Miracle on High Street: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, N.J.

1. Newark’s Forgotten Riot

1 Newark’s Forgotten Riot The miracle on High Street actually began on William Street. On September 5, 1854, three thousand men, most of them wearing Prince Albert coats, round felt hats, and red sashes slung over their shoulders, paraded through the streets of Newark. Thirteen different lodges of the American Protestant Association, all marching behind their own banners and bands, wanted to make a show of force on behalf of the Know-Nothing Party before the November elections. Since 1850 the nativist political party had garnered swift support for its anti-Catholic and anti-foreigner platform. Nationwide the party now had over one million members and had put thousands in office, ranging from the grassroots level to the halls of Congress. That day, almost all the men carried swords and pistols. Marching four abreast, the ‘‘long and imposing’’ procession sang anti-Catholic ditties and shouted the party’s motto, ‘‘Americans must rule America.’’ They eventually stopped for lunch at Military Hall on Market Street, where they ate and drank for the next two hours.1 Just a few blocks away on William Street, Father Nicholas Balleis, a Benedictine missionary from Austria, dined with three other priests at his living quarters adjacent to St. Mary’s, a small wooden church built in 1842 to minister to the growing number of German Catholic immigrants in the neighborhood. Father Nicholas had read about the parade in the morning’s paper—the Newark Daily Advertiser noted, ‘‘Know-Nothingism is said to be spreading, not only in this city but in all the surrounding towns and villages’’—but he did not make much of it until he heard music playing outside. Scheduled to march through a nearby native Protestant neighborhood, the parade’s course was 8 | newark’s forgotten riot changed after lunch, partly because of the unseasonably hot day, and as a result it staggered up William Street at three o’clock in the afternoon . As the various lodges ascended the hill, they shouted and sang and fired their pistols into the air. By the time the Henry Clay Lodge reached the tiny church, a sizeable crowd of men, women, and children gathered to witness the spectacle. In particular, men working in the Halsey and Taylor leather works, and other nearby factories, rushed out to see the parade. Across the street, students watched the scene unfold through the school windows. One student recalled, ‘‘The Orangemen discharged their firearms and hurled stones and other missiles at the white Cross on the apex of the Church, but they could not get it down.’’ In the tense moments that followed, men hurled insults and threats, and some threw more stones. The riot was on!2 Nativist marchers, fueled by their hatred of Catholics and also by hours of drinking, quickly broke ranks and brawled with the onrushing Catholic workingmen. Some rioters sidestepped the melee, fought their way into the church, and ransacked St. Mary’s, leaving the altar overturned, a statue of the Virgin Mary decapitated, and the organ pipes twisted and destroyed. A frightened Father Nicholas hid under his bed. His assistant, Father Charles Geyerstanger, displayed more courage and forced his way through the raiding party to retrieve the Blessed Sacrament. He took it to a neighboring home and quickly returned to sound the alarm. Sensing imminent danger, Fathers Nicholas and Charles shed their cassocks, fled the rectory, and disappeared into a parishioner’s home. Moments later several men broke into the rectory looking for the departed clergymen but found only an old German housekeeper. Pointing revolvers at her head, they demanded to know where the priests went. She replied, ‘‘Shoot! I am only a poor woman!’’ She then took her broom and brandished it in defiance.3 Outside there were repeated calls to torch the church, but the combination of crowd resistance, the arrival of police, the work of marshals to reform the procession, and the warnings of Father Charles, who had returned to the scene, prevented it. As word spread of the riot, thousands came to watch the unfolding violence; others hid, including a nun and her charges at a nearby Catholic orphanage, fearing the wrath of the marauding mob. At St. Mary’s, Father Nicholas gave last rites to newark’s forgotten riot | 9 Father Nicholas Balleis was the first Benedictine in Newark, and while he ministered to the German Catholic community at St. Mary’s Church in...