Bookcase | Secretary | Desk

Manufacturer Mitchell and Rammelsberg

Date1860-1870

Geographic OriginCincinnati, Ohio

MediumRosewood, walnut

DimensionsOverall: H 133 x W 60 x D 22 in. (H 337.8 x W 152.4 x D 55.9 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Archdiocese of Newark, 1941

Object number41.32A,B

On View

Not on view

Object NameBookcase | Secretary | Desk

Marks and Labels/StampsStenciled black label on the back of the desk section doorProvenancePossibly owned by Bishop Bayley, the first Catholic Bishop of Newark. James Roosevelt Bayley D.D. (August 23, 1814 – October 3, 1877) was the first Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, and the eighth Archbishop of Baltimore. Mother Seton (now St. Elizabeth Ann Seton), foundress of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, was his half-sister. He was named after his maternal grandfather, James Roosevelt, a merchant of large fortune, who made him his heir, but altered the will when Bayley became a Catholic priest, under the mistaken idea that priests could not possess property. A large part of the money went to build the Roosevelt Hospital in New York. Bayley's early schools days were spent at Amherst College, where he once thought of going to sea and obtained a commission of midshipman in the navy. He abandoned the plan, however, and continuing his studies, entered Trinity College (Connecticut), to prepare for the Episcopalian ministry. He graduated here in 1835 and after receiving orders was appointed rector of St. Peter's church, Harlem, New York. He resigned this charge in 1841 and went to Rome, where on 28 April 1842, he was re-baptized and received into the Roman Catholic church in the room of St. Ignatius by Father Esmond, S.J. He then entered the seminary of St. Sulpice at Paris for his theological studies. Returning to New York, he was ordained priest by Bishop Hughes, 2 March 1844, and made a professor and the vice-president of the seminary at St. John's College. Exhibition HistoryIncluded in "Century of Revivals" in 1983 and illustrated in the catalogue

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