Continued Preparations for his departure began at once. Fr. James Whalen, the subprior in charge of St. Jospeh's, wrote to Archbishop Samuel Eccleston of Baltimore testifying that Fr. Anderson "has obtained all necessary faculties and permission from the Very Rev. Fr. Provincial for the purpose of going to missionary duties to California." On March 7, 1849, Fr. Nicholas Dominic Young, Anderson's vigilant and restrictive prior when at St. Rose but now enthusiastically supportive of the young priest's missionary plans, added to Fr. Whalen's letter his own recommendation. He himself had been a vigorous and much admired missionary in addition to serving as provincial of his province and accordingly held considerable influence among the hierarchy. He specified to Eccleston that Fr. Peter was going to California "for the purpose of rendering assistance [to] those of our American Catholics who have already started...to that country, and if he shall find the country such as we expect, it is our design with the approbation of the Ecclesiastical authority then to establish a Community of our Order in California. I hope that this plan and intention will meet with your approbation." Fr. Young asked Archbishop Eccleston for a letter to the Bishop of California and to the Archbishop of Mexico where he surmised Anderson would visit along the way. He also suggested that if he knew of any other people going to California he might arrange that Fr. Anderson accompany them. Impatient for Eccleston's reply, Young wrote to him again on March 21, asking for a "special letter to the Archbishop of Mexico and the Bishop of Monterey." This time Fr. Young had his answer soon enough, for it was only ten days later that he once more wrote to the archbishop as follows:
The appointment to the chaplaincy did not materialize, but Fr. Anderson went to New York anyway to catch whatever ship might be headed for the Isthmus of Panama whence he might begin the second leg of his journey to California. But while in New York his services were demanded in Sullivan and Ulster counties. His work in these locales though brief was, apparently, outstanding and long remembered, for a quarter of a century later The Freeman's Journal of February 19, 1876, reported apropos a mission Fr. Stephen Byrne, O.P., was preaching in Wurtsboro:
Back in New York City awaiting his ship, Anderson was once again diverted from his mission, this time to minister to Irish immigrants in Canada who had fled the famine in their native country and were now "dying by the scores of ship fever" . When this work was finished he returned to New York City and eventually, in the early months of 1850, set sail for California. His ship brought him to the Isthmus of Panama whence by small boat and muleback he made his way to Panama City. On June 17, 1850, he boarded the SS Panama and in 18 days (on July 6) entered the Golden Gate. "The run to San Francisco was splendid," he noted in his journal. A quiet, prayerful preparation, it would seem, for seem, for the life, and death, about to begin. In a letter to Fr. Young dated July 12, 1850, Anderson described his first days in San Francisco and the prospects for the Order:
He is captivated by the City, its life, its energy, its beauty, but mainly because of what his Order can, must(!) offer it:
"Lost" here has reference to the Protestants. Anderson shares the worry of the eastern hierarchy which, as we shall see, had led them to their urgent recommendation to Rome for a bishop for California. Anderson concludes his letter by begging Fr. Young himself to come and "to engage one of the Spanish Fathers to accompany you." He should also bring with him vestments, church ornaments and "a good library" since, once the new bishop of Monterey arrives the Mexican government is to remove and take to Mexico all properties belonging to the upper California missions. Fr. Antoine Langlois, mentioned at the beginning of Anderson's letter, was the pastor of St. Francis Church, the first church in San Francisco after the Mission, and, with the Mission, the only place of formal Catholic worship in the city at this time. He was also Vicar General for the northern part of the state for Fr. Jose Maria Gonzalez Rubio, O.F.M., the Vicar Capitular of the vacant diocese. The "Fr. Montgomery" Anderson refers to was formerly provincial of the Eastern Province. He had been chosen for the See of Monterey but had declined. Thus Anderson's expression of regret. Unknown to him at the writing of this letter, as is apparent, Fr. Alemany had been selected in Montgomery's place, and had already been ordained Bishop of Monterey on June 30. Fr. Young, the recipient of the letter, was deeply moved by it. He seriously considered accepting the proffered invitation, but did not make the move. Fr. Anderson spent some days in San Francisco before going to Sacramento, his assigned field of ministry. On August 6, Fr. Langlois wrote a letter to the Catholics of Sacramento introducing their new pastor and authorizing him to collect funds and procure property for the building of a church. This same day Fr. Anderson took a steamer and arrived in Sacramento on the following day. He immediately announced his ministerial intentions in the Sacramento Transcript. On Saturday, August 10, he celebrated Mass in a "new house generously given for the purpose." Only a handful of people were present, but the symbolic value of the event was not lost on at least one of the participants. Dr. Gregory Phelan, a Catholic physician of Sacramento, wrote to the New York Freeman's Journal: "This first small assemblage of the Catholics of Sacramento reminded me of the parable of the mustard seed. I hope that our church here may soon grow up into a noble tree, beneath whose widespread and shading branches, the wearied of all sects may find shelter and refreshment." Dr. Phelan goes on to describe the public Mass celebrated the next day, Sunday, with a larger congregation. Perhaps worried that the people, having been for a long time without the Sacraments, Fr. Anderson began the Mass with a brief reminder of the need for "attentive and respectful deportment at its celebration." The gospel was that of the Good Samaritan and, Dr. Phelan reports, their pastor preached "a very eloquent and appropriate discourse" upon it. Immediately after Mass pastor and people got down to business. A committee of 13 was appointed "to take steps toward procuring a lot and building a church thereon... and report progress to the Pastor who is vested with veto power." Later in the day Fr. Anderson baptized three children and in the evening preached a sermon on confession. In his journal he carefully notes that the Mass collection was $25.00 and the stipends for the baptisms came to $58.00. He also records for this same day a donation of $15.00 given by a Mr. Murphy. On August 13, after baptizing another child, he left for San Francisco, promising to return soon. Perhaps it was during this particular sojourn that he collected $2000.00 for a church in Happy Valley (lower Market Street), which materialized as the city's first St. Patrick's Church. Evidently he did not limit his apostolate to the area of his formal assignment: his mission was to be the whole of California, as in his original dream. By now Anderson knew who the new Bishop of Monterey was. The information was personalized in a letter he received from Alemany from Paris, dated August 24, 1850: "Some slight sickness and also some affairs made me remain in Rome a little longer than I expected. I also remained a little in Lyons to obtain some assistance for our Mission in California... I hope to be in New York before the end of September... I wish to hasten to California." Reading between the few lines of the remainder of Anderson's journal we see that August almost through November of 1850 was a busy time for him. His missionary travels took him from San Francisco back to Sacramento, thence to Marysville and Long Bar, and into the mining regions. Most of his time, presumably, was spent in Sacramento itself, his official parish. His first masses there were offered in a frame structure procured for him on L Street between Fifth and Sixth. It was fitted up as a chapel with a sort of sacristy behind, which also served as his temporary residence. But in October Governor Burnett, a staunch Catholic, deeded to the parish "Lot 8" located in the block bounded by Seventh and Eighth and J and K streets, where a church was soon begun. It was to be dedicated to St. Rose of Lima, first canonized Saint of the New World and the name of Fr. Anderson's novitiate priory in Springfield, Illinois. The little church was almost completed when it collapsed in a violent storm on November 26, the day before Anderson's death. It was in October that cholera broke out in northern California, and on the 26th of this month Fr. Anderson, who had been in San Francisco at the time, returned to Sacramento to tend the sick and dying. The Sacramento correspondent for the Freeman's Journal wrote on Nov. 14, 1850: "Father Anderson has been very active in the performance of his laborious duties. He visits the hospital several times a day and also seeks out the sick and distressed in tents and other exposed situations." Sorrow is added to admiration when two weeks later, on Nov. 30, he reports: "We are called upon to mourn the loss of one who was a father to his people, a benefactor of the poor; our esteemed and beloved pastor, Rev. Augustus [sic] P. Anderson, has passed from earth, I trust, to Heaven..." According to the correspondent it was on November 14 that Anderson finally realized he was seriously sick and allowed the doctor to examine him, but it was too late. He had contracted typhoid fever. Word was sent to San Francisco, and Fr. Langlois went to Sacramento to be with his fellow priest. Father Anderson died at 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday, November 27, 1850, at the age of thirty-eight, devotedly regarded as "a martyr to charity." He was first buried in the restored St. Rose Church in Sacramento. On October 1, 1854, a few months after the Dominicans moved from Monterey to Benicia, Archbishop Alemany ordered that his remains be removed to the Dominican church of St. Dominic in Benicia. Here they were interred under the altar of the old church with the Dominican burial ceremonies. Shortly after the new St. Dominic's was built in 1890, they were transferred to a section of land adjacent to the parish cemetery Vilarassa had purchased in 1861. There he was buried in the quiet circle on "the hill" that also shelters the remains of his Dominican brothers and sisters who followed him in life and in death. >>> Partial Endnotes [18] O'Daniel, p. 84 [19] On Feb. 25, 1861, Vilarrasa purchased at the price of $487.34 part of the city cemetery for the Catholics of Benicia and vicinity (Cf. Fr. C. Lamb's historical sketch, WDA XI:102:28 (A)). It would seem that the friars were first buried in the convent gardens in the shadow of the old church (as suggested by Fr. J. Asturias' recollections of tomb stones near the former church and of the older brethren speaking of Dominicans having been buried there), just as the sisters of St. Catherine's buried their deceased in their convent grounds (Dominicans of San Rafael Archives, Community Records 1850-1898, vol. I, p. 89). Then, with the building of the new St. Dominic's in 1890, the friars were given land in the area of the city cemetery for their use and they transferred the remains of the brethren including those of Anderson to it (as may be conjectured from the letter of Fr. H. Palmer to Fr. C. Lamb, July 28, 1934, WDA XI:102:2). Fr. Palmer speaks of 1912 as the date of the deed for the "new" cemetery, but, whatever the date of the deed, this particular section -- the "hill" -- had been owned and used by the friars since the mid-1890s. Thus the Community Records in the San Rafael Archives (op. cit.) speak of the St. Catherine sisters deciding to remove "all bodies interred in the Convent grounds and re-inter them in the new cemetery recently purchased by the Fathers, and the removal of all the bodies took place in 1897 [emphasis mine]." (I am grateful to Sister Martin Barry, O.P., archivist for the San Rafael sisters, and Sister Paul Kirk, O.P., for the information about the early burials of St. Catherine's, which has helped me sort out those of the early Dominican friars.) |
