History of Saint Rose Priory

The story of Saint Rose Priory begins with Father Edward Dominic Fenwick. He is the son of Colonel Ignatius Fenwick of Wallington and Sarah (Taney). His father was a wealthy member of the Maryland Colonial Convention who became a patriot of the American Revolution. Their large house overlooked the Patuxent River in Saint Mary's County. After the war, the Fenwicks sent their son to Holy Cross College in Bornem, Belgium. There in 1788, he followed in the footsteps of his uncle John Ceslas Fenwick by joining the Order of Friars Preachers. Many English Catholics had gone to Belgium to escape persecution, but eventually the French Revolution threatened their peace even there.

Edward Dominic Fenwick, O.P.

Four friars set out, therefore, to establish a boarding school for boys in Maryland, but the Sulpicians were already in Baltimore and the Jesuits in Georgetown. So, Bishop John Carroll recommended Kentucky. The other three distinguished Dominican priests who joined Fenwick in the venture were: Samuel Thomas Wilson, a Master of Sacred Theology, and Robert Antoninus Angier, a Lectorate in Sacred Theology and Preacher General, and finally William Raymond Tuite, another Lectorate in Sacred Theology. Although three Dominican priories are required to form a new province, Rome made an exception for the United States which had as yet no house. As of June 22, 1805, Edward Dominic Fenwick was named the superior. The Master of the Order, Pius Joseph Gaddi, named the new province after his patron, Saint Joseph.

At that time, the only priest in Kentucky was Father Stephen Theodore Badin. A statue in his honor stands before the Loretto Motherhouse today. Fenwick rode out to Kentucky first and then returned to liquidate his 800 acre inheritance. Wilson and Tuite made the journey in a wagon, but suffered injury and delay in the mountains. Bishop Carroll, however, kept Father John Fenwick in Maryland.

Father Stephen Theodore Badin

In Washington County, the friars found many of the faithful living along Cartwright Creek. At first, Father Wilson lived in a log cabin known as Saint Ann's, and soon began teaching. The site today is merely a hilltop at the junction of three farms, two miles down the road from the present priory, in Cisselville. Father Tuite went to Bardstown. Meanwhile, another missionary arrived on the scene from Belgium, Charles Nerinckx, but he mistrusted the Friars Preachers. Nerinckx is also honored with a statue in Loretto. When Fenwick returned in July 1806, he used his inheritance to buy a farm of about 500 acres with a gristmill, sawmill, and a two-story brick house from John Waller. Wilson and his pupils, as well as Tuite, then moved to what is now Saint Rose, named after the first American saint.

Saint Thomas Aquin College at Saint Rose

Construction of a priory and church began almost immediately, but on higher ground. The priory was inhabited by December 1806 but not completed until the next year. Father Angier arrived in 1807, but eventually returned to England.

The Tudor Gothic church was dedicated on Christmas Day 1809. That church is the sanctuary of the present church. Wilson, who became the first provincial of a religious order in the United States, now lies in the first grave right behind the church. Although pupils lived with the friars from the beginning, Saint Thomas of Aquin College was added to the priory. By the time the school was completed in 1812, Benedict Joseph Flaget, S.S. was the Bishop of Bardstown. In the early years, the faculty included laymen. The Dominican community buried its first to die in 1812, namely, Brother Robert Young, a nephew of Fenwick. On September 21, 1816, four friars were ordained to the priesthood, including Richard Pius Miles who eventually became the first Bishop of Nashville.

The year 1822 would prove to be monumental. On January 13 in Saint Rose Church, Edward Dominic Fenwick was consecrated as the first Bishop of Cincinnati. Later that year, John Thomas Hynes was ordained to the priesthood. He would later become a titular bishop and Vicar Apostolic of British Guiana.

	One Sunday around this same time, Wilson appealed to the women of the parish to dedicate themselves to religious life. Of the nine who responded immediately, four were formally received, and by August six more joined the sisterhood. Their leader, Mariah Sansbury, became Sister Angela. A log house was built for them on the property across the creek which they called Bethany.
Soon they moved to the Sansbury farm, however, and turned the stillhouse into Saint Mary Magdalen Academy for girls. This in time grew into Saint Catharine College, and a network of Dominican convents across the country.

By 1828, Saint Thomas of Aquin College closed, because there were other schools, and because the prior, Raphael Munos, turned the friars away from secular education. Saint Rose, however, continued to be a novitiate and seminary. On July 10, 1830, two half Ottawa Indians received the Dominican habit, James Reed and Augustine Hamelin, as well as Langdon Thomas Grace, who later became the Archbishop of Saint Paul.

There were several other bishops who came from Saint Rose, but perhaps the most distinguished person to have lived and studied there was Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli (1806-64). After his ordination by Fenwick in Cincinnati on September 5, 1830, he was sent at first as Missionary Apostolic to Mackinac in Michigan. So fruitful was his widespread apostolate, especially among the Indians, that today his cause for beatification is well underway.

Samuel Mazzuchelli, O.P.

During an epidemic of cholera in 1833, Tuite died. The Dominican friars built Saint Dominic's Church in downtown Springfield in 1844, and cared for its people for 40 years. Many other Churches were established and maintained until diocesan priests came. At Saint Rose in 1855, the present church building was added to the front of the old church. Its stained-glass windows, which are almost the same as those of Saint Louis Bertrand's in Louisville, were installed years later. At the bottom of the window dedicated to the Patroness, Father Matthew Anthony O'Brien is also portrayed. Not only was he the prior when the new church was built, but he had the reputation of being a saint.

During the Civil War, soldiers from both sides came to Saint Rose. They sometimes begged for food or stole a horse. One priest had his horse taken from him by Morgan's Raiders while on his way to give the Blessed Sacrament to a dying person, but Captain John Hunt Morgan, who grew hemp in Lexington before the war, ordered that the horse be returned. The friars frequently ministered to the Federals at their barracks in Lebanon, in Marion County.

There are many cooperator brothers whom we could mention, but there is one in particular whose story touches hearts. James Gaffney came from Ireland with his wife and children in 1847, but they contracted a severe fever. In Montreal, they were placed in temporary clinics, but separated. His wife died, and his children were lost. After his recovery, Gaffney searched every city from Montreal to Chicago, but failed to find his children. He then entered the Order of Preachers at Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, and was eventually assigned to Saint Rose around 1865-66. As an old man, he heard that he had grandchildren in Massachusetts, but he never saw them. Brother James, known for his humble obedience and prayer, died in 1895 at the age of 85, and was buried in the churchyard.

In 1867, Father Constantine Louis Egan built the large red brick building that would serve primarily as a Dominican novitiate and seminary. His successor, Father Joseph Henry Slinger (1869-72) then had the old college wing demolished. A fire destroyed nearby Saint Catharine's Academy on January 3, 1904. To provide bricks for the sisters, the end of the old priory was shortened. In 1905, Dominican novices went to Somerset, Ohio, and student brothers went to Washington, D.C. while Saint Rose was reduced to a retirement home. An increase in vocations, however, required a renovation. After 1917, newly professed brothers went to Kentucky to study philosophy before going to Washington for theology. In 1925, philosophy students went to River Forest, Illinois, and Saint Rose became the novitiate again. Father Lorenz Pius Johannsen then began a record 17 year term as the novice master. The novitiate for laybrothers, meanwhile, alternated among each of these four priories.

Father James Stanislaus Wilburn, O.P. served two terms as prior at Saint Rose from 1921-27. He had covered the original priory with stucco, but tragically died in a car crash on February 5, 1927. Father James Aldridge, during his two terms as prior (1927-33), transformed the old part of the church into the priory chapel because the chapel in the brick building had to be used to accommodate novices. So, he connected the buildings with a passageway. Between 1929-30, Aldridge also built Holy Rosary Church in Springfield for Catholics of African descent. In 1949, Saint Stephen's Priory in Dover, Massachusetts, became the novitiate, but Saint Rose continued to be the school for the first year of philosophy until 1956. Throughout its history, the farm and dairy employed several laymen. A grammar school was built in 1951, but it operated only until 1968. It is now used for the Head Start program and parochial functions.

In 1978, realizing that Saint Rose would henceforth be primarily a parish, the first Dominican priory in the country was torn down, as well as the old novitiate, in order to erect a small priory. Most of the land was sold, leaving less than 100 acres. Dominican brothers and sisters now visit Saint Rose on occasion, either to recollect the old days, or to pay homage to our forefathers who made this a sacred place.