Our History

History of the Province

Cumberland Memories

(Part 2) - Safe Haven

The story of the Capuchins in Cumberland actually started In Prussia and Hesse-Darmstadt in present day West Germany.

Due to a complex interplay of religious and political motives, the predominantly Protestant Prussian state under Otto van Bismarck opened a campaign of religious repression In 1871. Partially triggered by the definition of papal primacy and infallibility by Vatican I in 1870, this movement, popularly known as the Kulturkampf, aimed at stripping the Catholic Church of its power. Sparked by Bismarck's spirit, other German principalities, such as Hesse-Darmstadt, adopted similar measures.

The Capuchin Franciscans in Prussia and Hesse at the time belonged to the Province of Rhine-Westphalia [which we will shorten to Westphalia], a relatively new province of the order, which with the help of the Belgian and Tyrolean provinces, had risen as late as 1860 from the ashes of three earlier German provinces: Cologne, Rhineland, and Westphalia,

For the Province of Westphalia, the height of the Kulturkampf came in 1875, when civil decrees were issued dissolving most of the religious orders. At that time, the new province had 67 members: 33 priests, 27 lay brothers, 5 clerics, and 2 cleric novices,

In the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, the suppression was to be a slow death by suffocation. Capuchin houses at Mainz and Dieburg were permitted to continue existing with their 14 friars, but forbidden by a decree of April 23 to receive new members or replace any of the current ones.

Convinced that the Prussian state would not allow itself to be outdone in this, the Westphalian provincial chapter on May 19 named two delegates to search for a sanctuary. These priests were already three days en route to America when Bismarck's iron fist fell on the Prussian friaries on May 31.

In Prussia the ax fell later, but with greater force. Religious were given six months to dissolve themselves, after which their houses would be taken over by the government. Thus the 50 Prussian friars stationed in Muenster, Kleve, Werne, and Ehrenbreitstein near Koblenz had to immediately look for new locations.

The provincial minister, Irenaeus Kofler, a member of the Tyrolean province, left Muenster for Tyrol, stopping at Aschaffenburg in the Bavarian province to provide as best he could by mail for the dispersal of his brethren.

Titus Steiner, another Tyrolese, returned to Tyrol. The two novices went there also. Six friars went to Bavaria, including Bro. Juniper Janssen, who later sojourned in Holland with his brother, Blessed Arnold Janssen, at the very time when the latter was founding the Divine Word Missionaries. Two others went to England. Likewise two to India. Five clerical students and two lectors ended up having class in the Belgian province. Thirteen friars stayed behind in the province in secret situations: several hiring out as laborers, one living with his family, several laboring more openly as priests in the care of souls, and two even being hired as watchmen of their own abandoned friaries. (Linden, Hist. Westph. Prov. 116-118).

The largest group of Westphalian friars was to head for America, which even then was preparing to celebrate the centennary of its birth as a land of freedom.

Anton Schuermann (1834-87), leader of the capitular delegation, was Guardian of the Werne friary and had earlier served as Second Definitor and Guardian and novice master at Muenster. During the Franco-Prussian war he had won the Iron Cross for outstanding service as a military hospital chaplain. According to a confrere in Westphalia, Anton "bore physical suffering in his body for years with great courage. He was another Nathaniel, in whom there was no guile, and an extremely honorable and honest man, constantly happy and very much alive. He was also considered a very capable and original preacher. (Gedenkbuch der Toten 76-69).

Travelling as "Deputies of the Provincial Chapter," Anton and Franz Wollf (1835-1915), former Guardian of Werne and Mainz, left Muenster May 28, going by way of Southhampton, England. There they met Felix M. Lex of the Bavarian province, who with Bro. Elzear Joerger and two candidates, was on his way to join Fr. Hyazinth Epp in Pittsburgh. The six decided to journey together and arrived in America on June 11 and in Pittsburgh on June 15. (Epp. Hist. Prov. Pa., 1875 n. 2).

Anton and Franz were still in the dark, of course, as to where to find a house for their confreres, but the answer to their prayers came quickly. After staying for a day and a half at Pittsburgh and being thoroughly briefed by Hyazinth, they were just about to leave, when one of the Holy Ghost Fathers arrived who knew some of the Westphalian Capuchins.

"When he heard that we had come from Germany to find a place to labor," Anton later wrote home," he exclaimed: 'Now I know what it was that urged me to take this trip to the Capuchins in Pittsburgh! I know the very place for you, and a better you could not find, a place, where the parish will receive you with open arms'..."

The priest went on to tell Anton about the Carmelite monastery in Cumberland, which nine years earlier the Carmelite commissary, Cyril Knoll, had accepted from the Redemptorists, thinking of erecting a novitiate and house of studies there for his own order. He had bought the place for $20,000 in the firm expectation that Carmelites would be coming from Bavaria to staff it. The German Carmelites, however, left him in the lurch, and it fell upon Cyril to personally take care of the parish and school. As no other assistance was available, he accepted whatever came along, including a number of unworthy men, who became sources of great scandal to the people and embarrassment to the Archbishop. So Cyril was willing to sell the whole works for what he had paid for it, even though property values by then had doubled, even tripled. (Annals V,2,35)

The Westphalian deputies arrived in Cumberland June 17, 1875, and found everything exactly as it had been described to them. With Cyril they visited Baltimore and found Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley, a grand nephew of St. Elizabeth Bayley Seton, overjoyed to hear that the Capuchins would take over Cumberland. (Ibid. 37)

"Good news! Thank God, we have found a place," Anton wrote to Germany on July 3, "and that a very good one, so much so, that one could hardly wish or dare wish for a better. The place is called Cumberland, a city of 12,000 inhabitants...and is, after Baltimore, the largest city in this diocese...

"The German Catholic parish comprises about 2,000 members. Most of these Germans are Platdeutsch, from Paderborn, Muenster and Oldenburg; the rest are from Hannover, the Rhineland, Hesse, Bavaria, Baden, Suavia, etc. All, however, are good Catholics, so much so, that not a single one absents himself from Easter Communion. In fact, most go to the sacraments every month or more..." (Ibid. 35)

Anton went on to describe in great detail the entire property, including the 80-room monastery, the gardens, and the vineyard which had produced 1,500 bottles of wine the previous year. "Between you and me," he told his minister, "the monastery and garden alone are worth every bit of $60,000, and its value is increasing from year to year, since Cumberland is growing considerably, and property values are going up, all the more so, because the surrounding hills hem it in and make it impossible to build and spread out over a very large area. Only a few years ago the monastery was outside the city, now it is almost in the middle of it. Round about us, houses (beautiful villas) have gone up, and streets are laid out. But since our monastery and garden lie upon a hill, we live undisturbed as if in a primeval forest..." (Ibid. 36-37).

Besides singling out a number of lay brothers well suited to the American adventure, Anton gave many and detailed instructions for the friars who would come to Cumberland. Accordingly, on Aug. 20, Frs. Bernardinus Tebbe, Pius Reinhold, Maurus Strobel, Angelus Poettken, and Franz Xaver Strunk and Bros. Seraphin Simmes, Valentin Leuchter, Wendelin Lockmann, Gottfried Huesing, Homobonus Kelliger, and Didakus Rottlaender, as well as four candidates, left Muenster to board the steamer Caland at Rotterdam. (Annals 1,2,21).

The Caland carried 144 passengers and a crew of 68. Besides the 16 men bound for Cumberland, there were 40 other priests and religious heading into exile. Five were diocesan priests. Another six were Recollect Franciscans from Fulda, including Aloys Lauer, who after Leo XIII's union of four families of Franciscans would serve as their general minister, and Franz Koch, the great church builder of the Holy Name Province. There were also 29 Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Family, (including their foundress, Mother M. Xavier), who settled at Dubuque, Iowa, and today number almost 800 sisters.

"Along with the usual dangers of such a long voyage, " wrote one of the Recollects, "the passengers underwent special dangers. On the second day after departure, the boat struck a sand bar but was soon released. Not far from New York, the Caland passed through a fog so thick that it almost plowed through another vessel and nearly met with catastrophe... Only once or twice owing to storms, were the Masses omitted. The Divine Office was recited in common with the Capuchins and secular priests aboard in a very orderly manner as if in their own religious houses." (Musser, The Beloved Mendicant, 37).

"At 8 o'clock in the evening," added another Recollect, "there were devotions to the Blessed Mother of God, protectoress of the seafarers, consisting of the recitation of the Rosary in common and suitable hymns to Mary..." (Ibid. 37).

At the dock in New York, a Capuchin from the Calvary commissariate met his Westphalian confreres and took them and the Recollects to the friary on Pitt Street, where that evening one of the Westphalian Capuchins preached a sermon on the Blessed Mother to the people of the parish, and Franz Koch conducted evening devotions. (Ibid. 43-44). This was on Sept. 5, 1875. By Sept. 10, Bernardine Tebbe and his 14 companions had arrived in Cumberland, and thus, in what had been planned only as a temporary sojourn in a safe haven, was begun the 100-year-old romance of the Capuchins with Cumberland.

>>next: Part3, Forming Friars

<<previous: Part 1, Holy Hill

Fr. Anthony Schuermann, OFM Cap

Fr. Francis Wolff, OFM Cap

Bishop James Bayley

Fr. Bernardine Toebbe, OFM Cap

Fr. Pius Reinhold, OFM Cap

Br. Seraphin Simmes, OFM Cap

Fr. Didacus Rottlaender, OFM Cap