San Francisco County
Biographies
OLD ST.
MARY’S
The story of Old St. Mary’s has been told by John F. Carrere as follows: “Catholicity in San Francisco is some seventy-five years older than the town itself, for while our political forebears were busy in Philadelphia in 1776, writing the Declaration of Independence and creating a new nation, our forebears in the faith—the Franciscan Missionaries—were establishing the Mission Delores in San Francisco, which they founded on October 9th, a little more than three months after the Declaration had been signed. The year 1776, therefore, is a memorable date for San Franciscans from both a patriotic and a religious standpoint.
“The friars came up the coast by land, and located where they could cultivate the land and teach the Indians agriculture. When gold was discovered and a mad rush from all over the world started for California, the majority of the new arrivals came by water and landed on the bay-front where Montgomery street is located today. There was a distance of three miles between the settlement of 1776 and that of the ‘40s, so really San Francisco, which was called Yerba Buena at first, has two birthyears if not two birthdays. It may be added that the two elements which founded the city were the direct opposite of each other in every way, even language; and the remarkable fact is that the name given to the communities eventually was San Francisco, the name selected by the Catholic Spanish monks, and not only chosen by then non-Catholic, English-speaking gold-seekers.
“As a rule, the eastern settlers and miners were not notable for any great interest in religion. There came down from Canada, however, and Oregon (including the state of Washington of today) a large number of men employed as hunters and trappers by the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company (which latter organization was later merged with the former). These arrivals from the north were for the most part French and half-breeds, and were therefore Catholics. Archbishop Blanchett was in charge of the Church in Oregon, and when the gold rush set in he was sorely tried, for he had many difficulties to overcome at home. However, he prepared to meet the emergency, and in a letter to Very Reverend Father Gonzales, quoted by Reverend P. J. Foote, the well known San Franciscan Jesuit, in his ‘Historical Notes of the Return of the Jesuits to California,’ the Archbishop wrote: “The news of the discovery of gold in California is fascinating the mind of everybody and is unsettling and attracting the minds of various persons in our diocese.” The Archbishop then goes on to say that he will send to San Francisco, however, Very Reverend Father Brouillet, vicar-general of the diocese of Walla Walla who arrived in the embryo city in the fall of 1848.
“To the surprise of Father Brouillet, a few months later there landed in San Francisco Reverend Father Langlois, who was on his way to eastern Canada, from Oregon, by way of Cape Horn. Father Brouillet persuaded the new arrival to remain, and having received permission from his superior—he was entering the Jesuit Order—he settled down as the first Catholic pastor of Yerba Buena.
“The condition of the community in which he found himself as thus described by Father Accolti, who, with another Jesuit Father, landed in the little city on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (though the dogma had not as yet been declared and no feast day named for it), 1849. Father Accolti writes: ‘We arrived on the night of December 8th so that the next day we were able to set foot on the longed-for shores of what goes under the name of San Francisco but which whether it should be called the madhouse or Babylon I am at a loss to determine so great in those days were the disorder, the brawling, the open immorality, the reign of crime which, brazen-faced, triumphed on a soil not yet brought under the sway of human laws.’
“It is easy to see the task before Father Langlois was not an easy one. However, he met a young lieutenant, connected with the American Army of occupation, who, apparently a Catholic, gave Father Langlois the use of a small room in which to say Mass, and which the good priest converted into a chapel. Later, on July 19, 1849, a small chapel was built, and dedicated with the first Mass said in it on that date, and after Mass the first baptism was administered in the territory of the San Francisco of that day, which extended from Pacific avenue to Sacramento street and from the water-front on Montgomery street to Stockton.
“Later, Father John Maginnis came from Monterey, the headquarters of the new diocese, where the Bishop (afterward Archbishop) Alemany resided, and started St. Patrick’s Church on Market street, where the Palace Hotel now stands. In December, as we have stated above, the Jesuits arrived and laid the foundation of their splendid educational work, which has blossomed into the great high school and college of today.
Father Maginnis also opened a school with the aid of five sisters of Charity, and it was at once crowded with pupils, there being one hundred and fifty scholars, a number which must have comprised practically all the children of school age in the community at the time. Reverend J. Harrington was an assistant to Father Maginnis and helped him in his work.
“Seeing that San Francisco and not Monterey was to be the principal city in his diocese—which covered California and Nevada—Archbishop Alemany, a very zealous Dominican, who had been selected for the episcopacy because of his thorough knowledge of both Spanish and English, moved his residence to this city, and for a time his Cathedral was a little wooden shanty that stood where St. Francis’ Church stands on Filbert street today. The Archbishop and his chief assistant lived in another primitive wooden shanty adjoining the church.
“But the Archbishop was a man of broad views, and, looking into the future, he saw that a large and substantial church was needed, and so began to look around for the proper site. Mission Delores was too far, and so was the new St. Patrick’s, for the Archbishop wanted a location convenient to the city, as it was then.
“Among the members of his congregation the Archbishop had a devoted Irishman, John Sullivan, who had been taken to Canada when six years old by his parents. Subsequently, in 1844, he and his family came overland to California, with the Stevens party, the family consisting of John, his sister Mary and two younger brothers. Industrious and hard-working, John worked at first as a teamster; he served under Sutter in the Micheltorena campaign, and at one time had a store on Sulllivan’s Creek (named after him) in Tuolumne county. He had purchased a number of lots in the embryo city of San Francisco and had become quite rich. Later he founded and was first president of the Hiberian Bank. He had married Catherine Farrell, and was looked upon as one of the leading citizens of the little city.
“Hearing that the Archbishop was looking for a site for his proposed cathedral, Mr. Sullivan offered His Grace the property where Old St. Mary’s and the priest' residence now stand; and although there was an objection made that it was too far out of town, nevertheless the offer was accepted and work on the building inaugurated on July 17, 1853.
“Before passing to the details of the building of the Cathedral, it may be interesting to note that Mr. Sullivan had two sons by his wife Catherine, who died in 1854, after a married life of four years. She was buried in the crypt of the church. One of the sons, Frank J., after graduating from St. Ignatius, studied in England and at Columbia College, and later married Alice Phelan, the daughter of James Phelan and a sister of the late United States Senator Phelan. She and her husband gave the grounds and erected the church and convent of the Carmelites of Santa Clara, where their daughter is one of the nuns, and where Mrs. Frank Sullivan lies buried in a little chapel adjoining the Carmelita Church proper. John Sullivan married a second time, his wife being Ada E. Kenna, by whom he had ten children. He died in 1882 at the age of eighty-five.
“Building, in the early ‘50s, in California, especially in northern California, was not an easy job. Labor was scarce and very high, as all who could preferred working in the mines seeking gold. Moreover, all the material except wood had to be brought from the Atlantic coast around Cape Horn or from China, and after the Archbishop had completed the basement of his Cathedral he was forced to wait the arrival of supplies for more than a year, so that it was not until July, 1854, that work on the super-structure of the church could be started. By that time several ships had arrived with eastern bricks, and some had come across the Pacific from China with stone, and the work was pushed as rapidly as possible, so that on Christmas, 1854, at midnight Mass, the new Cathedral was blessed and dedicated to God.
“While there was not much religion among the residents of San Francisco at that time, they all took a great pride in the new church, the largest edifice in California of a substantial character; and the newspapers of the day describe the dedication ceremonies and the church with much gratification as a great improvement to the city, much in the same tone as a new big office building or theater is described today by the press. Said of one of them: “The new church has a front of seventy-five feet on California street by one hundred and thirty-one on Dupont, which makes it the largest church of any denomination in California .A portion of the basement is now (1854) used for a school and library, the rest being reserved for a small chapel. The church was dedicated at midnight Mass on December 25, 1854. The basement is nineteen feet high, and already one hundred and twenty thousand dollars has been expended upon the building, which will take twenty-five thousand dollars more to complete. The church is forty-five feet in the clear, and contains spacious galleries and an organ loft. The ceilings are vaulted with a series of groin arches, decorated, and every means has been resorted to for accommodation, light, and ventilation. The church can seat twelve hundred persons. The parapets on the flanks are surmounted with embrasures, and the different buttresses are to be finished with cut-stone pinnacles. The tower is at present ninety feet, and when completed will be surmounted by a spire two hundred feet high (which spire, however, was never erected).
“The edifice is of Gothic architecture, which will be carried out in every detail of the building. In all the arrangements for the erection of the church, the greatest attention has been paid to the selection of the best materials and to a combination of strength and durability which are admirably effected in the construction. The edifice is built with bricks and massive foundations of stone.’
“How well it was built was shown by the way the walls stood the great earthquake and conflagration of 1906, though the entire center of the building and the floors were consumed.
“Continuing, our chronicler tells us that “The doorway in the tower, the plinth, the caps of the buttresses, the embrasure caps, and all the mouldings and crockets, together with the corbels of the windows, are also of stone (which, as has been said, all came from China). The substantial roof is covered with the best tin, the gutters and conduct are of heavy copper. Over the main entrance there are two tablets bearing the following inscriptions: Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee, (Luke I. 28) and Son, observe the time and fly from evil (Eccle. iv, 23). In the third division of the tower there is provision for a clock which will have four dials at an elevation to be seen from all parts of the city.’
“The architects were Crane and England, and it is said they followed the model of a Spanish church in the home town in Spain of the Archbishop. However that may be, the numerous coats-of-arms on the pillars and over the entrance of the church are thoroughly Spanish. The local coat-of-arms bearing the figure of a monk was so designed, it is said, because of the fact that the Archbishop was a Dominican. M. Jordan was the contractor for the brick work, Andrew & Company handled the stone cutting, and James J. Doyle was the carpenter. It might seem at first that the church was somewhat expensive, though it could not be built for twice that sum today. But labor was high, though not so high as it is today, and the cost of bringing the brick and stone around the Horn or across the Pacific was very heavy. The lumber cost three hundred and twenty-five dollars a thousand feet. The windows were imported from Europe and donated to the church by rich members of the congregation. When the Archbishop located the Cathedral he and his immediate clergy moved to a house on Pine street; but after the church was completed they transferred their residence to the house adjoining the Cathedral, which was erected for their use.
“On June 16, 1855, the bell, which had arrived by ship a few days before, was blessed and hung in its place, and its sound could be heard all over the little city, a fact which on June 21st led to the appearance of the following complaining letter in the columns of the Alta-California: ‘There is scarcely anything more poetical than the call of a village bell on a Sunday morning and . . . at a distance. But can there be anything more provoking than to be daily aroused from your slumber by the sounds of a huge bell and at your ears? The latter is the fate of more than one thousand poor mortals who live at the intersection of California and Dupont streets caused by the deafening sound of the Catholic Church bell. Those who want their sins washed off by these daily ablutions may as well be roused by their own consciences, without annoying the whole neighborhood. Anyhow we consider that a provision in the Sunday law prohibiting this early tinkling on week days should much more meet the term of noise, etc., than the performance of a fine opera of which the sounds are confined to the walls of a theatre. Many Sufferers.’
“To the tirade the editor of the Alta-California replied as follows: ‘Some slug-a-bed has chosen us to be the medium of a dolorous complaint against the matin-bell (sweet matin bells) of St. Mary’s Cathedral for waking him too early o’mornings, i’faith. He does not object to a village bell of a Sunday— at a distance. He likes a bell indifferent well, forsooth, an’it be rung in other folks ears. It makes him melancholic— that solemn sound breaking the silence of his slumbers, and frightening away his frolic dreams:
The convent bells are ringing
But mournfully and slow,
In the gray square turret swinging
With a deep sound to and fro—
Heavily to the heart they go.
We are not of the more than one thousand poor mortals who live at the intersection of California and Dupont streets whose peaceful slumbers are matinally disturbed by the deafening sound of the Catholic Church bell, consequently we are unable to say how troublesome this tinkling may be. If it be so serious and annoying as our correspondent claims, why do not the thousand poor mortals present it as a nuisance? For the life of us, however, we cannot conceive how a fine sonorous bell like that of St. Mary’s can be styled a nuisance. Would our correspondent prevent the Carillon of Bruges or the chimes of Christ Church.’
“While the bell controversy was still on, there arrived in the port ‘a fine organ with a double row of keys’ which came from New York by a clipper ship around the Horn. ‘It is a second-hand instrument, but will compare with any in town for tone and power.’ It was quickly erected when it was put ashore, and ‘a choir of eight fine singers—whose names, however, are not preserved —was engaged by the Archbishop to sing at the services of the church.’
“Previously, on Christmas eve, before the dedication of the church, there had been a sale of choice pews. The bidding, which was for a yearly rental, was brisk, and some of them went as high as one hundred and seventy-five dollars, though as a rule the prices ranged from eighty dollars to one hundred dollars a year.
“Going to church in those early days was not easy of accomplishment, and those who went to Mass at Mission Dolores or St. Patrick’s often had a lively experience, especially at the former. A Mrs. Casey, for instance, was tossed by a bull as she went to Mass and was badly injured.
“On February 7, 1857, Reverend John Reardon, pastor of the church at Placerville, died in the hospital of the Sisters of Mercy of consumption, and was buried in the crypt of the Cathedral,—one of the three burials that took place in the church. The others were Mrs. Catherine Sullivan, wife of the donor of the land on which the Cathedral stood, and Ana Maria Elena, the daughter of Alfred Robinson, a native of Massachusetts, who came to this coast representing Bryant & Sturgis, and afterwards the Pacific Mail. He was baptized Jose Maria Alfredo, and married Anita, the daughter of Captain Jose de la Guerra y Noriega. He wrote ‘Life in California,’ which is still a standard work on early California. He was the last of the pioneers, and did not die until the close of the last century. He had eight children.
“Old St. Mary’s continued to serve as the Cathedral of the Archdiocese until, in the early nineties, Archbishop Riordan erected the present Cathedral on Van Ness avenue. Though outside of the city, almost, in 1855, Old St. Mary’s was ‘way down town,’ forty years later, and the population which resided north of it in the ‘fifties had gone miles to the west and south, and had so completely changed that most of its parish had come to be known as ‘Chinatown.’
When the new Cathedral was opened and Old St. Mary’s ceased to be the center of San Francisco’s Catholic life, it was not only located in the center of the territory occupied by the Chinese colony, but its immediate neighborhood had become one of the most disreputable sections of the growing city.
“For three years the church was in charge of diocesan priests, and then the Paulist Fathers were offered the parish and accepted it. Notwithstanding the fact that its surroundings were so unfavorable, Old St. Mary’s never lost its popularity, and though it is estimated that not over five per cent of its congregations reside in the parish, yet it is always crowded, and a few years ago it was considerably enlarged, while a second enlargement was completed in 1929.
“When the Paulist Fathers took charge of the church and parish they at once set themselves to getting rid of the immoral surroundings, and St. Mary’s Park opposite the church is the evidence of their success, for that space was once among the vilest sections of the city.
“Later, they took up the work of educating the Chinese, and there, too, their work has been generously supported by their lay friends and great good accomplished for the Christianizing of the Oriental population. A fine school, conducted and taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph, was erected at Clay and Stockton streets through the generosity of Mrs. Bertha Welch, with the result that the Catholic Chinese population now numbers several hundreds.
“The earthquake came, followed by the fire, and the latter left nothing but the walls and tower. Father Wyman was the Superior at that time, and he at once started with Welsh and Carey as architects, to restore the church, with the result that it was one of the first Catholic churches in the city to be completely reconstructed. The rebuilt Old St. Mary’s was a duplication of the first church, and so the old-time congregation felt at home within its walls, as they showed by coming, in many individual cases, many miles on Sundays to crowd its services. On church holidays which are not civil holidays also—as, for instance, the Ascension, Assumption, All Saints, and the Immaculate Conception—the church is filled to overflowing at several Masses, although its present capacity is about two thousand.
“In line with their usual practice of keeping up to date, the Paulist have been broadcasting their High Mass services and sermons on Sundays. The evening services on Sundays, when a series of explanatory sermons on Catholic doctrine are preached, not only by the Paulists but by invited preachers, are also broadcast, and likewise the seven sermons of the Three Hours on Good Friday.
“It is a notable fact that on three occasions the senate of California has turned to Old St. Mary’s for a chaplain. As early as January, 1857, Reverend Joseph A. Gallagher, assistant pastor at the Cathedral, was elected chaplain of the senate without his knowledge. He declined the appointment, however, alleging as his excuse pressure of parochial duties. In his letter to the senate, declining the honor, he wrote: ‘I avail myself of this occasion to assure your honorable body that I shall not fail in my daily ministrations to invoke the Holy Spirit of Wisdom on your councils that the ends of good government may be subserved, the rights and liberties of the people maintained and the resources of our young state thoroughly developed.’
“Later Father Wyman, on the nomination of Senator Wolfe, a member of the Jewish faith, was chosen chaplain, and performed his duties so well that he could have been reelected at the following session had he chosen to accept the position. Father Wyman’s daily prayer at the opening of the session was a part of ‘Prayer for the Church and the Civil Authorties’ composed by Archbishop Carroll of Baltimore at the time of the separation of this country from England. Father Wyman began at the paragraph which commences, ‘We pray for his Excellency,’ etc.; this he followed with the Lord’s Prayer. He refused emphatically to pray for the passage of any particular pending measure or to introduce politics in any way in his invocations. That refusal led to a rather amusing incident. The constitutional amendment providing for the suffrage of women was one of the pending bills. On the day that the bill was to come up in the senate, the wife of one of the senators who was very enthusiastic over the measure, approached a newspaper correspondent who was intimate with Father Wyman, and asked him to request Father Wyman to exchange for that morning with the Protestant chaplain of the assembly, who always offered political prayers and who was perfectly willing to pray for the pending suffrage bill. The lady said that she made the request because Father Wyman smiled when the request was made to him, but readily acquiesced and exchanged with his clerical brother, offering his usual prayer in the assembly. The amendment passed the senate by a big majority, whether through the prayers of the assembly chaplain or not is a matter of opinion.
“Reverend Father Stark was later chosen chaplain of the senate. He followed the example of Father Wyman exactly in the matter of the prayers he offered daily.
“The Paulist Fathers were given charge of Old St. Mary’s in 1894. Their first Superior was Reverend Edward Brady, but he lived only six months after his appointment, and was succeeded by Father Henry H. Wyman, who continued at the head of affairs until 1901. Father Michael P. Smith was Superior from 1901 to 1904, when Father Wyman again took office and held it until 1910. He was succeeded by Father Thomas J. Cullen, who is still attached to the church. Father Cullen was Superior from 1910 to 1917, when his place was taken by Father Michael P. Smith, who continued in charge until 1919. Father William J. Cartwright was the Superior from 1919 to 1922, when Father Edward T. Mallon became Superior until 1928, going out of office just at the time of his death. Father Thomas P. Burke is the present Superior. Besides Father Brady and Fateher Mallon, Father Smith and Father Wyman are among the dead.
“The thirty-seven years that Old St. Mary’s Church has been in charge of the Paulists have covered a very strenuous period, and, true to their record elsewhere, they have been busy developing and improving during their entire regime.
“The fight to drive vice away from their front door was a long and strenuous battle; the establishment of the Chinese school and the care of the Chinese converts was a big proposition; but as in the case of St. Mary’s Park, which has replaced the vice-ridden section of California street, the results achieved have fully rewarded the efforts put forth.
“The earthquake did not damage the church to any great extent, but the subsequent fire left it only a mass of ruins with nothing but the outer walls standing. Father Wyman was the pastor and Superior at the time, and he was urged to abandon the site and to rebuild elsewhere. Fortunately he took sounder advice, and when the architects found the walls still substantial and that it would cost more to pull them down than to utilize them in building up, he hesitated no longer, and not only rebuilt the church, but rebuilt it exactly on the model of the original building, so that the congregations, as has been said, felt themselves thoroughly at home there. Old St. Mary’s was the first Catholic Church rebuilt and open for service in San Francisco after the earthquake and fire.
“Not only did the former congregation return, but many hundreds came with them, and especially on holy days the congregation overflowed onto the sidewalk, so Father Mallon engaged in an extensive plan or enlargement which added greatly to the capacity of the building. He also purchased the building to the rear of the church on Grant avenue, which his successor, the present Superior (Father Burke) had incorporated into not only the church proper, but into an extensive plant which includes a large hall, library, and other rooms, so that the Father’s work can be greatly extended.
“One of the most attractive features of Old St. Mary’s is the music rendered under the leadership of Miss Marie Giorgianni, organist and choir-director.
“Besides these material betterments, the Paulist have maintained ‘a bread line,’ and nightly a long line of the needy may be seen gathered on California street, waiting for tickets which entitle them to meals and lodging. Outside of the city, the Paulists have had charge of Newman Hall, in connection with the State University at Berkeley, and have given numerous missions all over the coast, with the happiest results. They have received in the Church many converts, including a number of prominent citizens and well known Californians, and have thus been able with God’s help to contribute not a little to the advancement and progress of religion and good citizenship in the community.”
Recent improvements have been described by Edward A. Eames as follows: “Work in connection with the recent improvements was started on January 15, 1929, in the basement of the church, as the newly acquired property to the north on Grant avenue was not to be vacated until March 15th. The work in the church basement consisted in removing the center row of steel columns, together with the steel beams spanning thirty-nine feet supporting the main floor of the church, removing old windows, increasing the glass area, placing of steel sash, plastering the walls and ceilings and soundproofing the ceiling. The entire antiquated wiring system was removed and a modern one installed to give adequate light both to the auditorium and the stage. The lightning is semi-indirect to avoid all eye-strain. The special chairs provided make for the comfort of the audience. It is hoped that a dramatic society will be formed to take advantage of this, perhaps finest parish hall in the city.
“The wrecking of the five-story building to the north and the taking down of the old north wall of the church, which was eighty-eight feet high, equal to an eight-story building, the removal of a portion of the roof, together with its steel trusses and columns, and of the plaster ceiling, all without interruption of service, are worthy of mention.
“Old St. Mary’s Church was one hundred and twenty-seven feet long and sixty-eight feet wide, with rows of columns supporting balconies along each wall. The total seating capacity was thirteen hundred and fifty. It is now cruciform in plan, with a length of one hundred and fifty-three feet, with a width the same as formerly in the major part of the church, while the transepts are forty-seven feet wide and one hundred and fifteen feet long. A part of the increased length has been used for the sanctuary, which before had always been too shallow for the proper conduct of special ceremonies. The remaining portion has been devoted to additional pews on the center aisle. These, with the pews in Our Blessed Mother’s Chapel, St. Joseph’s Chapel, and the galleries over each, bring the number of sittings to twenty-one hundred, a net increase of seven hundred and fifty. In addition to these fixed pews, there is ample space in front of the side altar and sanctuary rail for two hundred and fifty movable chairs.
“The main features of the church were maintained. The various mouldings, column capitals, ribs, and balcony front are similar. The cruciform plan dictated the ceiling layout, and in turn called for the large art-glass window on Grant avenue which, during the afternoon, permits the sun’s rays to shine upon the high altar, bringing out some of its rare beauty. Directly under the sanctuary, on a level with Grant avenue, is the Paulist Library of the Catholic Truth Society. This room is twenty-five feet wide and one hundred and twelve feet long, with book shelving, tables, chairs, etc. The walls and ceiling have a special colored textured cement; the floor is covered with variegated tiled linoleum; and lighting is provided by means of the latest scientific fixtures best adapted to reading purposes.
“In the course of the work, it was necessary to move the main altar to its new position and raise it to a new level. This work had to be done with mathematical exactness to prevent any cracks appearing, and when one realizes that the marble had to be taken off its concrete and steel foundation, moved to a new concrete and steel base, and that this was done with no damage of any kind, the feat does credit to the man handling this operation. It was thought necessary to make several small changes in the marble work, and this was done while the altar was being moved.
“All these changes to the high altar were made at night and during the week to permit of the altar being used every Sunday.
“The two side altars, that of the Blessed Mother and of St. Joseph, were entirely dismantled and erected piece by piece upon steel and concrete foundation already provided.
“The sacristy, now located on the main floor of the church, adjacent to St. Joseph’s Chapel, is a room twenty-four feet wide and thirty feet long, designed in the Gothic manner, with carved wooden trusses and rafters, with the panels between the rafters filled with hand-painted emblems of early Church history. These emblems are worthy of serious study, as all are different and each conveys a distinct meaning. The Gothic traceried stone windows are filled with beautiful soft-toned art glass, also emblematic, and in memory of some of the earlier priests who served Old St. Mary’s so well. The vestment cases, all built in the wall, are of oak and lined with cedar for protection against moths. In a special niche provided on the north end will be found a carved oak statute of St. Paul the Apostle, patron of the Paulist Community.
“This sacristy is reserved for the priests, as the alter boys have a similar-sized room directly underneath fitted up with lockers, cases, etc., for their use.
“In addition to all these features, in the new building are several rooms, offices, lavatories, etc., devoted to various uses of the church.
“A complete ventilation plant was installed in the lower and attic space of the church, forcing fresh air in at the ceiling and exhausting at the floor, and giving a complete change of air every ten minutes.
“The auditorium also has a complete ventilating system providing for air-change and heating purposes.
“The art-glass windows are all in complete harmony with the earlier work, and were largely presented by individual donors in memory of their loved ones.”
The pastors of Old St. Mary’s have been as follows:
Rev. Hugh P. Gallagher.......................................................................1854-1861
Rev. James Croke................................................................................1861-1871
Rev. John J. Prendergast......................................................................1871-1891
Rev. John J. Sullivan............................................................................1891-1892
Rev. Thomas Larkin.............................................................................1892-1894
Rev. Edward Brady, C. S. P.................................................................1894-1895
Rev. Henry H. Wyman, C. S. P............................................................1895-1901
Rev. Michael P. Smith, C. S. P............................................................1901-1904
Rev. Henry H. Wyman, C. S. P............................................................1904-1910
Rev. Thomas J. Cullen, C. S. P.............................................................1910-1917
Rev. Michael P. Smith, C. S. P.............................................................1917-1919
Rev. William J. Cartwright, C. S. P......................................................1919-1922
Rev. Edward T. Mallon, C. S. P............................................................1922-1928
Rev. Thomas F. Burke, C. S. P.............................................................1929
The present staff of priests at Old St. Mary’s is as follows: Rev. Thomas F. Burke, C. S. P., (rector); Rev. Thomas J. Cullen, C. S. P.; Rev. Oliver A. Welsh, C. S. P.; Rev. James A. Linehan, C. S. P.; Rev. Peter J. Bergen, C. S. P.; Rev. Earl M. Jarrett, C. S. P. The missionaries are: Rev. Orison J. McMullen, C. S. P.; Rev. James P. Towey, C. S. P.; Rev. Hugh J. Connolly, C. S. P.; Rev. Wilfred G. Hurley.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, “History of San Francisco 3 Vols”, S.
J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1931. Vol. 2 Pages 137-154.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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