be the last measure to take, if necessary. The church went up, and the next question was where the priest might stay—Lamy came every fourth Sunday to Newark, had been staying with a certain family. But there was now illness in their small house and he felt it imposing on them to return each time. How would it be if he carefully chose another good family, asked them to build a house on church property, keep a room for him, and after the equivalent of his room and board had paid for their share of the house, let it all revert to the parish of St Francis de Sales, as he had named it? There was “good spirit,” in his people. His plans went forward, even to the great matter of fine music. Newark was largely a German parish. The congregation had music in them, and he was able to report: “We have then a very good choir of German Catholics with some fair instruments. [There was no organ.] They sing very well, but almost all in German, except the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo in Latin, till they get some books of church music.” Like the early Franciscans in a place he had not yet heard of, he seemed able to do everything, even to rehearsing the choir, for it had “greatly improved” under his instruction. Would the bishop please send books of liturgical music? A cheque for two hundred dollars would also be welcome at Mt Vernon, whose people were rebuilding St Vincent de Paul’s after the fire. He was happy to report that at Newark, “we have got a little help from the Widow McCarthy.”

      So it went, in all his missions, in much the same set of problems, ingenuities, endurances. There were always the Widow McCarthys, the Squire Colopys, the Mr Brophys, to give support and help lead others in the itinerant pastor’s plans. Machebeuf, in the north, was moved from Tiffin to Lower Sandusky, and later given Upper Sandusky, and eventually the two parishes met and merged simply as Sandusky. In his turn, he kept Purcell informed and asked him for money. His first church was a vacant storeroom. The one he built as soon as possible was called after the Holy Angels. Its timber and stone were brought from across Sandusky Bay where a curving peninsula reached out into Lake Erie. Even before it was finished, it was too small for the congregation—a mixed success. He had benches sitting back to back to accommodate whom he could. It was a rudely Gothic church, forty by seventy feet in dimensions, with a steeple 117 feet high. The cross at the top, said Machebeuf, was “made by an English Anabaptist, gilded by an American infidel, and placed upon a Catholic church to be seen shining by mariners far out upon the lake.”

      Throughout their labors in separated places, Lamy and Machebeuf kept up their comradeship as well as they could. Despite their infrequent visits to each