On the first day of my pastorate on Feb. 1, 1987, I took a look at our first Baptismal Book. (Our first recorded baptism was in December of 1847). I was intrigued to find that many of the first baptisms were performed by Jesuit priests with French names: Jouin, Daubresse, Doucet, Bienvenue. The pastor was Irish, Fr. John Ryan, which was expected in a congregation that was almost all Irish. But why were French priests here? The short answer is that they were from St. John's College (now Fordham University) and they were mostly French because Archbishop Hughes wanted Jesuits from the Province of France not the American Province to teach at St. John's. Why? The longer answer involves Hughes's prickly relationship with the Jesuits and why the Jesuits left our parish after only three years.
A few years later my curiosity got the better of me. I traced past the history of the French Jesuits in New York. There I came across a most remarkable historical coincidence. In 1643 St. Isaac Jogues was rescued (by ransom) from a Mohawk tribe partly through the help of Adriaen Van der Donck. In Russell Shorto's "Island in the Center of the World" Adriaen is described as "a forgotten American, a maverick, liberal- minded lawyer whose brilliant gamesmanship, commitment to individual freedom and exuberant love of his new country would have lasting impact on the history of this nation."He had met Jogues earlier and found that they had mutual interests in the "flora and fauna" of the New World and in the customs of the Native Americans. Jogues was placed in "house arrest" in New Amsterdam by his Dutch Protestant rescuers until they could put him on a ship back to Europe. In New Amsterdam at the same time was Thomas Cornell, a landowner from the Bronx, who was in town for the wedding of his daughter. The direct descendant of Cornell was the leading lay founder of our parish, Thomas Cornell. Adriaen Van der Donck became the owner of a large tract of land which became known as "Yonkers" named after his nickname "Yonkeers" (young gentleman). He is probably buried in Van Cortland Park (once part of Yonkers). Jogues, who after a perilous journey, make it back to France, only to return to the New World to be martyred and eventually become a canonized saint. Two hundred years later (including the suppression of the Jesuit Order by the Pope from 1773 -1814) members of the same French Jesuit Provincial Order as Jogues (now including Canada) were now founding the parish of St. Mary's that included all the land of Yonkers. That's pretty amazing. Isn't it?

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