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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
5
THE EARLY CATHOLIC DAYS IN ATLANTA
SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FIRST PRIEST ORDAINED
FROM ATLANTA, JAMES A. DOONAN, S. J.
In 1846 my father, Terence Doonan, removed his
little family from Augusta to establish business and
a home at the terminus in Dekalb County of the
Western Atlantic and Georgia Railroads, then known
as Marthasville, named for a daughter of the Gov
ernor of the State, the present site of the flourish
ing city of Atlanta. He carried with him a promise
from Augusta’s saintly pastor, Father John Barry,
in later years the second bishop of Savannah, that
he himself would occasionally attend the religious
wants of the family, a promise for many years
faithfully redeemed. Of the Apostolic spirit of Fr.
Barry, aglow with the charity of Christ, evidence is
furnished by the fact, that
he took under his roof,
housing and supporting
them, numbers of orphan
boys, left homeless and un
protected after the fearful
cholera epidemic in the
decade ’30. To consuming
zeal this good priest united
personal sanctity, the out
come of a true spirit of
prayer and love of morti
fication.
Tradition hath it that
before our arrival, Mass
had been said in Atlanta
for a little band of Catho
lics employed in the con
struction of the railroads,
the celebrant being a mis
sionary whose name has
not come down to us. Our
first house, a frame build
ing on Whitehall Street,
between Alabama and Mit
chell was one of the ear
liest erected in the village.
In this unpretentious home
all the early Masses, pre
vious to the erection of the first frame Church, were
offered and the sacraments of Penance and Baptism
administered. An ordinary bureau placed in front
of the wooden mantle over the open fire-place served
as an altar. In those primitive days pageants were
unknown. Occasional parades of Masons and Odd
Fellows furnished to a child’s eye the only attrac
tive display within reach, so that on a Sunday morn
ing when I saw offering Holy Mass at my mother’s
bureau a priest robed in his vestments, the splendor
of the appearance cast under a shadow the glitter of
dazzling Masonic regalia and perhaps caused the
first stirrings of a desire some day to don a similar
glowing garb.
Not for several years had the handful of Atlanta
Catholics the services of a residence pastor, mean
while being served, thanks to Fr. John Barry, by the
TO OUR READERS
Labor trouble at the printing plant in Au
gusta where The Bulletin is published, is re
sponsible for the late appearance of The Bulle
tin this month. The management of The Bulle
tin has taken steps which will insure more
prompt appearance in the future.
ministrations of occasional visiting clergymen, who
ordinarily were guests of my father’s family. To my
brother and myself, despite what then seemed an
infliction, the protracted night prayers invariably
recited by the priests for his assembled flock, such
visits were warmly welcomed as they furnished an
excuse for the two of us to make a house to house
visitation of the few Catholic families to announce
the ever gladsome tidings of Mass to be said the
next morning in our home. For such welcome news
recompence was immediate and abundant in jacket
pockets stuffed with cakes and apples. The arri
val in our home of perhaps the first piano introduced
into Atlanta was welcomed
not so much for the pros
pective pleasure of music
to be drawn from it as for
the suggestion immediately
made when taken from its
packing case: “What a
fine altar it will make.” a
holy use to which it was
ever afterward put until
the opening of the first
frame Church.
Of the holy men who
served Atlanta’s little
flock in those early days,
three bore the name
O’Neill, two, an uncle and
a nephew, having the same
Christian names. Jere
miah F., familiarly though
respectfully distinguished
as “Old Fr, Jerry” and
“Young Fr. Jerry.” The
elder of these two priests
was a missionary cast in a
truly heroic mold, seeming
ly immune from fatigue
under labor however hard
and protracted, the
strength of this septuagenarian apparantly waking
more vigorous under the hardships and privations of
his truly apostolic life. He was a very ready speaker*
given to polemical rather than devotional sermons.
More than once I was sent from the sacristy to sur
vey the congregation and report approximate upon
the number of Protestants present. Upon the per
centage reported I found by experience the length
of the sermon depended.
Both uncle and nephew were men of fine culture,
for their opportunities well versed in philosophy and
theology and for their day exceptionally good lin
guists and musicians, the elder an excellent performer
on the flute the younger on the violin and the flute
also. His musical attainments served the elder mis
sionary in good stead on a journey through North
Carolina with John England, the first occupant of
the see of Charleston. Journeying through the wes
tern county of the old North State, largely populated
by Scotch Presbyterians, Bishop England and Father
O’Neill halted at sunset before the cabin of one of
the mountaineers, asking hospitality for the night
and supper. They were met with a refusal from
followers of John Knox. With his ready Irish wit,
Father O’Neill pleaded with the mountaineer for a
supper for their horse, adding with a twinkle in his
eye; “The beast is a Papist only under compulsion.”
As one of the stable hands led the horse to his sup
per, Bishop England, walking under the pine trees
(Continued on Page 16) .
The Bulletin is indebted to Rev. J. B. Doonan,
S. J., of New Orleans, for the story of the
early Catholic days in Atlanta, penned by his
uncle, Rev. James A. Doonan, S. J., the first
native of Atlanta to be ordained to the holy
priesthood.
The elder Father Doonan died on Good Fri
day, 1911, at Woodstock, Md. The reminis
cences started in this issue of The Bulletin
were written the year previous to his death.
He had arranged with his nephew, Father
Doonan of New Orleans, then at Woodstock,
to go down to Georgetown for a couple of
weeks the following Easter holidays and dic
tate more matter on the early days in Atlanta.
Before he could carry out his plans, God called
him to Himself.