Rev. M. Fournier – Traits and facts of his early life – His arrival in Kentucky – His stations and labours – His character – His sudden death – Rev. M. Salmon – His zeal and labours – Humorous incident – His tragical death – His Epitaph – Rev. Mr. Thayer – Anecdote of Franklin – Mr. Thayer’s conversion – His labours in Boston – In Kentucky – And in Limerick – His death
For about three years M. Badin had been alone, desolate in heart, and weighed down with labours. At length, Divine Providence took compassion on his lonliness, and sent other labourers into a harvest now become much too extensive to be cultivated by one man. The new missionary recruits were from among those illustrious clerical exiles from France, to whose apostolic zeal America is so greatly indebted, and without whose generous aid our infant missions could scarcely have been sustained.
The first of these who arrived in Kentucky, was the Rev. M. Fournier, in the year 1797. He was a native of the Diocess of Blois in France; and, when driven from his native country, by the French Revolution, he took refuge in England. In London he taught French language for about four years, in order to obtain a subsistence. Weary of this manner of life, and panting for a field of action more congenial to his zeal for the salvation of souls, he sailed for America, which he reached towards the close of the year 1796. He immediately offered his services to Bishop Carroll, who gratefully accepted them, and immediately sent him to Kentucky to the assistance of M. Badin, of whose melancholy condition he had been already well apprised.
M. Fournier, after a long and painful journey, in the dead of the winter, reached Kentucky in February, 1797. M. Badin received him with open arms, and extended to him for several months the hospitality of his own log cabin of St. Stephen’s. M. Fournier soon purchased on hundred acres of ground, on the Rolling Fork – the site of the present Holy Mary’s – and, after having erected a temporary hut, removed thither in 1798. He then took charge of a portion of M. Badin’s stations. He attended the congregations situated on the Rolling Fork, on Hardin’s Creek, on Cartwright’s Creek, on Rough Creek in Hardin County, with those at Danville, and in Madison county. When we reflect that a distance of at least one hundred and twenty miles intervened between the two extreme points of this circuit, we will probably come to the conclusion, that, like his fellow-labourer in the same field, he was certainly in no lack of employment.
He was an excellent priest; pious, zealous, laborious, and punctual to all his appointments. He was of ordinary size, but had a thin visage, furrowed with care, but still beaming with habitual cheerfulness. His manners were extremely popular; he soon caught the spirit, and adapted himself to the manners of the country; and he had not one personal enemy. He spoke English remarkably well, and preached sermons which had the triple merit of being solid, short, and intelligible to the meanest capacity.
When not engaged in his missions, he was almost constantly laboring on the little farm adjoining his residence. His death was caused by the rupture of a blood-vessel through over exertion in raising large beams of wood, to be sawed into plank. It was so sudden, that his friend, M. Badin, arrived only in time to assist at his funeral. His body was interred at the church of Holy Cross. He had not yet reached his fiftieth year.
Another French priest, M. Salmon, reached Kentucky in February, 1799. He was from the same Diocess of Blois, and was an old and long tried friend of M. Fournier, with whom he had been a fellow student in the Diocesan Seminary of Blois,[1] as well as his associate in exile from his country. The two friends had met and passed some years together in London. After the arrival of M. Fournier in Kentucky, he wrote to his friend in London, who followed him as soon as he could make the necessary arrangements. He was about forty-two years of age, was of a delicate frame, and, like M. Fournier, was well versed in the English language.
M. Badin, who was Vicar General, assigned him the stations at Hardin’s Creek, Poplar Neck, Mr. Gardiner’s, and Bardstown. He was zealous and indefatigable in the discharge of all his missionary duties. Especially did he labour without intermission for the instruction of children and servants in their catechism. In whatever Catholic house he visited, he made it an invariable rule to examine the children on their knowledge of their Christian duties. And, as we shall soon see, his premature death was the consequence of his burning zeal for the salvation of souls.
The following humorous incident is, perhaps, not worth recording, though it may serve to illustrate his zeal for the instruction of poor servants. When he was at the house of Mr. Thomas Gwynn, near Bardstown, he undertook as usual to instruct the servants in their religion. He had them all assembled, and was struck by the readiness of their answers. His gravity was, however, not a little disturbed, when, on his asking a servant girl of 16 – “which is the last sacrament you would like to receive were you on the point of death?” She answered immediately – thinking of the last one on the list – “Matrimony.”
His zeal was rewarded with abundant fruits; though it pleased God, in the unsearchable ways of His Providence, speedily to put an end to his labors and sufferings on this mission. He had been in Kentucky but nine months, when his career was suddenly cut short by death. He was the first priest who died on this laborious mission – and he fell a martyr to his zeal.
In the discharge of his duties, he had caught a violent cold, which confined him to his bed for six weeks, in the house of M. Badin. When convalescent, he determined to visit the station at Mr. Gwynn’s, where he had an appointment to meet a Protestant lady whom he was instructing and preparing for Baptism.[2] He was a bad horseman, and was still very feeble from his previous sickness. It was the ninth day of November, 1799; and the snow covered the ground, concealing a road which was rugged and difficult. M. Badin endeavored to dissuade him from undertaking the journey, in his debilitated condition; but he was firm in his resolution, and departed at an early hour in the morning.
About a mile from Bardstown, on the road to Mr. Gwynn’s, he was thrown violently from his horse, and was dashed against a tree. He was stunned and mortally wounded, in the breast and head. In his struggles, he succeeded in dragging himself to a tree, against which he leaned his head and shoulders, and thus set up right, near the roadside. From 12 o’clock until night, he remained in this dreadful situation, surrounded by the snow, benumbed with the cold, and in the very agonies of death. A lad, who was cutting wood in the neighboring forest, soon discovered him in this condition, and requested permission from his employer, to repair to his assistance. But the overseer[3] brutally replied, that was only “only a – priest who was probably a drunk!” Near sunset, this man saw Mr. Gwynn passing, and shouted out to him, that “his priest was lying in a certain spot, perhaps dying.”
The good Mr. Gwynn, deeply affected, flew to the spot, where he discovered that his worst anticipations were more than realized. M. Salmon seemed on the very point of death. He was immediately placed on horseback, and conveyed, with as much tenderness as possible, to the residence of Mr. Gwynn, about a mile distant. Messengers were speedily dispatched for positions, and for the Rev. M. Badin. The latter arrived at two o’clock the same night, having rode about 16 miles in a little more than two hours. He found M. Salmon insensible, reciting occasionally prayers in Latin, and acting as though he fancied himself at holy altar. M. Badin administered to him the last sacraments, and remained with him till his death, which took place on the following night, the 10th of November. His remains were conveyed to the church of Holy Cross, where they were interred with all the ceremonies of the Roman Ritual.
M. Badin wept bitterly over the death of a friend and fellow-labourer, whom he was so sincerely attached. He composed for him Epitaph in Latin verse, of which the following is a translation: “Here lies Anthony Salmon a French Priest of eminent virtue, who preferred exile to schismatical wealth, leaving father, mother, and country. Let piety weep, and religion pour forth her prayers,” for his repose.[4]
The worthy patriarch of the American church, Bishop Carroll, seemed to take a special interest in the missions of Kentucky. In the same year of M. Salmon’s death, he sent out another zealous missionary labour in this distant field. The Rev. Mr. Thayer arrived in Kentucky in the year 1799. He was the first native of America who exercised the holy ministry in our State. He had been a Presbyterian or Congregationalist minister at Boston; and had been reared with all that bitter hostility to the holy Catholic Church so common to his sect.
While yet a Protestant preacher, he determined to travel through Europe. He reached Paris, while Benjamin Franklin was residing there, in quality of Minister of the United States to the French Court. He visited Franklin, and requested to be appointed his Chaplain. The philosopher – statesman made him the characteristic reply: that he could “say his own prayers, and save his country be expense of employing a Chaplain.” Thus foiled in his object, Mr. Thayer proceeded to Rome, which he reached, probably, about the year 1781. He repaired thither with the full expectation of being able to collect facts to establish conclusively the idolatry of the Catholic Church; that he left the “Eternal City” an ardent Catholic himself.
The immediate occasion of his conversion was his witnessing the wonderful miracles operated at the tomb of the venerable Labre. These he ridiculed, at first; but a long and rigid scrutiny convinced him that they were the work of God. His next inference was natural – that the religion in favour of which such prodigies had been operated, must be the religion of Christ; since God cannot stamp the broad seal oh his approbation on falsehood and error. His conclusions were strengthened by a full examination of the evidences which demonstrate the truth of Catholicity. With a simple and docile heart, he committed himself wholly to the teaching of God, whose light and grace he frequently invoked in prayer. A new light broke upon his mind; and his previous prejudices vanished like the mist before the rising sun. He soon beheld himself in the clear and unclouded day of Catholic truth; and returned humble thanks to God for having thus vouchsafed to transfer him from the region of doubts and darkness, into the admirable light of His Blessed Son!
Ardently did he pant for an opportunity to impart to others, reared up with similar prejudices, the new light which had broken upon his own spirit. He determined to cast all human considerations to the winds, and to devote his whole subsequent life to the sublime occupation of endeavoring to enlighten others, especially his countrymen. The better to qualify himself for this undertaking, he resolved to enter into the Catholic ministry. Accordingly, after the necessary previous studies, he was ordained priest in Paris; after which he speedily returned to the United States.
He was stationed in Boston, the theater of his former labors as a Protestant minister. He held weekly conferences on the truths of the Catholic faith; and his discourses, delivered with much earnestness and eloquence, attracted great crowds of his Protestant fellow-citizens. He published a detailed and well-written account of his conversion, in which he clearly and forcibly stated all the motives which had led him to take this important step. He thus endeavored to convey his own convictions to the minds of his countrymen, both from the pulpit and through the press. His zeal led him into various controversies with the Protestant preachers; and he always showed himself able to give an account for the “hope which was in him.” Still he had the mortification to find, that the Americans, who are so easily misled by novelties of whatever species, are very slow to change their religious opinions, especially in favor of what is old in painful human nature. He found that conviction and conversion were two different things; and that, though he could flatter himself with having brought about the former state of mind in many, he was cheered by but few evidences of his having secured the latter.
Feeling, probably, that “no prophet is received in his own country,” he left Boston; and, after having visited Canada, offered his services to Bishop Carroll, for whatever mission in the Union he might think proper to assign him. As we have said, Bishop Carroll sent him to Kentucky. Here he remained for about four years, during two of which only he was engaged in the ministry.
He left Kentucky in 1803; and subsequently went to Ireland. He exercised the holy ministry for many years in Limerick, where he contributed greatly towards the revival of piety. The year of his death we have not been able to ascertain with precision; but it certainly occurred sometime before the year 1822. When M. Badin was in Paris during this year, he received, from respectable Irish gentleman of Limerick, a glowing account of his zealous labours and edifying death. Among other particulars, the gentleman alluded to mentioned the fact, that Mr. Thayer had induced about 200 of his penitence to make their meditation daily.[5]
[1] Conducted by the Lazarists
[2] This lady afterwards became an exemplary member of the Catholic church.
[3] For the honor of human nature, we must observe that this was a man of no standing in the country; and his brutality is almost single in the early history of Kentucky. The lad of whom mention is made above, is now one of our most respectable citizens.
[4] “Hie jacet Antonius Salmon Virtute verendus, Presbyter e Gallis; proetuht exilium Schismaticis opibus; fratres, matrem, arvaque linquens: Det pietas fletus, Religioque preces.”
[5] In the facts detailed in this chapter, we have followed the admirable report on the Kentucky missions, drawn up by M. Badin, in 1822, and published in the Annales. (loco sup. cit.) We have added several important facts, derived from the oral statements of the Very Rev. M. Badin, and from other aged persons, who were well acquainted with the individuals of whom we have spoken.
Just a Fat Sassy Grandma 