Lamy of Santa Fe (68 page)

The adobe walls were plastered in stucco. Carved wooden cornices and window frames and porch details gave the building a strict charm; and now the chain of Lamy's buildings reached from Cathedral Place up College street and across Santa Fe Creek to the new St Michael's College. All of these loomed over the town. All served the imperatives of the now expanding society; and all finally made the next invasion of style—that of the eastern Americans with their red brick houses, their middle western Victorian commercial and domestic buildings—seem like a proper expression of the times: the territorial epoch which finally made Lamy's edifices less exotic, until the twentieth century's rediscovery and adaptive restoration of the original character of Santa Fe's first three centuries.

With the greater facilities of the new St Michael's College, Lamy began an experiment in the education of a small group of Indian youths from the Pueblos. The federal government, at public expense, was already sending young Indians to two Protestant Indian schools—one at Albuquerque, the other at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Lamy was concerned for the loss of their religious belief and habit by these students; and in 1878 he was able to persuade the government to guarantee one hundred dollars each to pay the expenses of twenty-two
students who would be enrolled in a special department of the college. It was a small beginning, but it was expected to increase as the learning of the Indian youths proved itself. One priest who examined the class was “astonished at their remarkable proficiency in reading and writing English and Spanish.' He was equally impressed by their progress in arithmetic, and he cited their otherwise commonplace gains because it was thought and said by many “that the Indian is sluggish and slow in learning, whereas the reverse is the case,” which could be proved by every mission school in the pueblos—but the priest-teacher could visit the pueblo classes only once a month.

Yet when the time came for the government to send its promised payment for the Indian scholars at Santa Fe, nothing was sent, and all efforts, including a memorial to Congress, failed to obtain the funds. The Commissioner for Indian Affairs at Washington—one Price—wrote that “he could not entertain the idea.” Lamy bitterly concluded that the whole government was as anti-Catholic as the President—U. S. Grant. Since neither the college nor the archdiocese could afford the needed twenty-two hundred dollars for the young Indians' annual expenses, much less look forward to an expansion of the program, the special Indian class was dropped after a year. The government schools, “under the special direction of Presbyterians and Methodists,” prospered and grew with public funds.

Lamy's other schools—those of the Lorettines, the Sisters of Charity, the Christian Brothers, the Jesuits, variously in Santa Fe, Taos, Los Alamos, Albuquerque, Socorro, and elsewhere—made their way steadily, responding to immigration from the East, and to good management.

At the Santa Fe Loretto convent there was a change of administration: Mother Magdalen Hayden, who had accepted the post of superior on the bank of the Missouri River in 1852, was obliged by rheumatic ill health to resign her post. She was succeeded by Marie Lamy, who became Mother Francesca. Now approaching full middle age, she had grown into a capable maturity, and her appointment was popular with her sisters. She and her uncle remained as close as ever in affection and temperament; and their sense of family was sustained by the nearness of Marie's surviving brother Jean and his wife, who lived in Santa Fe for some years. Mother Francesca, continuing the policies of her predecessor, was able to offer new courses of instruction added since those announced in earlier years, and now the making of young ladies (of whom “propriety of deportment, politeness, and personal neatness” were required), would include the arts of “Wax flowers, materials furnished, $20 per course”; “Artificial or Hair flowers, $10”; “Harp, $30”; “Guitar, instrument furnished by pupil,
$40.” Non-Catholic pupils “were not required to assist at the religious instruction given to the Catholics.”

The Sisters of Charity, led by the energetic Sister Blandina Segale, pressed forward with the building of an “industrial school” at Santa Fe, which was the last project erected under the supervision of young Projectus Mouly. It was opened in 1880 with a festival concert, with Mr Wedles at the piano, and a vocal solo by Mrs Dr Symington; but its career was inauspicious, and after a few years it was obliged to close down.

At the same time, a non-sectarian academy was flourishing. Founded in 1877, it was in its fourth year in 1881, with distinguished overseers including Bishop George K. Dunlop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Acting Governor Ritch, Chief Justice Prince, and members of the leading families of Spiegelberg and Catron. Strong new elements of the society were in their turn reaching for amenity as Lamy had done since the beginning of his work in the vast and disorderly diocese. With the coming of the railroads and new settlers, the Southwest was drawn more closely into the national character; and a diversity of styles in ways of expression was inevitable, and, under the idea of the federal republic, desirable. But the Great American Desert was slow to lose all of its Spanish colonial and western frontier nature.

v
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Atmospheres

V
ERY MUCH A CITIZEN
of his capital, Lamy—many spoke of him as the “first citizen”—was open to visitors, and was also frequently seen walking in the plaza or taking his way to errands. The town he saw was as lively as ever, but there was a sense of good government for New Mexico ever since the arrival of Lew Wallace to preside in the Governor's Palace in 1878. “It appears that the Territory has been afflicted, as most new Territories are, with a ring of rascals, who congregate about the seat of government and pluck the tax-payers in every possible way. Wallace has smashed this ring right and left, and has his pay in the gratitude of the people.”

The governor was seen as “above reproach, a man of strong principles, and a student of humanity.” He set about halting the Lincoln
County War in southeastern New Mexico, where rival factions were terrorizing the country, with William Bonney, a youthful murderer calling himself Billy the Kid, as the leading criminal. Wallace posted an award of five hundred dollars for his capture, and Bonney responded—so said Mrs Wallace—by declaring, “I mean to ride into the plaza at Santa Fe, hitch my horse in front of the palace, and put a bullet through Lew Wallace.” One of her friends warned her to “close the shutters at evening, so the bright light of the student's lamp might not make such a shining mark of the governor writing till late on
Ben Hur
.…” But instead, Bonney was brought to Santa Fe and jailed. Later he was returned to Lincoln for trial, escaped from the old courthouse after killing two guards, and was shot to death himself by Sheriff Pat Garrett in a dark room at Fort Sumner.

The peace was broken also in Arizona, where Salpointe was working to build a hospital. Not only Apaches, now, but “cow boys” were on the rampage in cow-stealing raids. Apaches also in southern New Mexico and Utes in Colorado were sowing terror again. Wallace asked Washington for authority to raise troops, but the War Department replied—in the face of his report of outrages—that it had “no information as to the nature of the outbreak or number of hostiles,” and permission was denied. Satisfactions must remain merely personal, then.
Ben Hur
had been published, the first edition of five thousand copies was instantly exhausted, and “the author smiles.” Lamy received an autographed copy from General Wallace, with whom he was on excellent terms.

Business was quickening, the city was expanding. Lamy “heartily” endorsed the growing manufacturing interests of Santa Fe. The Church owned considerable property by now, and that part which contained the cathedral, the hospital, and the orphanage, offered a logical site for the extension of the street running east from the plaza. A committee was planning to call upon him to grant the right of way for Palace avenue, and he was known to be willing. The street would run all the way to the eastern limits of the city, into the very foothills of the mountains. By the opening up of the new thoroughfare, the hospital would stand on the very edge of the street. Railroad promotion was also in the air, and one diarist ironically thought new spur lines would depopulate Las Vegas and Santa Fe, and he noted also “a large hotel scheme” for the ruins of Pecos. “Schemes,” he said, “and scheming, and nothing else.” In a later generation, a churchman, viewing the mission field of New Mexico, thought it good, but added that “the theology of the dollar was more in vogue there than that of Saint Thomas.…”

The energies of self-awareness were strong enough by 1883 for
Santa Fe to mount a Territorial Exposition commemorating the history of three and a third centuries of New Mexico, arbitrarily dating 1550 as the founding year—though at that time no white men were in the region. A wooden exhibition hall was erected, the rafters and walls were draped with patriotic bunting and an abundance of American flags, and boughs of pine were interlaced with rafters and joists. Exhibits traced the history of the area since the time of Cabeza de Vaca, and open booths set forth the products of the territory. Great pyramids of fruits, vegetables, preserves, and handiwork were laid on tables. Glass cases held examples of Indian crafts and historical objects, Indian blankets hung on the walls, and an occasional Indian in ceremonial dress stood among the black broadcloth figures of his conquerors. Minerals of all kinds were displayed, and merchandise, including knitted hammocks, sewing machines, office supplies, and, through placards inviting orders, Chickering pianos. Japanese lanterns hung from the beams and a fountain in a cement octagonal bowl played at the center of the hall. The whole was “a novel and interesting sight,” and it spoke of the progress for which the territory was reaching in civil and economic affairs.

Susan Wallace, of Indiana, thought Santa Fe, “though dirty and unkempt, swarming with hungry dogs,” yet had “the charm of foreign flavor, and, like San Antonio, retains some portion of the grace which long lingers about, if indeed it ever forsakes, the spot where Spain has held rule for centuries.” Citizens of a newer strain could have a “pleasant evening” at singing parties held in the evenings at the First National Bank, while deploring “ugly music” which issued forth from saloons. The Union Restaurant in lower San Francisco street advertised meals at all hours for thirty-five cents, and those who wanted to drink beer in the shade or roll ten pins could go to Miller's Summer Garden in South Santa Fe street, or meet their friends for spirited conversation of an evening at the brewery. “In the evening took oysters,” recorded the diarist, and all knew that Miller's received fresh oysters daily—Mallory's famous “Diamond” brand of Baltimore oysters. By day, one “saw Pueblo Indians on the streets, fine fellows, clad in white with hair tressed behind and hanging down on each side. Driving a herd of burros.” Burros were everywhere, most of them bringing bundles of piñon wood from the hills, many of them used for riding, and a troop of “Burro Cavalry” was maintained by the United States garrison.

In 1880 citizens watched as the “new gasometer and conduit” were being erected to bring gas for lighting to the central streets and the plaza, and a year later, the telephone reached Santa Fe. President Rutherford B. Hayes paid a visit to town, and Lamy was in the fore-front
of the reception mounted for him. Despite an outbreak of smallpox in epidemic proportions in 1883, when Lamy issued a pastoral letter directing priests to prevent public funerary display of those who died of the highly contagious disease, the vicar general of the archdiocese predicted that New Mexico would in time, when better known, become “the great sanitarium of the United States,” citing its “elevation, its dry atmosphere, its mineral and hot springs,” as cures for pulmonary diseases. If people died of such in New Mexico, it was, he said, because they had come there too late.

Marvels were known—a priest galloping near Pecos saw a curious quadruped; followed; captured it; found it to be a “wild girl”—a child—who had disappeared years before from her home. Her parents came and recognized their daughter Carmela. And matters for pity: in 1881, Lamy's old adversary, the ex-priest Gallegos, was brought to St Vincent's Hospital after suffering a stroke. He made signs asking for something. Many guesses were made as to what he wanted, to all of which he indicated “No!” until at last someone said “priest,” and he brightened, and Monsignor Eguillon, at the cathedral, was sent for, but arrived too late to see Gallegos alive and to bring him anything but prayers for the dead and—most likely—conditional absolution. Lamy, on another occasion, was “cast down with sadness” when his nephew and namesake, returning from a trip out of town, shot to death the French architect François Mallet, who had tried to offer unwelcome attentions to young Lamy's wife. The murderer was acquitted.

In another claim on Lamy's loyal sympathy, the archbishop's old friend and mentor, Purcell of Cincinnati, needed tactful help in deep trouble. During the financial panic of 1873, deposits of personal savings had been given into Purcell's care, and he in turn had given his brother custody of the monies, who in turn had trusted others. The finances of the archdiocese were in disorder; and finally Rome concluded that Purcell must be relieved of all financial management. To accomplish this as considerately as possible, the Propaganda Fide wrote to Lamy saying that the Pope had ordered the appointment of a coadjutor for Purcell to be made at once, with the right of succession; and Lamy was now given a delicate mission: “I ask that you, following your old custom, visit the Archbishop and relate this decision to him, and suggest that during the next provincial Synod a suitable person, especially well versed in temporal matters, be proposed [as coadjutor to Purcell]; and in this way the honor of the Church would be preserved, and by using discretion and the most considerate of means, the needed arrangement be achieved.…” The matter was resolved accordingly; but Purcell, in an extremity of
embarrassment, went into retirement at the convent of the Brown County Ursulines. To what active and well-loved older colleague could Lamy write thereafter of his problems, hopes, modest successes?