Diary and Visitation Record of the Rt. Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick: Administrator and Bishop of Philadelphia, 1830-1851. Later Archbishop of Baltimore. Translated and Edited by Permission and Under the Direction of His Grace the Most Rev. Edmond F. Prendergast, Archbishop of Philadelphia. [Philadelphia: 1916]
Page 52:
June the 12th, 1831, I blessed solemnly, according to the rite of the Pontifical, the cemetery of St. Michael's in Kensington. About two thousand people, or more, were present.
Page 104:
September 28th, 1834. I blessed solemnly the church of St. Michael in Kensington near the city. The Bishop of Philadelphia [Conwell] was present at the blessing. The Rev. Terence J. Donahoe, pastor of the church, celebrated the Mass. The Rev. John Hughes preached.
Page 221:
May 6th, 1844. A gathering of Americans, who are known as the "Native American Party," was an occasion and the beginning of strife and a disorderly fight between the Irish and these "Native Americans" in a place called Kensington, not far from the city. One American was killed in the fray, and one Irishman was wounded. Then some dwellings were looted by the Americanists. After night they made a renewed attempt to demolish buildings belonging to the Irish; and they set fire to a house which had been home of some devout women*, proceeding thence to burn the church [St. Michael's]: but, after the fire was started in the house, the Irish, by force of arms, drove them off. Two men were killed, and many were wounded.
*This evidently is the Convent home of the Sisters of Charity of the B.V.M., who found their first home in the United States and established the work of their Institute in the School of St. Michael's, through the kind interest and care of Father Donahoe, in 1833. In 1843, the Sisters had removed, under the direction of Father Donahoe, to the diocese of Dubuque, Iowa, where the Mother House and Novitiate flourished. One postulant, Sister Mary Baker, had been left in Philadelphia to settle temporal affairs and care for the convent property. She, "a little English lady," with two young girl companions, Elizabeth Sullivan and Jane O'Reilly, met the mob at the door of the convent, believing that "no man would be brutal enough to burn to death three helpless women." But a brick thrown with deliberate aim struck her down, unconscious at the door. By the efforts of some Irishmen, the three were rescued, making their way through the garden to a place of safety.
There is more on this incident in In Early Days, Pages from the Annals of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph's Convent, Mount Carmel, Dubuque, Iowa, published by Herder, 1912, pp. 101 et ante.
Page 222:
The next day a flag was raised in the city, which bore the legend, untrue indeed, that this [standard of the nation] had been trampled on by the Irish and Papists. Then there was a gathering of armed men in Independence Square, addressed by two speakers, who, while they pretended to counsel moderation, roused the mad fury of the mob by their words. They proceeded then, about four thousand men in number, to the place of the previous day's fight, threatening death to the Irish. They first demolished the Fire House of an Irish Company of Volunteers. This was the occasion for determined resistance to the action of the mob. A small number, about twenty, among them some non-Catholics, banded together to put down the rule of the mob, to fight for the security of their homes. On the side of the Catholics one man was killed, Joseph Rice. He was betrayed, and met his death at the hands of a youth. Twelve or more of the "Americanists" [rioters] fell in this fight, and forty were wounded. Later sixty houses, the [homes] of the Irish, were set on fire.
The next day a County official made a search of the homes of the Irish. A [military] guard was stationed there, as a renewal of the rioting was feared. In the afternoon the priest Loughran gave over the keys of St. Michael's church to General Fairlamb, hardly knowing what he did, as the mad mob was pressing on. In a short time the church was on fire. The military, as it appears, did not prevent the firing of the church. After night the church of St. Augustine was set on fire, and burned together with the Library there. The rioters yelled with frenzied applause when, after a long wait, they saw the Cross fall from its high support.
Page 224:
A chapel was erected, and opened on the second day of June, in a place near the ruins of St. Michael's church. It required four days only, or hardly four, to build it: but to the great consolation of the faithful Mass was celebrated there again [in the chapel near St. Michael's] on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. The church had been burned on the eighth day of May, the feast of the Apparition of St. Michael. [The building of this chapel, "of brick and frame" is noticed in the Catholic Herald of June 6, 1844. It was forty-five by seventy feet, on the site of the late parsonage house. Begun on Tuesday, and ready for Mass on Sunday."