by Paul Horgan
Lamy of Santa Fe
by Paul Horgan
NOVELS
The Fault of Angels • The Habit of Empire • No Quarter Given
The Common Heart • Main Line West • Give Me Possession
A Lamp on the Plains • Memories of the Future • A Distant Trumpet
Far from Cibola • Whitewater
Mountain Standard Time
(containing Main Line West, Far from Cibola, and The Common Heart)
Mexico Bay
THE RICHARD TRILOGY
Things As They Are • Everything to Live For • The Thin Mountain Air
OTHER FICTION
The Return of the Weed • The Saintmaker’s Christmas Eve
Figures in a Landscape • Humble Powers • The Devil in the Desert
Toby and the Nighttime (juvenile)
One Red Rose for Christmas
The Peach Stone: Stories from Four Decades
HISTORY AND OTHER NON-FICTION
Men of Arms (juvenile) • From the Royal City
New Mexico’s Own Chronicle (with Maurice Garland Fulton)
Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History
The Centuries of Santa Fe • Rome Eternal • Citizen of New Salem
Conquistadors in North American History
Peter Hurd: A Portrait Sketch from Life • Songs After Lincoln
The Heroic Triad: Essays in the Social Energies of
Three Southwestern Cultures • Maurice Baring Restored
Encounters with Stravinsky: A Personal Record • Approaches to Writing
Lamy of Santa Fe: His Life and Times
Josiah Gregg and His Vision of the Early West
COLLECTIVE VOLUME
Of America East & West
Selections From the Writings of
Paul Horgan
LAMY
OF
SANTA FE
Paul Horgan
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
Copyright © 1975 by Paul Horgan
All rights reserved
Published by arrangement with
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC
First Wesleyan University Press edition 2003
ISBN-13: 978-0–8195–6532–7
Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Horgan, Paul, 1903–
Lamy of Santa Fe, his life and times / Paul Horgan.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1975.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–8195–6532–6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Lamy, John Baptist, 1814–1888. 2.
Catholic Church—New Mexico—Bishops—Biography. I. Title.
BX4705.L265 H67 2003
282'.092—dc21
[B] 2002033055
In Homage and Affection
to
Henry Allen Moe
and
to
the memory of
Harriet Christy,
a promise fulfilled
Contents
I. FRANCE • 1814–1839
i.
The Fugitives
ii.
Caesar and Vercingetorix
iii.
Romanesque Heritage
iv.
Auvergnats
v.
The Home Village
vi.
The Two Friends
vii.
To Go
viii.
America
II. THE MIDDLE WEST • 1839–1850
i.
Cincinnati
ii.
To the Forests
iii.
The Pattern
iv.
Those Waiting
v.
Self-Searchings
vi.
The Materials
vii.
Private Concerns
viii.
Machebeuf’s Intrigue
ix.
The War
x.
To Covington
xi.
Lamy to France
xii.
After the 1846 War
xiii.
A Bishop for New Mexico
xiv.
These Two Vicars
III. TO SANTA FE • 1850–1851
i.
New Orleans
ii.
S.S. Palmetto
iii.
Interlude at Galveston
iv.
The Wreck at Indianola
v.
San Antonio
vi.
To the Rio Grande
vii.
Triumphal Entry
IV. THE DESERT DIOCESE • 1851–1852
i.
Defiance
ii.
The Society
iii.
The First Needs
iv.
The Durango Journey
v.
Confrontation in Durango
vi.
Disciplines
vii.
The Plains Eastward
viii.
Westward Prairies
V. THE ANTAGONISTS • 1852–1856
i.
The Pastoral Letter
ii.
Rebellion
iii.
Diocesan See
iv.
Trouble at Albuquerque
v.
Disputed Boundaries
vi.
The Old Dean
VI. SCANDAL AT TAOS • 1852–1861
i.
Martínez Rampant
ii.
The Advocate at Rome
iii.
Martínez, Gallegos, Politics
iv.
Machebeuf and Company Returning
v.
The Excommunications
vi.
Schism
VII. THE COLONISTS • 1858–1863
i.
Niceties of Geography
ii.
The Poisoned Chalice
iii.
Quest in Sonora
iv.
Again to Auvergne
v.
Quarrel with Durango
vi.
“Pike’s Peak,”
vii.
Marie, the Convent, the Country
viii.
The Civil War and Santa Fe
ix.
Emergencies—Denver and Return
VIII. THE PAINTED LAND • 1863–1867
i.
Across Arizona
ii.
Hospital and Schools
iii.
Christmas Eve: Attempted Murder
IX. ROME AND BATTLE • 1867
i.
Rome—An Accounting
ii.
Madame Bontesheim and Bureaucracy
iii.
Homeward
iv.
Prairie News
v.
The Battle of the Arkansas Crossing
X. INCREASE • 1868–1874
i.
A Quiet Conscience,
ii.
Two New Bishops
iii.
Vatican Council
iv.
Follies and Dangers
v.
For the Pueblos
vi.
Hard Times
XI ARCHBISHOP • 1875–1880
i.
The Archbishop
ii.
Jubilation
iii.
>
A Mile a Day
iv.
Styles
v.
Atmospheres
XII. GARDENER AND APOSTLE • 1880–1885
i.
Relief
ii.
The Gardener
iii.
The Apostle
XIII. DAY’S END AT SANTA FE • 1884–1889
i.
Changeover
ii.
The Old Men
iii.
Day’s End
iv.
Two Summertimes
Sources Consulted
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index
Illustrations
map spread across
Travels of Lamy and Machebeuf in America 1839–1884
following page 140
SANTA FE LIFE IN THE LAMY EPOCH
The old adobe parish church and first cathedral of Santa Fe
[Museum of New Mexico]
A soldier’s sketch of Santa Fe, c. 1846–1850
[Museum of New Mexico]
Caravan waggons of the Santa Fe Trail in the plaza
[Museum of New Mexico]
The pastoral look of life in Santa Fe
[Museum of New Mexico]
The Plaza of La Mesilla, c. 1860s
[Museum of New Mexico]
The Plaza of Santa Fe, c. 1870s
[Museum of New Mexico]
The carved eighteenth-century stone reredos of Santa Fe
[Museum of New Mexico]
The chapel of Our Lady of Light
[Museum of New Mexico]
Lamy’s country retreat, Villa Pintoresca—exterior
[Loretto Motherhouse Archives, Kentucky]
Villa Pintoresca—the chapel
[Loretto Motherhouse Archives, Kentucky]
The stone cathedral of St Francis under construction
[Museum of New Mexico]
The completed cathedral as it stands today
[Museum of New Mexico]
following page 280
PORTRAITS OF LAMY AND OTHERS
The young Bishop Lamy of Santa Fe
[Loretto Motherhouse Archives, Kentucky]
Marie Lamy
[Loretto Motherhouse Archives, Kentucky]
Mother M. Francesca Lamy
[from “Light in Yucca Land,” Barbour and Jaeger, Santa Fe, 1952]
Colonel Kit Carson
[Museum of New Mexico]
Bishop Joseph Priest Machebeuf of Denver
[Colorado State Historical Society]
The aged and ailing Archbishop Lamy
[Loretto Motherhouse Archives, Kentucky]
Archbishop Lamy lying in state
[Courtesy of John Gaw Meem]
Lamy’s statue in Santa Fe
[Photo by David Young]
Note: Many of these photographs came from Miss Isabel Echols, who received custody of them from the estate of E. Dana Johnson, the distinguished editor of The Santa Fe New Mexican.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini
I
FRANCE
1814–1839
NOTE
Letters by Lamy have been transcribed here without alteration in any way. He always expressed himself plainly, and often eloquently; but his English, except when polished for public use, did not always conform to common usages of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. However, his mild aberrations in a language not native to him seem to bring his presence more immediately before us; and out of respect for this advantage, I have felt justified in letting them stand.
P. H.
i.
The Fugitives
DURING THE HOURS BEFORE SUNRISE on 21 May 1839, Jean Baptiste Lamy, accompanied by his closest friend and former school-mate Joseph Priest Machebeuf, made his way on foot through the silent streets of the old Roman town of Riom, in the Massif Central of France. With his companion he was walking toward the Paris highway, crossing the northern arc of the great drive which circled the city after the manner of roads laid upon buried Roman fortifications. Within the town were small dark enclaves of medieval stone—gray, damp, impregnated with rank airs from the barnyards on the green hillsides all about. Beyond in the dimness sat the low, small-timbered mountains of Auvergne.
Lamy was not well. He had recently risen from a sickbed to join his friend in Riom, but his determination was calm. The better not to be noticed, he was dressed as a layman, and so was Machebeuf. In their usual dress, since they were both priests, they would be marked that night if anyone should see them. Lamy, the younger, was twenty-five years old and had been ordained only six months before. Machebeuf, twenty-seven, had received final holy orders two years and five months earlier. Their states of mind and emotion were high. With baggage for a journey of thousands of miles, they were going to the open highway in the pre-dawn twilight to await the fast coach from Lyon to Paris, and the first stage of an expedition.
In spite of their care, they were even at so early an hour seen and recognized by a former fellow student. He queried them. They now risked telling him of their plans, shaking hands in farewell. Their interceptor later reported their emotion as they parted—the unexpected friend perhaps on his way to early Mass, the other two walking to the outskirts, where there were houses to pass even after the new travellers should be safely aboard the coach.
They were fugitives from home who understood that if their plans were known, one of them might have to face obstacles which would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to overcome. As in every joint exploit, one was the mover, the other the recruit. In this case it was Machebeuf, small and impulsive, who had laid the long train of arrangements which brought them both to the coach stop, and whose consequences were to last their lifetimes. But it was the other, Lamy, taller, deliberate and mild, who was destined to become the leader in lifetime terms. What these were to be, they could not foresee except in the most general way, yet were compelling enough to make the young men take flight. For occasions of defeat or hazard, the patois of their homeland had a proverb which made people laugh in self-recognition when they heard it spoken—“Latsin pas!”—and behind it lived the spirit which moved the fugitives to set aside, for their own purposes, home and those they loved, for it meant, “Never give up.”
The coach came and bustled to a halt, they entered, and rolled on. There was one more peril—the road led directly past the house of Machebeuf’s father, who was Riom’s leading baker. Day was now breaking. Machebeuf had the impulse to halt for a moment to take leave; but higher obedience prevailed, and passing his father’s door he threw himself to the floor of the coach in the rue de la Charité to avoid even the chance of recognition. Lamy knew how he felt, for, though his parents were aware of his plans to go, he himself had come away without saying an outright farewell to them when he had seen them the day before in their village of Lempdes, to the south, below Clermont. Now he tapped Machebeuf on the shoulder to sustain his resolve. Soon it was safe to come up off the floor of the diligence and face toward Paris—a drive of over two hundred miles—and the future.
Within them rested a rich cumulation of history, tradition, belief, inherited ways, which had made them what they were; and despite the shocks of change they would meet in a new world, they took with them out of the past all to empower them for the life ahead.
ii.
Caesar and Vercingetorix
AUVERGNE—the people today bound it as “tout le Massif Central”—is a great plain raised above surrounding France. It reaches south toward the borderland of the ancient Languedoc region, and in its place names, pronunciations, and patronymics, continues to echo the hard, clicking style of Languedoc speech, as against the more elegant and fluid idiom of the old Langue d’Oïl of Paris and the northern provinces. Great hill systems, with woods, ravines, glens, wide meadows, keep a bucolic aspect, all set off by ranges of distant wooded mountains whose dominant peak is the noble cone of the extinct volcano Puy-de-Dôme, after
which the political district is called.
Under so much open sky, settlements remain sparse and far apart. Their distance one from another seems matched in the people by a reserve perhaps imposed by a history of separation. To reach each other, as Caesar wrote, the early Gauls, when they had matters of note to communicate in that landscape, shouted over meadows and through districts, asking neighbors to continue the relay afar, across high green acres where voices could carry on long cries. Early Gallic settlements were rough stockades, in high ground for protection against raid and for periodic market gathering. Life came from the earth and even in spirit returned to it. Caesar saw the Gauls as the most “religious” of men. Rivers, woods, springs, and mountains, in their various mysteries of source and atmosphere, all had their gods. It would not be strange to see the isolated rise of the Puy-de-Dôme itself as a great altar, whether almost lost in summer haze or lighted by clear winter. To live, propitiate, propagate, and die, remote from the sophisticated Roman energies which stirred to the south toward the Mediterranean; to take the earth’s yield and defend the land when necessary—such tasks and impulses governed life in the ancient Averni of pre-Roman Gaul, and seemed eternal.
But in a half century before Christ the Roman drive across Europe under Caesar intruded its superb array into Auvergne. Independence was threatened. The Averni resisted, and found their leader in the son of their king. He was Vercingetorix, who, making a coherent force out of what Caesar dismissed as “rabble,” stalled the conqueror. The tribal prince reached to the spirit of his people, led them to heroic measures, such as burning their own rude stockade towns to deny the invader protection and stores, and defeated Caesar’s attempt to take Gergovia (Clermont) in 52 B.C. The defenders put the torch to more than twenty of their own towns in a single day in one district. Other states did much the same. “In every direction,” wrote Caesar, “fires were to be seen.”