William Matthews (December 16, 1770 – April 30, 1854), occasionally spelled Mathews, was an American Catholic priest and college administrator. He was the fifth ordained in the United States and the first born in British America.
Born in the colonial Province of Maryland, he was briefly a novice in the Society of Jesus. After being ordained, he became influential in establishing Catholic parishes and schools in Washington, D.C. He was the second pastor of St. Patrick's Church, serving for most of his life. He served as the sixth president of Georgetown College, later known as Georgetown University. Matthews acted as president of the Washington Catholic Seminary, which became Gonzaga College High School, and oversaw the continuity of the school during suppression by the Church and amid financial insecurity.
Matthews was vicar apostolic and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Philadelphia during a period of ecclesiastical turmoil. He was a co-founder and president of the Washington Library Company for thirteen years—the first public library in the District of Columbia. He also was co-director and trustee of the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he was one of the superintendents of a school. He played a significant role in the founding of Washington Visitation Academy for girls, St. Peter's Church on Capitol Hill, and the parish that now includes the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. Matthews was involved in Catholic charitable organizations as well; he was the founder and president of St. Vincent's Female Orphan Asylum and the co-founder and president of St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum.
Matthews was from a prominent Maryland family and became a close adviser to Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore, the first Catholic bishop in the United States. He became well connected with the capital's political elite, and was chosen to preside over the first Catholic ceremony in the White House, and the only Catholic wedding in its history. He believed that because Catholics enjoyed the freedom to practice their religion in the United States under the Constitution, they had a duty to contribute to the "moral and physical good" of their communities. He staunchly opposed slavery. For his contributions to religious and civic life, Matthews was informally known as the "patriarch of Washington."
Early life
William Matthews was born on December 16, 1770, in the small village of Port Tobacco in Charles County in the Maryland Colony of British America to a prominent, established Maryland family.. He was the son of William Matthews, Sr. and Mary Neale. The youngest of seven children, his siblings were Joseph, Ignatius, Mary, Susanna, Margaret, and Ann Teresa. His father, with whom he had little interaction, died when he was six years old. William Matthews Sr.'s ancestry traces to the English landed gentry, and includes Thomas Matthews—an early settler of the Maryland colony who was granted of land in Port Tobacco, Maryland, by the Lords Calvert. His mother descended from Captain James Neale, who settled in the Maryland colony in the mid-seventeenth century. Matthews' matrilineal ancestry traces its origins to the noble O'Neills of Ireland.. His cousin, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was the sole Catholic signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
In 1781, aged eleven, Matthews witnessed British forces burn part of his family's estate during the American Revolutionary War.. From his parents, Matthews received a sizable inheritance that he drew from throughout his life for the advancement of the church. Two of his nephews on his mother's side became politicians: US Senator Richard T. Merrick and Judge William Matthews Merrick. Matthews became the brother-in-law of Senator William Duhurst Merrick..
Many of Matthews' matrilineal relatives entered the priesthood. Six of his mother's seven brothers became Jesuits, and one died during the Jesuit novitiate. His uncle, Bennett Neale, was one of the first Jesuits in the English colony. His other maternal uncles were: Francis Neale, who both preceded and succeeded him as president of Georgetown College; Leonard Neale, the Archbishop of Baltimore and also president of Georgetown; and Charles Neale, the superior of the Jesuits in America.
His paternal aunt, Ann Mathews, became a Discalced Carmelite nun in Hoogstraet, in what is now Belgium, taking the name Sister Bernardina Teresa Xavier of St. Joseph. Two of his sisters—Susanna (Sister Mary Eleanora) and Ann Teresa (Sister Mary Aloysia)—also went to Hoogstraet to become Carmelite nuns.. In 1790 Sister Bernardina returned to what was now the United States and established a Carmelite convent in the village of Port Tobacco, Maryland, where she had been given land for this purpose. Her nieces also returned to Maryland with her.
Education At the age of twelve Matthews was sent to Liège in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège (modern-day Belgium) to be educated at the College of St Omer, an English Jesuit school.. He studied classics as one of the last Americans to be sent to the English school at Liége..
He returned to America in his early twenties to briefly study theology at Georgetown College. While at Georgetown in 1796, he was chosen to be the first student to greet President George Washington upon his visit to the college.. He entered St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore in 1797.. While still a student there, Matthews frequently served as an instructor of English at Georgetown College because the professors and seminarians at St. Mary's were asked by Bishop John Carroll to assist with the teaching duties of the Jesuits at Georgetown.. The adult Matthews was described as "short, stocky, [and] dark-haired", with a prominent Aquiline nose..
Priesthood Returning to his alma mater, Matthews was appointed a professor of rhetoric at Georgetown in 1796, where his lectures were described as monotonous.. On December 23, 1798, he took his minor orders. He was strongly attracted to the Jesuits, likely influenced by his uncle Ignatius Matthews' membership in the society.. Matthews became a subdeacon on August 22, 1799, and was ordained as a deacon on March 26, 1800.. Matthews was ordained a priest at St. Peter's Church in Baltimore, on March 29, 1800, by Bishop John Carroll.. With his ordination, he became the fifth Catholic priest ordained in the United States and the first such person born in British America. Later, he served as a missionary in southern Maryland and occasionally as a teacher at Georgetown.
St. Patrick's Church Matthews became the second pastor of St. Patrick's Church, succeeding the Dominican priest Anthony Caffry.. St. Patrick's was the largest parish in the District of Columbia at the time. and the first Catholic church to be constructed in the City of Washington.. Matthews held the post from 1804 until his death. He self-financed the purchase of eight lots near St. Patrick's, believing the location would become the heart of the growing city. Three further Catholic parishes, three schools, and an orphanage were established on the land.. Matthews oversaw construction of a new, larger church in 1809 on the site of the original building.. The brick, Gothic Revival church was completed in 1816. This new St. Patrick's was consecrated by Archbishop John Carroll, and the mass was concelebrated by Leonard Neale.
During the War of 1812, British troops invaded Washington, D.C., in 1814. Matthews barricaded himself and others inside the sanctuary of St. Patrick's Church while most of the city's population fled. As the troops advanced to within two blocks of St. Patrick's, fire from surrounding buildings spread to the roof of the church. Matthews went to the roof to put out the fire,. then persuaded General Robert Ross not to destroy the church..
During his tenure as pastor, Matthews fostered an unusually large number of conversions to Catholicism. Among his parishioners were Chief Justice Roger Taney, Pierre L'Enfant, James Hoban, Mayor Robert Brent, and Mayor Thomas Carbery.. His parish produced a great many seminarians for the priesthood and novices to become nuns. He performed baptisms for a considerable number of black freedmen and slaves. He was said to have "detested slavery," and on at least one occasion, he purchased a mother and her child at a slave auction to grant them freedom. Matthews purchased a pipe organ for St. Patrick's from an Episcopal church in Dumfries, Virginia—likely the first organ in the District of Columbia. He acted as trusted adviser to Bishop John Carroll, whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction as Bishop of Baltimore and later as Archbishop of Baltimore, included the city of Washington and served as a liaison between the bishop and Catholic institutions and priests in Washington. Matthews was also involved in raising money for St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore by selling lottery tickets to parishioners.. From 1827 to 1830, Charles Constantine Pise was Matthews' assistant at St. Patrick's.. Another one of his assistants was Gabriel Richard.
St. Peter's Church
In 1820, Archbishop Carroll tasked Matthews with establishing the second Catholic parish in Washington: St. Peter's Church. While construction started on a church building, the project quickly ran out of money and went into debt. Matthews ensured that the project was completed. He decided a new site should be chosen and secured a donation of land on Capitol Hill by Daniel Carroll.. The church was eventually completed in 1821..
He opposed the control of St. Peter's Church properties by lay trustees, as the issue of trusteeism was still active in American Catholic Church. This opposition motivated his subsequent selection for an ecclesiastical mission in Philadelphia.
In 1821, the Propaganda Fide in Rome removed Norfolk, Virginia, from the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, placing it within the new Diocese of Richmond. This upset Matthews, who arranged for Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal of Baltimore to use the diplomatic pouch of the French ambassador to the United States to express his misgivings; the ambassador would deliver the archbishop's letters to French ministers to the Holy See, who would present the communications. This would have provided some weightiness to Maréchal's petitions, but it is unclear if he made use of this arrangement..
Recovery of Ann Mattingly One of Matthews' parishioners, Ann Mattingly, suffered from a tumor in her breast for at least six years. She was in poor health; several doctors and numerous other witnesses had attested to Mattingly's advanced and worsening illness and their inability to treat the disease with the medicine of the time. By 1824, her physicians and attending priests, including Matthews, expected her imminent death.. Matthews, along with Stephen Dubuisson and Anthony Kohlmann, turned to the German priest and reputed miracle worker Prince Hohenlohe who prescribed a novena for his cures to be effective; he also set aside the tenth day of each month for offering Mass for the sick outside Europe. Following nine days of public prayer at St. Patrick's parish,. on the night of March 9, 1824, Matthews visited Mattingly at 10 pm to hear her confession. The following morning, she received communion during a Mass said by Dubuisson at 4 am. It was then reported to Matthews that she was instantly restored to health and that large ulcers on her back vanished. Matthews immediately went to visit her; according to him, she was smiling and greeted him at the door. Mattingly's quick recovery was noted by several prominent Washington physicians, and by those attending to her in bed, as shocking.