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 CINCINNATI

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CINCINNATI

the missionaries decided to concentrate their efforts on the northern part of the prefecture. The superior general of the congregation, therefore, requested the Holy See to confide to other institutes the remaining sections of the vicariate. Consequently, Propaganda placed the northern part of the vicariate, under the name of the Prefectureof Upper Cimbebasia, in charge of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost (1 August, 1892), while the German territory was called the Pre- fecture of Lower Cimbebasia, and given to the Oblate Fathers of Mary. Bechuanaland was then united to the Vicariate of the Orange Free State. The Pre- fect ure of Upper Cimbebasia is bounded on the north by the Kassai River, on the east by the 22d degree of longitude east of Greenwich, on the west by the upper course of the Kunene, and on the south by the degree of latitude determined by the lower course of the Kunene. Thisdegree of latitudealsoformsthebound- ary line between the Portuguese and German posses- sions in Southern Africa. Under the direction of the prefect Apostolic, 20 priests and 8 Brothers of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost labour for the evan- gelization of this territory. They are aided by 40 catechists and 5 Sisters of the Congregation of St. Joseph of Cluny. There are 7 ■stations: Kakonda, Bailundo, Bihe, Katoko, Kassengue, Massaka, and Kuniama; 28 flourishing schools contain 1600 boys and 1100 girls, of whom 374 boys and 123 girls have their home at the schools. The Catholic population numbers about 10,200, of whom 9000 are natives. During 1903 and 1904 there were 806 children and 491 adults baptized.

Cimbebasia, Lower, Prefecture Apostolic op, is bounded on the north by the degree of latitude de- termined by the lower course of the Kunene River; on the east by the 22d degree of longitude east of Green- wich; on the south by the 23d degree of south latitude, in such manner that the town of Rehoboth is included in the Vicariate Apostolic of the former Orange Free State, nowthe Orange RiverColony; on the west by the Atlantic. The region is under the control of Germany. The prefecture was erected by a decree of Propaganda of 1 August, 1892, which divided the earlier prefecture of Cimbebasia. The Oblate Fathers of the Immacu- late Mary have charge of the mission under the pre- fect Apostolic, who resides at Windhoek, the princi- pal station. The other mission stations are: Little Windhoek, Nobra, Swakopmund, Usakos, Aminuis, Tpukirn.l Mnaruru, Okumbahe. TheCatholicsnumber about 1000, sonic 800 being Europeans. The labour- ers in the evangelization of this field are: 20 priests, 17 brothers, and 11 Missionary Sisters of St. Francis. There are 1 1 schools with 500 pupils, and 2 orphan- ages with 108 orphans.

1/ Catholica (Home. 1007) 393-9.5; Statesman's Year

Book (London, 1907), 1341-42; Les missions caOuiligjies tomcaises (Pari?. 1900); Bulletin dc la conan-gation du Saint- Esprit.

Alexandre Lerov.

Cincinnati, Archdiocese of (Cincinnatiensis), comprises that part of the State of Ohio lying south of 40 degrees, 41 minutes, being the counties south of the northern line of Mercer, Auglaize, Hardin, all west of the eastern line of Marion, Union, and Madi- son counties, and all west of the Scioto River to the Ohio River, an area of 12,043 square miles. The see was erected 19 June, 1821 ; the archdiocese created 19 July. 1850.

Early Missionary Life. — As early as 1749 a Jesuit, Joseph de Bonncramp, had traversed North- ern and Eastern ( thin with De Blainville, who at the time was taking possession of the Valley of the Ohio it) the name of France. In lT.'il another Jesuit, Annand de la Richardie. established a mission sta- tion at Sandusky. In 1795 Rev. Edmund Burke (afterwards first Bishop of Halifax) spent a short time among the Indians along the Maumee, but with

little success. In 1790 a colony of French settlers located at Gallipolis on the Ohio, and Dom Peter Joseph Didier, a Benedictine monk, built a church, but growing discouraged left after a few years. The Rev. Stephen T. Badin visited Gallipolis in 1796. Bishop Flaget of Bardstown had charge at this time of Kentucky and Tennessee and the territory divided to-day into the States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In company with Father Badin he made a tour of Northern Ohio, passing through Chillicothe, Lancaster, and Somerset. The country was nothing but primeval forest. He met the first Catholics at what is to-day known as Somer- set, and in response to their earnest appeal he asked the Dominicans to come to their spiritual aid. In this way Father Fenwick, in later years the first Bishop of Cincinnati, was commissioned to take charge. It was here that he met John Fink, and in the latter's house, on the spot now occupied by the Somerset High School, the Sacrifice of the Mass was first offered for the assembled thirteen families. Some two years later Father Fenwick visited Somer- set a second time, and secured from the Dittoe family a tract of three hundred acres for the Dominican Order on condition that a church and monastery be erected as early as possible. The buildings, at first small and primitive, have since been replaced by the more beautiful and commodious structure of St. Joseph's Priory. It was early in 1811 that the first attempt was made to organize a congregation in Cincinnati. The Catholics interested in the work met on 13 December in the house of Joseph Fabler, but no definite action was taken. Bishop Flaget was passing through Cincinnati in 1814 on one of his episcopal visitations. The city, which to-day num- bers within its corporate limits 400,000 people, and is one of the great centres of art, commerce, educa- tion, and religion, was at the time practically a wilderness dotted here and there with a small num- ber of log-cabins reared by the sturdy settlers. On this occasion he met the representatives of the Catholic families of Cincinnati. Their names, recorded in the early annals of the church, were Michael Scott, Patrick Reilly, Edward Lynch, Patrick Gohe- gan, John McMahon, John White, P. Walsh, and Robert Ward. Mr. Scott was one of the earliest Catholic settlers in Ohio, coming from Baltimore in 1805 and eventually moving to Cincinnati. It was in his house that Bishop Flaget, on the occasion of his first visit, celebrated the first Mass in Cincinnati: on this occasion the bishop urged the erection of a church as soon as means would permit. Their faith, courage, and spirit of sacrifice can be truly appre- ciated when one remembers the obstacles which con- fronted them, and the spirit of religious bigotry with which they were obliged to contend. A city ordi- nance forbade the erection of a Catholic church within the city limits. An appeal for assistance to the Catholics in the East met with a ready and generous response, property was secured on the north-west corner of Vine and Liberty Streets, ami with logs cut in the timberland of William Reilly, in Maysliek, Ky., rafted to Cincinnati, ami carted by oxen to the site outside the corporate limits, they constructed in 1822 the first Catholic Church in Cincinnati, a plain, barn-like structure. On the recommendation of Bishop Flaget. Ohio was made a diocese 19 June, 1821, with Cincinnati as the see.

Bishops. — (1) Edward Fenwick, a native of Maryland and a member of the Dominican Order, was appointed the first Bishop of Cincinnati, and

made Administrator Apostolic of Michigan and the

eastern part of the North-western Territory. He was consecrated by Bishop Flaget in St. Rose's Church, Washington County, Kentucky, 1.3 January, 1822, and arriving in Cincinnati the same year he took up