Tag Archive for Maryland

Black Catholic History Month: The Josephite Fathers and Brothers

November 30, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy

Earlier in the month, we discussed the life of Father Charles Uncles, the first black priest both trained and ordained in the United States. He was instrumental in the founding of the Society of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.   This order of priests and religious were founded to evangelize the recently freed blacks in America.

Actually, there had already existed a Catholic organization called the Josephites, the St Joseph Mission Society, founded in London in 1866.  At the request of a council of American bishops, the Mission society sent some of its personnel to the United States to establish missions and schools for freedmen.

In 1893, just two years after his ordination, Father Charles Uncles was asked to help reorganize the Mission Society offices into a permanent American institution.  He and four other priests did just that, forming the  Society of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in Baltimore.

Today, Josephites are active throughout the nation, and have parishes in Alabama, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., as well as Maryland.  The Josephites aren’t exclusively African-American.  Historically there have been more white Jospehite priests than black.  But this order of dedicated religious men holds great significance for the African–American community inside and outside the Catholic Church.

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Black Catholic History Month:First Black Priest in the USA? A Third Contender

November 22, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy

Last week I wrote about the question of the first black Catholic priest in America.  I said the answer to that question depended upon who you asked.  I now know that the answer to the question depends upon how the you ask the question!  This is because there has emerged yet a third contender for “first black priest”.

First a little personal background: I don’t think I ever saw a black Catholic priest until I was well into my adulthood.  I guess I assumed that there were some somewhere; I just never thought that much about it.  But when I was in my 20s, my dad began the practice of sending me a calendar every year from an order of priests called the Josephites.  This is an order of priests, officially known as the St. Joseph Society of the Sacred Heart, formed in 1893 to minister to African-Americans.  The man given credit for leading the founding of the Josephites was Father Charles Randolph Uncles, a native of Baltimore.  Sunday, November 8, 2009, marked the 150th anniversary of Father Uncles’ birth.

Father Uncles is the third contender for the title of first black priest in America.  You may recall from the previous article, that Bishop James Healy and Father Augustus Tolton are the first two contenders for the title.  We resolve that issue by deciding that Bishop Healy, descendant of an Irishman and a slave woman, under the “rules” of racial identity may deserve the title of first black American priest, although he would not have wanted it.  But Father Tolton, descendant of two slaves, is entitled to be called the first black priest in America born of slave parents. In the minds of some, this may make Father Tolton the more “authentic” first “black priest in America.”

So where does Father Uncles fit in? His parents, Lorenzo Uncles and Annie Marie Buchanan, both had been slaves.  Charles Randolph Uncles was ordained in 1891 –after both Healy and Tolton had been ordained.  But remember, it depends upon how you ask the question.  Uncles was ordained in New York City.  Both Healy and Tolton, though Americans, could not attend seminary in the United States because of racism and therefore were ordained outside the United States.  So Father Uncles rightfully can be called the “first black priest ordained in America.” [It should be noted, speaking of the "rules" of racial identity, that Charles Uncles and his parents were described as being light enough to pass for white.]

Indeed, at the time, it was big news.  Here’s the New York Times headline from December 19, 1891:
CR Uncles-NYT

The Times story noted:

The congregation gathered to witness and participate in ceremonies was more than usually large and included many of the best colored people of the city. A special reason for the presence of the latter was that the first man of their race to be ordained a priest in the United States and that he was to have that high honor bestowed upon him by the Cardinal Archbishop himself–the primate of episcopacy of the country.

Lorenzo and Annie Uncles were Catholics.  They and their family attended Mass at St. Frances Xavier Church in Baltimore which was, as the New York Times put it, “a church for colored people, but from which whites were not excluded.”

As a young man, Charles was an altar boy at St. Frances Xavier.  He graduated number one in his high school class.  After that, he taught in the Baltimore County public schools until he was 25 years old.  During this same period of time, he was being tutored by a priest from St. Joseph’s seminary(for black men only) in Baltimore.  Finally in 1883, Charles Uncles went to St. Hyacinth’s College in Canada, graduating in 1888.  Back in Baltimore he then entered St. Joseph’s seminary.  But he applied to attend classes at St. Mary’s Seminary which was for white men.  The faculty of St. Mary’s put the matter to a vote of the seminarians.  They were unanimously in favor of admitting Charles Uncles.  And so it was that three years later, he was ordained a priest.  He began teaching at the Epiphany Apostolic College, which was then located in Baltimore.  In 1925, the college moved to New Windsor, New York, and Father Uncles moved also.

He died on July 20, 1933 at the college, and is buried there.

Coming up: The Josephite Priests

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Black Catholic History Month: Gunsmoke & Catholic Genealogy

November 4, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy

Originally appeared on Monday, November 13, 2006 at GeneaBlogie

Updated: photo added; some dates corrected

An almost sinful obsession of mine after genealogy is watching Gunsmoke [TVLand, most weekends; also early mornings during the week; check local listings (Update~11/04/09: Gunsmoke is not currently running on TVLand)]. Some weekends, it seems as if the time passes and little gets done except hours of Gunsmoke. And yesterday was one of those days. To mitigate the situation, I tried to thing of some genealogical angles to Matt Dillion, Festus, Doc, and Kitty that I could blog about. I was still pondering that when the fifth episode of the day began. An obviously very ill woman was being tended by three black nuns. The woman’s two children were nearby. The nuns agreed to see that the children made it to the farm their father was supposed to be preparing for the family near Dodge City [Episode #14, Season 15; first aired 12/29/1969]. I was actually about to turn the television off and get down to some real business when one of the nuns mentioned that they were members of the “Oblate Sisters of Providence.” I sat back down to watch the rest of the show. [The children's father turns out to be a drunk layabout and petty criminal who offers to help the nuns build a school so as to get his hands on the funds donated for that purpose. It's a sort of bizarro version of Lilies of the Field]1, 2.

What re-captured my attention was the mention of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, which is an actual order of Roman Catholic nuns headquartered in Baltimore. Founded in 1829, it was the first religious order for African-American women. The first Superior General, Mother Mary Lange, started the order for the benefit of Haitian immigrants. The order has concentrated on child development and education.

On the 1920 federal census for Baltimore, there is a two page section for the St Francis Convent and Orphanage, operated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Listed in that section is 16 year old Emma Micheau, born in Illinois. She’s the last and youngest “assistant inmate” listed before several boarders ranging from 38 to 94 years old, and then the orphans. “Assistant Inmate” appears to have been the description given to all the nuns and novitiates except the “Superior General” of the Order, who in 1920 was the Reverend Mother “M. Frances.”

Emma Micheau was the daughter of Marshall and Sophronia Micheau of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. Marshall Emmanuel Micheau was the son of George Micheau, who had been born in Missouri in about 1852. George’s wife was Mary Emma Roy, born in Prairie du Rocher in 1855. George was one of five sons of George [1813-1907] and Margret [1834-?] Micheau. I believe, but can’t completely document, that George Micheau was related to Isaac (b. 1815), John (b. 1796), and Auguste (b. 1799) Micheau, all of whom lived in Ste Genevieve, Missouri.

As a religious, Emma was known as Sister Philomena. After her initial stay in Baltimore, she returned to Missouri and later became the Superior at St Frances Girls School in Normandy, Missouri.

In taking Holy Orders, Emma Micheau was following the example set by her aunt, Adelaide (“Addie”) Micheau, who was the daughter of George and Mary Emma Micheau. Addie, born in 1885, became Sister Celestine, OSP, and was resident at the Order’s mission school in St Louis and later, at the Normandy, Missouri, orphanage.

philomSister Mary Philomena, OSP [Emma Mary Micheau], c.1920-25.

(Photography by Reissert’s Studio, 409-411 North Gay Street, Baltimore, Maryland~Original from Collection of Edna Micheau Penny, Sacramento, California.)

Click on image to enlarge.

Sister Philomena was my wife’s first cousin once removed and Sister Celestine was my wife’s great-aunt.

Research Tip: The Oblate Sisters of Providence maintains an Archives and Special Collections Library at the Our Lady of Mount Providence Convent in Baltimore, Maryland. The collection is accessible by appointment only between the hours of 9am and 4pm Monday through Friday. Photocopying and photograph scanning services are available. Some of these records contain the names of orphans and students who resided at the various OSP facilities. Many other religious orders have similar archives.

A tip to search for Catholic religious persons is to use the words “father,” “mother,” “brother, or “sister” as either a first or last name. For example, if you search the 1850 census for Maryland for “sister” as a first name, you come up with about 185 members of the Sisters of Charity in Frederick and Baltimore. Catholic dioceses and archdioceses also have records of their personnel as well as worshipers. For more information on Catholic genealogical records, see the guide at http://home.att.net/~Local_Catholic/.

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Halloween Census Whacking

October 31, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy, Oklahoma, United Kingdom

With the crisis of my father’s recent illness and the minor drama of my own, I feel like I’ve been way out of touch the last two weeks.  It’s time get back into the flow of things.   I thought  little census whacking for Halloween would ease my way back into writing.  So I went hunting for Vampires, Zombies, Ghosts, Ghouls, Goblins, Witches and Pumpkins.

Vampires

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the incidence of Vampires is extremely low in the United States.  In 1880,  four Vampires: Otto; Jean; Julianne; and Mary, all in their twenties, were living in Cheyenne,  Wyoming.  They claimed to be actors. In 1870,  there was just one Vampire in the United States, 26 year-old machinist George Vampire.  Of course he lived in New York City.   What happened to these five Vampires  in the 20th century?  Were they forced to leave or did they on their own just pull out up stakes and leave?

According to the World Names Profiler (WNP), Germany and the United States have the greatest incidence of Vampires in the world.  Germany’s statistic is 0.04 per million, while in the U.S., the figure is 0.01 Vampires per million people.  Regionally, the American Vampires are located in Oklahoma, according to the WNP.  The Sooner state has a Vampire index of 1.04 per million.  With a 2008 estimated population of 3,640,000 or so,  there would be about four Vampires in Oklahoma.   I found in public records three listings in Lawton, Oklahoma, for Madonna Vampire.  Unfortunately for her, there are at least thirty people named Buffy in Oklahoma presently.

Zombies

Nearly all the Zombies in the census records turned out to be mis-transcriptions of other names.  The WNP reports no Zombies in the United States.  Public records reviews show about 14 Zombies in various places around the country.

Ghosts

Kraft Ghost of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and Leonard Ghost of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, both listed on the 1790 federal census appear to be the first two Ghosts in America.  But in the 1900 census, the number of Ghosts expands exponentially.  Most of these “new” Ghosts are Native Americans in the upper Midwest.  The WNP indicates a Ghost index of 18.29 per million in South Dakota and 3.37 per million in Nebraska.  South Dakota’s estimated 2008 population was 804,000, which would yield about 15 Ghosts. Public records reveal about 17 Ghosts in South Dakota (when obvious duplicates are eliminated).

Nebraska’s estimated population is about 1.8 million, suggesting something a bit more than six Ghosts.  I was able to find only one Ghost in Nebraska in public records. The rest seem to have vanished.

And how about Pennsylvania where it seems to have begun for Ghosts in America?   WNP’s Pennsylvania Ghost index is 2.58 per million.   That would mean about 32 Ghosts presently among Pennsylvania’s estimated 12.45 million folks.  I was able to identify 25 Ghosts in Pennsylvania public records after eliminating duplicates and two entries which appeared to refer to religious organizations.

Ghouls

Apparently, the first Ghoul in America was 66 year-old Christian Ghoul of Maryland, a German immigrant.  He appears on the 1870 census.  Few other Ghouls seem to have been counted until the 1900 census, where like the Ghosts, the Ghouls grew rapidly in number.  And like the Ghosts, most of the “new” Ghouls were Indians, living primarily in Tehama County, California.

When it comes to Ghouls, the United States doesn’t even register in the WNP top ten. (Number one is France, with a Ghoul incidence of 4.59 per million; Switzerland is a distant second at 1.92 per million, supporting evidence that the Gauls may be the most Ghoulish people on Earth). (Hey, I just report the facts!)

Within in the U.S., however, Ghouls seem to be concentrated around Las Vegas and Chicago, at least according to the WNP.  Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, and Will County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago, were the only two counties in which the WNP found any Ghouls at all. Curiously, public records show no Ghouls in Nevada and six in the Chicago area.  Overall, public records indicate something more than 100 Ghouls in America presently, with perhaps as many as 10% of those in California.   This is the biggest disparity I’ve ever seen between WNP data and public records. [The WNP's FAQs state: "All our names and location data are derived from publicly available telephone directories or national electoral registers, sourced for the period 2000-2005."]

Goblins

A man named Goblin was first in recorded in New York City in the 1850 census.  In 1860 there was still just one Goblin on the census and that was 14-year-old Lucinda Goblin who lived with the Davenport household in Columbia, Missouri.  But just 10 years later, the 1870 census showed that three fourths of the (four) Goblins in the USA lived in North Carolina.  By 1900 however, the number of Goblins in America had increased nearly eight-fold to a total of 33, to be found in every region of the country.

Globally, the number of Goblins in the U.S. doesn’t make the slightest statistical ripple, using WNP data.  Number one is France, again, with  0.2 Goblins per million.  The United Kingdom is far, far, behind with 0.02 per million.

Witches

We all know the history of Witch hunts in America. Surprisingly enough however only one Witch appears on the 1790 census and that would be Peter Witch of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (just what is it with Pennsylvania and Lancaster in particular?).  There was also a Witch in Rutledge County, Alabama, in 1790.  By 1900, Witches were routinely enumerated in the census all over the country.  Sadly, two of them were little boys: Jacob Witch, 10 years old, and his brother, Henry Witch five years old, who were apparently in an orphanage in Las Galinas, Marin County, California.

Turns out that there are far more Witches in the U.K. and Canada than in the USA (the only countries reporting any Witches at all).  The British Witch population (0.5 per million) is concentrated in Newport (Casnewydd), Wales, and the southwest jurisdictions of North Somerset, Bath and Northeast Somerset, as well as the City of Bristol.  There are also a few Witches in Surrey.

According to WNP, Manitoba’s  Witch frequency of 2.93 per million accounts for the whole of Canada’s 0.23 per million Witch index. Manitoba has an estimated population of 1.2 million; all of Canada consists of 31.6 million people. Mathematically, that does not work out.  Unfortunately the WNP provincial map of Manitoba gives no further details.

The U.S. Witch frequency is a comparatively minuscule 0.04 per million.  WNP finds Witches concentrated in Dickinson County, Kansas, and Howard County, Maryland.  A public records search reveals about twelve Witches in  the USA (eliminating commercial enterprises like plumbing and construction ["Ditch Witch"] and fast food restaurants [Fish Witch"]).  None of the Witches were found in Kansas and of the two in Maryland, neither was in Howard County.

Pumpkins

John Pumpkin appears as the only one of his surname on the 1820 census.  He lived in Fayette Count, Kentucky.  Virtually no other Pumpkins are found in the census until 1880.  In that year, Pumpkins were concentrated in two areas of the country: Fresno County, California, and Greene County, Georgia.  The latter jurisdiction included a young lady, 15 years old, named  Etta Pumpkin.  Following a pattern that we’ve seen before, the 1900 census showed a huge increase in the number of Pumpkins in America. Again this had to do with the number of Native Americans enumerated on the census in that year.  The Indian Pumpkins were primarily on reservations in the upper Midwest.  By 1910, however, they were concentrated in Madera County, California, and Cherokee County, Oklahoma.  The Oklahoma Pumpkins included one Mary Pumpkin Gritts.

The WNP data shows the expected distribution of Pumpkins in the USA based on historical data.  South Dakota, Montana, and Oklahoma are leading Pumpkin states, based presumably on the frequency of the name among Indians.

Other “Important” News

While I was whacking away on Halloween themes, I started wondering about some other things. Not only did I find unexpected discrepancies with the usually reliable World Names Profiler, but I also now have reason to question the competence of the Census Bureau, whose data report not a single Fool, Clown, or Jackass has ever been enumerated in Washington, D.C.

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Detective Work: A Misplaced Headstone

November 27, 2007 Craig New York

I was trolling through Greenman Tim’s Cabinet of Curiosities [which I'll write about at a later date--for now suffice it to say, a day without Walking the Berkshires is no day at all] when I came across this curiosity:

Clarence Thomas

Delaware
PVT 52 CO
152 Depot Brigade
World War 1
December 13 1890
March 14 1956

It’s the inscription on a headstone that’s been “riding around” in the back of a pickup truck of Tim’s aunt’s handyman in Maryland. Tim reported that Aunt Peggy says:

In John’s opinion this was the stone of a black man, hence the Depot Brigade, as African Americans were not allowed into the regular army in the first world war. It is in good condition, and shows no sign of being hit by tractor or plow, as can happen around the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

I told Tim [in his comments] that it’s not the gravestone of a black man. How do I know? Well, the 152d Depot Brigade was stationed initially at Camp Upton, Yaphank, Long Island, New York, as part of the 77th Infantry Division. Like all Army units in WWI, the 152d was segregated and there were no black soldiers in it.

The early history of Camp Upton is told in a 1918 pamphlet by Roger Batchelder. He says that the 77th Division was known as the “Metropolitan Division” because “every man in the division was formerly a resident of Greater New York.” Batchelder notes that there were black soldiers at Camp Upton. But they were not in the 152d Depot Brigade. The black soldiers were in the 367th Infantry Regiment and the 351st Machine Gun Battalion. And these organizations, though barracked at Camp Upton, technically were not part of the 77th Division. Instead, they were part of the 92d Infantry Division (Colored), the so-called “Buffalo Soldiers” Division.

So how to find this Clarence Thomas? Notice first the style of the inscription on the headstone. This is basically the style of inscriptions on headstones provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. See examples here. Given that, we should take a look at the VA’s Nationwide Gravesite Locator. This database includes veterans buried not only at National Cemeteries, but at private ones as well. [It's worth noting here that there are no National Cemeteries in Delaware; there are three in Maryland, one in Annapolis and two in Baltimore]. Of the 110 “Clarence Thomas” names in the VA database, none fit our dates of birth or death, although there is a Pvt Clarence L. Thomas, buried in New Jersey (DOB: 1/24/1890; DOD: 3/7/1952), who comes close. While the disparate birthdates may be of no significance, let us assume that a four year discrepancy in a death date isn’t close enough even for government work. Nonetheless, let’s keep this one in mind while we move on.

The next simplest search may be the Social Security Death Index. We should try several versions of the SSDI. I like the ones at Rootsweb and GenealogyBank best. In using the SSDI for this case, I would narrow the search to those named Clarence Thomas who died in 1956. I would consider a 20th century death date more reliable than a 19th century birthdate. I might also check a couple of years before 1956. Having done the SSDI, we don’t find any Clarence Thomas that comes close to our date parameters. (Why might that be? The data in the SSDI comes from the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. The majority of deaths listed there are from 1962 or later. Our subject died in 1956. Second, not every person is in the Social Security system. This depends on the type of employment and pension arrangements a person has.)

The next tool I would use is Find-A-Grave. This site has 19 million user-contributed gravesites, and it’s easy to use. I’d follow the same procedures concerning dates as we did with the SSDI. There are a total of 168 individuals with the name “Clarence Thomas” in the Find-a-Grave database. Unfortunately, none of them appear to match our Clarence Thomas by dates or locations.

The tools we’ve used thus far are the “quick solution” tools. They’ve not given us an answer.
Before we move on to the more complicated tools, let’s consider all that we know, including the following:

  1. The headstone apparently was found in the area of Maryland known as the Eastern Shore.
  2. The person in possession of the headstone believes it may memorialize a black man.
  3. The deceased was in a military unit that was almost certainly segregated, limited to white soldiers.
  4. A chronicler of the military installation where the unit was stationed says that “every man in the division was formerly a resident of Greater New York.”
  5. The headstone indicates that the deceased either was born in, or entered military service from, Delaware.

With those things in mind, we’ll move on to the more sophisticated analysis next.

COMING: Detective Work II: Newspapers, The Census, and Other Tools

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