BY DANNY LEAVY

By the summer of 1863 the American Civil war had been dragging on for over two years. Like many conflicts nobody expected it to last this long let alone another two years. As the conflict wore on and, the casualties mounted, the Northern rush to enlist and put down the rebellion had slowed down. To solve this issue in March 1863 Congress passed the Enrollment Act, a conscription law, authorizing a national draft. Every able-bodied male citizen and immigrant between the ages of 20 and 45 was to be enrolled in the draft. Any districts that couldn’t fulfill their quota of recruits with volunteers the provost marshals were to implement the draft to make up the numbers. In July 1863 the army carried out the first of four drafts..

At the time many Irish and German Immigrants lived in ethnic areas of the city and worked for low wages. A large portion of the Irish in the city were famine immigrants. A staggering statistic of the 1860 census in New York shows a total population of around 800,000, of that number over 200,000 were Irish born. Thousands of African Americans also called New York home and found themselves targets of racism and discrimination. The poor and immigrants feared job competition from millions of freed slaves. Another factor was that whites in the North were not willing to fight for the freedom of slaves .

On July 11^th 1863 the army officers began the draft lottery in New York. The first day or two went smoothly but on July 13^th a mob began to form. Most union troops in and around the city had been sent to help stop the Confederate invasion that had resulted in the battle of Gettysburg two weeks earlier. What started as a protest soon became a full blown riot with violence and destruction of property city wide. Buildings were set on fire and the fire fighters and police men were attacked. Many African Americans were beaten and lynched.

Rev. Walter Quarter at the time was the rector of St. Lawrence church on 84th street and Park Avenue which was the northern part of the city at the time .New York City at this time only included the island of Manhattan and the growth of the City from its Dutch colonist trading post in 1624 had begun from it southernmost point moving north .

Rev. Quarter was born in Killurin County Offaly in 1804. He was the older brother of William Quarter who became the first Bishop of Chicago in 1843. He was ordained a priest on April 28^th 1833 by Bishop Dubois in old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street in New York City.

He was first sent to St. Johns Church in Utica NY and by 1836 he had completed the construction of a new church and had begun a girls school and orphan asylum. In 1839 he was assigned to St. Mary’s in New York City where his brother William was the pastor. He stayed in St. Mary’s until 1842 when Bishop John Hughes sent him to Hudson Valley, New Jersey to complete the construction of St. Peters new church.

In 1843 Chicago was made a bishopric whose territory covered the entire State of Illinois. Father William Quarter was made its first Bishop and was consecrated in old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on March 10th 1844. William took his Brother Walter with him and made him his Vicar General. Father Walter threw himself into the work at hand to ensure his brother and his Bishops success.

Churches, schools, a college, a seminary for training priests were all founded and brought to completion in the next four years by the two men from Killurin. When  Bishop William Quarter passed away unexpectedly on April 10^th 1848 Walter was appointed administrator until the consecration of Bishop Van De Velde. Walter stayed in Chicago as Vicar General until 1851 when he resigned. It’s interesting to note the clergy of Chicago at the time of the Bishops Death sent a petition to Rome through the hands of the Bishop of Baltimore requesting that Walter Quarter might be appointed to succeed his brother as Bishop of Chicago. The petition was not granted but it’s a measure of how highly he was regarded at the time. It was a possibility that Chicago’s first and second Bishop could have been the two brothers from Offaly.

He spent a year as an assistant at St. Brigid’s in New York and on October 20^th 1852 he was appointed to take over St. Lawrence parish in the upper part of New York City. The parish at this time were in the process of building a more permanent church from its original wood structure built two years earlier but lack of funds had stalled the progress. Father Quarter organized a building committee of twelve to canvas the parish for funds. He also reached out to his other Parish connections in New Jersey, Chicago and in the City. Rev. William Starrs from Tyrone, then with the Parish of St. Mary’s, gave him the large sum of six hundred dollars. Rev William Quinn from Donegal, with St. Peters in the City, gave him a present of the first pulpit used in the City. All the collections amounted to 1600 dollars at the time.

St. Mary’s Baptism book, 1839.

With the sum of money, he purchased two additional lots of land nearby and removed the old temporary wooden church. On June 8^th 1853 work on the structure began. On Christmas Day 1853 mass was celebrated in the new church although the interior was not yet finished.

He also founded the first school in the parish the same year with help from the Sisters of Charity from the nearby Mount St. Vincent convent and school, at the time  located inside what is now Central park .

On Sunday June 11^th, 1854, upon completion of the church Archbishop John Hughes and his Vicar General Rev. William Starrs   attended the dedication mass for St. Lawrence New Church. Father Quarters work continued for the next 9 years at St. Lawrence and included the construction of a Parish House and a Vestry. By the time the Civil War broke out in 1861 he had gained a huge amount of respect in the area amongst all faiths.

Most of the rioting began in the lower section of Manhattan although there was a large number of laborers working on the Central Park reservoir near St. Lawrence Parish. Father Quarter arranged a meeting of the Yorkville community and resolved to form themselves into a vigilance group to protect lives and property in the area. Soon after a large crowd had begun to demolish the home of Mr. Downing on 93^rd street when the Reverend arrived. He began to speak to the crowds to stop the madness. As soon as it was made known to the crowd that it was Father Quarter who was speaking, the rioting stopped and the crowd of around 300 listened to his words.

He was standing on a wagon amid a thunderstorm at the time. A reporter at the scene took note of his speech for the New York Herald on July 15^th 1863. He  began by saying ‘’He was like a father to them” and he desired that they “may be as obedient as his children” and that he was “always ready to stand by his flock in anything which was calculated to exhibit their willingness to obey the laws of theirs adopted country and readiness to uphold its constitution ”. He asked that “They refrain from damaging any property or causing any injury and they should wait for the decision of the corporate powers regarding the draft”.

During his speech, the crowd cheered him on. His words and actions most certainly saved lives and property damage although he could not stop all the rioting and damage in his area. The exact number of deaths during the draft riots is speculative but it is believed at least 100 died with 2000 injuries and over 50 buildings destroyed. The largest group involved in the riots were undoubtedly Irish and it was arguably the darkest period in the history of the Irish in America. Father Quarter was drenched from the night’s activity in the rain, and it is thought this was the beginning of a sickness that would end his life later in the year. His health began to fail, and his name does not appear in the baptism books after September 3^rd.

He died on December 15^th 1863 after a lengthy illness. At his burial mass Vicar General Rev. William Starrs pronounced his eulogy which brought tears from the crowd amassed inside and outside the Church. He was buried in a vault beneath the church and sadly this exact location seems to have been lost over time along with the building of the present day St. Ignatius Loyola church in its place in  1898 . The parish name changed to St. Ignatius Loyola when the new church was completed.

Rev. Walter Quarters life and career has been overshadowed by his brother William and his term as Chicago’s first Bishop. Rev .Walter  was known as the building priest. The facts are he participated in building at least four churches, four schools and four orphan asylums, as they were called at the time, across his four parishes in America namely, Utica New York, Hudson Valley New Jersey, Chicago, and New York City.

There are no plaques  or memorials to Rev. Quarter in the current school or church and as I mentioned earlier his burial location has been lost over time. I’m hoping to work with the parish for a plaque to this great man in the near future .

Rev. Walter Quarter (1804- 1863). The building Priest from Killurin.