A Description of St. Marys

Wimmer Wednesday. Boniface Wimmer described the establishment in St. Marys as follows:

To the north of Carrolltown is our third place, at St. Maria, about 80 miles from the former. The parish there has about 400 families, all German and mostly Bavarians. Nine miles to the south of this is another Catholic parish, with 56 Irish and 28 German families. To the east a German settlement of 25 families has been started at Williamsville, all of which are entrusted to our care, along with another few families that live scattered about the area. At the present time I have 2 priests at St. Maria, along with 18 brothers.

Once I was certain that I would settle permanently at St. Maria, I also wanted to bring nuns to the area, and turned to the Prioress of St. Walburga in Eichstätt and to the very reverend bishop there. Recently a prayer society has been established in Germany whose main purpose is to prevent the extinction of the Benedictine Order in Europe by means of their prayer. I, too, along with my people, was invited to join this association and did so most gladly. However, I believe that, “one who will not be counseled, also cannot be helped,” and there is reason, too, for the American proverb, “Help thyself.” In consideration of this I have always thought, and also said everywhere as often as I could, that the Benedictine Order had to participate in the work of the missions, or it would perish. This I had also said to the dear nuns at St. Walburga during my visit at Eichstätt in the past year, and tried to enthuse them for the missions. The good nuns and sisters were more enthusiastic than I had anticipated; and they readily agreed to help out if they were needed, in order to transplant also the female branch of the Benedictine Order to the New World, and to expand it there. My formal invitation to the work of the missions was therefore most gladly received, and only the permission of the most reverend bishop was needed in order to proceed to the actualization. I am very grateful to the very reverend bishop that he quickly gave his consent and sent two capable nuns along with a lay sister as a first, small start. They just arrived here on July 15…

From Boniface Wimmer: Abbot of Saint Vincent in Pennsylvania