Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 04.djvu/132

 FLACtET

FLAGG

FLAQET, Benedict Joseph, R.C. bishop, was boi-n in C'ontournat, St. Julien, Auvergoe, France, Nov. 7, 1763. His father died before his birth and his mother when he was two years old, and iie was cared for by a pious aunt and by the Abbe Benedict Flaget, his father's brotlier. He took his philosopliical course in the Uni- versity of Clermont- Ferrard, after having graduated in arts in the College of Billom. He studied theology at the Sulpician sem- inary at Clermont, 1783-84, when he was ordained a sub-dea- con. In 178.5he joine<l that order and con- . t~\ J tiuued his studies in

^ Va^-/U ckc i^-f the solitude of Issy ^' "^ and in 1788 was

ordaineil a priest. He was professor of dogmatic theology in the University of Nantes, 1788-90, and of dogma at the Seminary of Angers. The events of the French revolution obliged him to leave that country and he emigrated to Amer- ica in 1792 when Bishop Carroll sent him to Vin- cennes, then a military post on the outskirts of civilization in the northwest. On his way he acted as chaplain to the Komau Catholics in Gen- eral Wayne's army, en route to defend the frontier settlers from the Indians. At Vincennes he had a congregation of 700 half-breeds, and he made notable progress toward their civilization. He was recalled in 179.5, and was professor in Georgetown college, 1795-98. He went with two other Sulpician priests to Havana, Cuba, in 1798, intending to found a college of that order. The native priests defeated their purpose, but Father Flaget remained on the island as tutor in plant- ers' families until 1801, when he induced twenty- three young Cubans to accompany him to Georgetown college and he remained as professor and missionary priest until April 8, 1808, when he was appointed bishop of Bardstown, Ky., against his wishes, as he desired to devote his life to labor as a trapijist monk. He went to Rome to secure release from the office but was unsuccessful and on returning to the United States he was conse- crated at Fell's Point, Md., Nov. 4, 1810. His diocese extended from the Atlantic states to the Mississipjji river and from the lakes to the thirty- fifth parallel and in that vast territory were seven priests and ten small chapels. He estab- lished a diocesan seminary for the education of priests and in 1817 was able to send missionaries to Indiana, Michigan, and to the French and Indian settlements along the lakes. He was

given an assistant. Father David, in 1819, and he recommended to the Holy Father the erection of an archiepiscopal see in the west, and the sub-divi- sion of the diocese. He was a member of the first provincial council of Baltimore, 1839, and in 1830 he was compelled to resi.gn his bishopric on account of rapidly declining health. When his people learned of this they raised so deter- mined an opposition and were so loyally seconded by Bishop David, his successor, who resigned in 1833, that he was obliged to reconsider his action. He was ubiquitous in his ministrations to the sick during the cholera epidemic of 1883, irre- spective of class or creed. In 1834 he was given a coadjutor in Bishop Chabrat, who had accom- panied him from France in 1792, completed his studies under Father David, and had been ordained a priest by Bishop Flaget, Dec. 25, 1811, the first Catholic priest to be ordained in the west. This relief enabled Bishop Flaget to visit Europe, 1835-39. The work in the diocese up to the time of the removal of the seat of adminis- tration from Bardstown to Louisville in 1841, included the building of four colleges, a female orphan asylum and infirmary, twelve academies for girls, and the institution of three religious sisterhoods and four orders of men. He was transferred to Louisville, Jan. 1, 1842; built in 1843 a convent and hospital from his private funds and in 1848 admitted to the diocese the colony of trappist monks who had established themselves at Gethsemane, Ky. He then retired from active participation in the affairs of the diocese on account of the infirmities of age, but viewed the ceremonies of the laying of the cornerstone of the new cathedral, Aug. 15, 1849, from a balcony of his residence and invoked a solemn benediction on the enterprise. He died at Louisville, Ky., Feb. 11, 1850.

FLAOQ, Edmund, author, was born in Wis- casset, Maine, Nov. 24, 1815; son of Edmund and Harriet (Payson) Flagg, and grandson of Josiah and Anna (Webster) Flagg, and of Col. David and Nancy (Ingersoll) Payson. His first ancestor in America, Thomas Flagg, of Scratby in the Hundred of East Flegg, near Yarmouth. Norfolk county, England, with his future wife Mary, came to Boston with Richard Carver, in the ship Hose in 1637. Edmund was prepared for college by the Rev. Dr. Hezekiah Packard, and was graduated from Bowdoin in 1835. He then taught a private school at Louisville, Ky., for a few months, and later became editorially connected with the Louisville Journal. He studied law in 1840^1 at Vicksburg. Miss., at the same time editing the ^Vhir|, and in 1842-43 was editor of the Gazette at Marietta, Ohio. He edited and pub- lished the St. Louis Evening Gazette, 1844-45, and later served as official reporter of the courts of