Identifier: contemporaryamer03newy (find matches)
Title: Contemporary American biography
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors:
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Atlantic publishing and engraving co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
he received minor orders and was ordained subdeacon and deacon by ArchbishopKenrick. When the Diocese of Erie was formed, April 29, 1S53, Bishop OConnor was trans-lated from Pittsburgh to that See, and the subject of this sketch was chosen, while yet a deacon,for the new diocese. Leaving Baltimore in the beginning of 1854, he hastened to Erie, butowing to the strong opposition which the removal of Bishop OConnor had aroused in Pittsburgh,his ordination did not take place as soon as the Bishop had intended it should, and, on accountof the delay, some weeks of the spring of 1854 were passed in the Seminary at Cleveland, O.,preparing for ordination to the priesthood. In the mean time Bishop OConnor had been recalledto Pittsburgh, February 20, 1854, and, in the chapel of the Episcopal residence in that city, onMay 4 of the same year, Richard Phelan reached the goal of his young hopes and maturer am-bition. His first mission was the small parish of Camerons Bottoms in Indiana County. After
Text Appearing After Image:
#/*C^-» CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 429 a few months of service in this remote and lonely parish he visited the city to find the people indismay, and the priests overworked and too few for the great and sorrowful labor that wasbefore them. The cholera was in their midst and during the autumn of 1854 cast a gloom ofsadness and fear over Pittsburgh. Father Phelan unselfishly offered his services to minister tothe sufferers from the pestilence, and during the months that the plague claimed the greatestnumber of victims the young priest stood at his post to assist and console the stricken and dying. .When the cholera abated he returned to Camerons Bottoms, but only for a short time. He wastransferred, February, 1855, to St. Pauls Cathedral, and there he labored for three years,performing the varied round of duties of an assistant in a large city parish, besides occasionallylooking after the spiritual welfare of several small congregations in the outlying country dis-tricts. In the m

Note About Images