This Day in Province History: February 6, 1899
Fr. William Jones and Br. George Woolsey assumed charge of Saint Augustine Chapel in Havana, Cuba, for the service of English-speaking Catholics, with the approval of the Ordinary, Bishop Manuel Santander y Frutos and Prior Provincial, Fr. John Fedigan.
This Day in Province History: February 3, 1880
Prior General, Fr. Giovanni Belluomini, wrote to Fr. Pacifico Neno, Prior Provincial of the American Province, informing him that his resignation as Provincial tendered one month earlier, has been denied, owing to the wishes of the friars of the Province.
This Day in Province History: February 1, 1940
Prior Provincial, Fr. John Sheehan, proposed that the novitiate farm at New Hamburg no longer be maintained by the novices, but by a layman who would purchase the livestock and equipment “to eliminate the work imposed on the novices to the detriment of their spiritual and mental formation.”
This Day in Province History: January 31, 1899
Fr. William Jones and Br. George Woolsey arrived in Havana, Cuba, in 1899, to initiate the American Province’s service to that country which would continue until the time of the Cuban Revolution and the withdrawal of the Province in 1961.
This Day in Province History: January 30, 2011
Father John E. Bresnahan celebrated his 100th birthday on this day in 2011, the first friar in the Province’s history to reach that milestone. He read the New York Times every day and is pictured reading it in his room on his 100th birthday.
This Day in Province History: January 29, 1881
Prior Provincial Pacifico Neno left Philadelphia for Rome to assume his new duties Commissary General of the Order, decreed by order of Pope Leo XIII. Father Patrick Stanton completed his term of office.
This Day in Province History: January 28, 1906
Father Serafino Aurigemma arrived in Boston from Naples, Italy, en route to assist in the Italian Augustinian Mission centered in Philadelphia. He would serve in the American Province, principally in Mechanicville, New York for the remainder of his life.
This Day in Province History: January 27, 1860
Fr. Thomas Galberry assumed the office of pastor of St. John Parish in Lansingburgh, New York, bought property to establish a parish cemetery and built a new church, naming it Saint Augustine.
This Day in Province History: January 26, 1869
Present this day at the funeral of Father James Blake, pastor of St. Augustine Church, Troy, New York, were nearly 100 priests of Albany. Bishop McNierney of Albany was the celebrant of the solemn mass of requiem.
This Day in Province History: January 24, 1869
On this day in 1869, Father James Waldron opened a new mission in Greenwich, New York, and celebrated the first Mass in the Hall of the Sons of Temperance, in the presence of about 250 people, among them two girls, 17 and 19 years of age respectively, who until that day had never seen a priest.