James Fitton (priest)
James Fitton (10 April 1805 in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. – 15 September 1881 in Boston) was one of New England’s foremost Roman Catholic missionary priests.[1]
Biography
[edit]His father, Abraham Fitton, went to Boston from Preston, England; his mother, Sarah Williams Fitton, was of Welsh origin and a Catholic convert. Abraham Fitton was a wheelwright. He became an altar boy at Holy Cross Cathedral where Bishop John de Cheverus encouraged him to enter the priesthood.[1]
His primary education was received in the schools of his native city, and his classical course was made at Claremont, New Hampshire, at an academy conducted by Virgil Horace Barber, a Catholic convert. He learned theology from Bishop of Boston, Benedict Joseph Fenwick, by whom he was ordained priest, 23 December 1827.[2]
In 1828, he was sent as a missionary to the Passamaquoddy people. He subsequently labored among the scattered Roman Catholics of New Hampshire and Vermont, and soon the territory between Boston and Long Island was placed under his charge, with Hartford, Connecticut, as the center of his district.[3] There he edited a Catholic newspaper.[1] He was instrumental in establishing the first Roman Catholic newspaper in the United States.[3]
He traveled, often on foot, from Eastport and the New Brunswick line on the northeast, to Burlington and Lake Champlain on the northwest; from Boston in the east, to Great Barrington and the Berkshire Hills in the west; from Providence, Rhode Island and Newport, Rhode Island in the southeast, to Bridgeport and the New York State line in the southwest. During his missionary career, he was pastor of the first Catholic church at Hartford, and at Worcester, Massachusetts.[2] By 1836, he had stationed his headquarters in Worcester. This was also the same year that the Penobscot Indians began making annual visits to St. John’s Parish, camping on Vernon Hill before returning to Maine.[4]
In 1840, while pastor of the church at Worcester, he purchased the site of the College of the Holy Cross, and erected a boarding school for the advanced education of Catholic young men. In 1842, he sold the grounds and building to Bishop Fenwick, who placed it under the care of the Jesuits.[5]
In 1848, he erected the Church of the Holy Name of Mary, Our Lady of the Isle at Newport. The church was designed by noted Brooklyn architect Patrick Keely.[6] While serving at Fort Adams in Newport, Officer William Rosecrans, of the Corps of Engineers, volunteered his services as the engineer for the construction. Rosecrans had converted to Catholicism in 1845 while at West Point. St. Mary's was one of the largest churches constructed in the United States at that time, and is the oldest Catholic parish in the state.[7]
In 1855 he was appointed by Bishop Fenwick pastor of the church of the Most Holy Redeemer in East Boston. Here he worked for the remaining twenty-six years of his life, and built four more churches.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Reverend James Fitton", Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame
- ^ a b c
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "James Fitton". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- ^ a b One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- ^ [1] Archived 2011-07-28 at the Wayback Machine, "To Preserve The Flame" Archived 2011-07-28 at the Wayback Machine (1984). Copyright St. John's Church, Temple Street
- ^ Kuzniewski, Anthony J., Thy Honored Name: A History of the College of the Holy Cross, 1843-1994, Catholic University of America Press ISBN 9780813209111
- ^ "History", Saint Mary, Our Lady of the Isles Roman Catholic Church
- ^ "NRHP nomination for St. Mary's Church Complex" (PDF). Rhode Island Preservation. Retrieved 2014-11-07.
- 1805 births
- 1881 deaths
- College of the Holy Cross people
- American Roman Catholic missionaries
- Roman Catholic missionaries in the United States
- Roman Catholic clergy in the United States
- American people of English descent
- American people of Welsh descent
- 19th-century American newspaper founders
- 19th-century American Roman Catholic priests