The following are a few brief stories of the priests who performed the marriages of some Kane family members. We found their stories to be of great interest about their accomplishments and couldn’t help but wonder about the positive effects they had on their church parishioners and the positive effects their church parishioners had on these priests.
Rev. John F. Aiken S.J.
Rev. John F. Aiken S.J. performed the marriage ceremony of Daniel Kane and Catherine Hegarty on April 19, 1858 at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church located in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia. Daniel Kane and Catherine Hegarty were first married in a civil marriage ceremony on February 8, 1858 in Washington, District of Columbia.
Rev. John F. Aiken S.J. was born 1814 in Jonesboro, Washington County, Tennessee. In 1834, he enrolled in Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia, to study for the Presbyterian ministry. He became a Catholic in 1835 and joined the Jesuit order in 1837 and was ordained a priest in 1844 and was Tennessee’s first priest. He had the honor and pleasure of converting his parents, five sisters and two brothers to Catholicism and of baptizing his own aged father and mother. He served as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church of Alexandria, Virginia from 1846 to 1850, and pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church located in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia from 1850 to 1861. He died February 6, 1861 at Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia. He is buried in the Georgetown University Jesuit Cemetery located in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia.
Rev. Stephen A. Kelly S.J.
Rev. Stephen A. Kelly S.J. performed the marriage ceremony of Mary Elizabeth Kane and William Daniel A. Thorn on November 23, 1881 at Holy Trinity Catholic Church located in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia. Mary Elizabeth Kane was the daughter of Daniel Kane and Catherine Hegarty.
He was born December 26, 1833 in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland and emigrated to the United States in 1850 and entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) at Frederick, Maryland. He became a professor at Georgetown University and Gonzaga College in Washington, District of Columbia. He became assistant superior of woodstock College and was appointed President of Loyola College in Maryland and ex-officio pastor of St. Ignatius Church. He was appointed pastor/rector of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia from 1881 to 1890. He died February 13, 1910 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery on February 15, 1910.
Rt. Rev. Patrick James Donahue D.D.
Rt. Rev. Patrick James Donahue D.D. performed the marriage ceremony of Dennis Joseph Kane and Catherine Jane Roberts on May 3, 1888 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, more popularly known as the Baltimore Basilica, located in Baltimore, Maryland. Dennis Joseph Kane was the son of Daniel Kane and Catherine Hegarty. Catherine Jane Roberts Kane would remarry to Patrick Henry O’Callaghan after her husband, Dennis Joseph Kane died on February 24, 1909.
Rt. Rev. Patrick James Donahue D.D. was born April 15, 1849 in Little Malvern, Worcestershire, England. He died October 4, 1922 in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia. He is buried in Chapel-Bishops Crypts of Mount Calvary Cemetery, Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia.
The following is his obituary from the Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, Volume 21, 1922, p. 243:
BISHOP DONAHUE OF WHEELING
The Right Rev. Patrick James Donahue, for twenty-eight years Bishop of the Wheeling diocese and senior Bishop of the province of Baltimore, died on October 4, 1922 after a prolonged illness which for the past year made it practically impossible for him to attend to his episcopal duties.
Bishop Donahue was the third Bishop of the Wheeling diocese, which was established in 1850 and was consecrated April 8, 1894, by the late Cardinal Gibbons, his close personal friend, and a member of whose household he had been for many years.
The late prelate was born in Malvern, Worcestershire, England, on April 15, 1849, and after graduating from the University of London in 1869 came to the United States in 1871. He studied law at and was graduated from Columbian, now George Washington, University in 1876 and practiced law in Washington previous to engaging upon his theological studies. He was ordained Dec. 23, 1885, and was chancellor of the archdiocese of Baltimore from 1886 to 1891. In 1891 he was appointed rector of the Cathedral in Baltimore, which position he held until his appointment as Bishop of Wheeling.
Under the administration of Bishop Donahue, the number of clergy in the diocese has been tripled, many new missions have been established and a thriving system of Catholic education has been built up.
Prior to 1895 there was but one religious order of priests, the Capuchin Fathers, and three religious orders of women, the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Sisters of the Visitation and the Sisters of Divine Providence, in the Wheeling diocese. Today the Benedictines, Marists, the Congregation of St. Charles Borromeo, the Pious Society of Missions, the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Xaverian Brothers are listed among the religious communities of men established within its limits. The Dominicans, the Ursulines, the Carmelite nuns, the Sisters of the Pious Society of Missions and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge have been introduced into the diocese and are in charge of flourishing institutions, including the Home of the Good Shepherd for girls at Wheeling.
There are now five academies for young ladies and twenty-one parochial schools in the diocese, whose Catholic population is approximately 63,000.
At the request of Bishop Donahue, who felt himself handicapped because of his infirmities, the Right Rev. John J. Swint was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Wheeling early this year and was consecrated in St. Joseph’s Cathedral on May 11.
Traffic was suspended for two hours in the heart of Wheeling on October 10, and many business places were closed, during funeral services for the Right Rev. P. J. Donahue, Bishop of Wheeling.
Pontifical High Mass was celebrated at the Cathedral by Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore.
More than 10,000 persons, including thousands of school children, marched behind the hearse to Mount Calvary Cemetery, where the body was placed in a crypt.
Rev. Edward W. Raymond S.J.
Rev. Edward W. Raymond S.J. performed the marriage ceremony of Catherine Jane Roberts Kane and Patrick Henry O’Callaghan on September 13, 1911 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, more popularly known as the Baltimore Basilica, located in Baltimore, Maryland. This was the second marriage for both Catherine Jane Roberts Kane, whose husband, Dennis Joseph Kane had died on February 24, 1909 and Patrick Henry O’Callaghan, whose wife, Mary Elizabeth Armstrong had died on June 16, 1910.
Rev. Edward W. Raymond S.J. was born 1865 in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey. He entered the Jesuits for training on August 14, 1883 and was ordained a Jesuit priest on June 28, 1898. He died in New York City, New York on September 9, 1914. He was buried in Saint Andrew-on-Hudson Jesuit Cemetery located at Hyde Park, Dutchess County, New York.
Below is his obituary as listed in the Woodstock Letters, Volume XLIV, Number 3, 1 October 1915 — Page 385-386
OBITUARY
Father Edward W. Raymond. Father Edward W. Raymond died in St. Vincent’s Hospital, New York City, shortly before noon on Wednesday, September 9th, 1914. The funeral obsequies were held at St. Francis Xavier’s Chnrch, West Sixteenth street, on Friday morning. The local community and many of his religious brethren, associated with Father Raymond, during his years of training and ministry in the Society, together with several of the secular clergy, who had been his classmates in the early days at the college, assisted and recited the Divine Office. He was buried among his religious brethren in the community graveyard at the Novitiate of St. Andrew-on-Hudson, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., located almost directly opposite the old Manresa novitiate on the west shore of the Hudson, where, thirty-two years ago, on the 14th of August, 1883, Father Raymond began his training as a novice of the Society. He spent two years there. Shortly after August 15, 1885, the day on which he and his two confreres, still living and present at his funeral, pronounced their vows, the place was abandoned and the Novitiate transferred to Frederick, Md., and later to St. Andrew-on-Hudson. Father Raymond was born in Jersey City, forty-nine years ago, but when he was quite young the family moved to New York and located in the parish of St. Francis Xavier. He attended the college, assisted as an altar boy in the church and, possessing a remarkably fine soprano voice, was frequently called upon for college and church functions. When the chancel choir was first started, and indeed for several years after, when it was noted for the excellent rendition of the compositions of the masters in church music, he was the great soloist and was known throughout the city as the wonderful boy soprano. In connection with this fact a touching memory came back vividly on the day of the obsequies to one who at this sad time had good reason for such loving reminiscences. It was recalled that on the occasion of the opening of the great organ of the new St. Francis Xavier’s Church a platform had been erected near the space where the coffin rested, and from here it was that the one, robed in his priestly vestments and still in death, but then a youth of fourteen, sang with a voice that thrilled the vast audience the selection from the Messiah, “I Know that My Redeemer Liveth.”
Father Raymond, after two years of Novitiate at Manresa-on-Hudson, spent the next two years reviewing his classical studies at the Juniorate in Frederick, Md. Then followed his course in philosophy for three years at the House of Studies, Woodstock, Md. His time of regency was spent in several colleges of the Society. In 1895 h e returned to Woodstock for his theological training, and on the 28th of June, 1898, was ordained priest by His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons. The third year ot probation was passed at the Jesuit Novitiate, at Florissant, St. Louis, Mo. During the of his priesthood Father Raymond was engaged in the various duties of college and parochial work. He was stationed at the church of the Gesu from 1907 to 1909, where, as Moderator of the Young Ladies’ Sodality and instructor of converts, together with his other parish work, he accomplished great good. He was also visiting chaplain to the Catholic patients at the German Hospital, and it was here that his kindliness of manner in dealing with the sick and his courteous manner to the non-Catholic officials made a very favorable impression. The last three years of his life were spent as chaplain on Ward’s Island, New York, a State institution for the afflicted insane. Some three months before his death, owing to ill health, he was obliged to give up the work and retire to the hospital, where he died. Of a sweet and amiable disposition, with a refinement of manner and quiet tastes, Father Raymond won the good will and admiration of those with whom he came in contact, but, as he was naturally shy and retiring, his work in the Lord’s vineyard was unostentatious, r. i. p.
Rev. John Thomas Coolahan
Rev. John Thomas Coolahan performed the marriage of William Aloysius Kane and Louise Gertrude O’Callaghan on July 18, 1915 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, located in Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland. William Aloysius Kane was the son of Dennis Joseph Kane and Catherine Jane Roberts. Louise Gertrude O’Callaghan was the daughter of Patrick Henry O’Callaghan and Mary Elizabeth Armstrong.
Rev. John Thomas Coolahan was born February 10, 1877 in Baltimore, Maryland. He served as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church at Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland from June 1912 to June 1929. He died May 21, 1932 in Baltimore, Maryland. He is buried in Saint John’s Cemetery located at Frederick, Frederick County, Maryland.
Below is his obituary from The Evening Star newspaper, Washington DC, edition of Monday, May 23, 1932, page A-4, column 8;
EX-ROCKVILLE PRIEST DIES AT BALTIMORE
Rev. John T. Coolahan Pastor of St. Mary’s Church for 17 Years.
Special Dispatch to The Star.
ROCKVILLE, Md., May 23. – Rev. John T. Coolahan, 55, for 17 years and until 3 years ago, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church here, and St. Peter’s Church, Olney, died Saturday afternoon in Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, where he had been a patient for about a year.
The Funeral will take place at 10:30 o’clock tomorrow morning from St. John’s Catholic Church, Frederick, of which he had been pastor since leaving Rockville. In St. Mary’s Church here at 7 o’clock tomorrow morning, the pastor, Rev. Charles R. O’Hara, will celebrate requiem mass for Father Coolahan.
Father Coolahan was a native of Baltimore.