Background
John McElroy was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland.
John McElroy was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland.
As a barefooted boy, carrying his daily ration of turf, he obtained a scant education in a hedge-school.
Like many of his associates who were "on the run after the troubles, " McElroy found relief in emigration to America and took passage on a flax ship returning to Baltimore (1803). Within a year he was in business in the port of Georgetown, D. C. , but he soon experienced a religious call and joined the partially restored Society of Jesus as a lay brother (1806). At Georgetown College he served as a buyer and bookkeeper for a number of years until Father Grassi, who recognized his natural cleverness and fine qualities, urged him to study for the priesthood and assisted him by patient tutoring in preparation for his theological studies. It was as a seminarian that he witnessed from the college windows the wanton burning of Washington with all the pent-up hatred of an Irish rebel. Although tempted to enlist, he remained in the cloister and was finally ordained by Archbishop Leonard Neale (May 21, 1817) whom strangely enough he prepared for death within a month. For a few years he remained at the college and attended nearby stations in Maryland and Virginia, when on the petition of Roger B. Taney and others, he was stationed as pastor at Frederick, Md. (1822 - 46). In this capacity he built a church at Liberty (1828), a new church of St. John at Frederick, an orphanage under the Sisters of Charity (1824), and established the first local free school which attracted Protestant children to such an extent that the ministers became exercised. In 1829 he founded St. John's Literary Institute or College which at one time rivaled Georgetown. Despite the lack of a thorough education, Father McElroy was winning fame as a forceful preacher and a retreat-master who gave missions throughout Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In 1842 he was invited by Bishop Hughes to preach at the latter's diocesan synod, and he also conducted the first clerical retreat in the Boston diocese.
In 1846, probably at the suggestion of Hughes who was called upon by the government for chaplains for the Mexican War, McElroy and Anthony Rey were commissioned chaplains. McElroy served in Taylor's army with considerable success. He won the soldiers' favor and became a living argument to the Mexicans that the war was not being waged against their Catholic religion. After the war, McElroy was assigned to St. Mary's Church in north Boston by Bishop Fitzpatrick, who found its congregation factious. As the first Jesuit pastor in Boston, he virtually made St. Mary's a city church. In 1853 he bought the old jail lands for a college, but when the city council learned the purpose of the purchase it imposed impossible restrictions upon the property. After vexatious litigations, he purchased another site where the Church of the Immaculate Conception (1859) and Boston College (1860) were erected. As rector of the largest Catholic church he became an influential leader in Boston despite his age. A patron of the Sisters of Notre Dame, whom he introduced into the diocese (1849), he assisted them in their establishment at Lowell (1852), and in the foundation of an academy in Boston. In 1854 he gave the first retreat for the Hartford diocesan clergy. Archbishop Hughes called him to his death bed. At ordinations, episcopal consecrations, cornerstone ceremonies, and at anniversaries, he was a favorite preacher partly because of his almost legendary prestige, his favor with Irish-American bishops, his reputed refusal of three bishoprics, and, toward the end, as the world's oldest Jesuit both in point of years and of service in the Society. Sightless, he retired to Frederick, Md. , where he finally succumbed to death, the victim of an accident in which he had broken several ribs.
McElroy founded several schools, including St. John's Literary Institution, now Saint John's Catholic Preparatory School. McElroy was one of two unofficial Catholic chaplains during the Mexican War, the first time priests served the US military in any capacity. He served as its first President in 1863, the college accepted its first students in 1864, and McElroy returned to Frederick. His efforts were critical to educating Irish-Americans when Catholics were denied admission to many universities in the 1800s and early 1900s. Boston College's McElroy Commons Building and McElroy Hall at Boston College High School are named for him.
A gigantic fellow, wiry, and red faced, he spoke with the nasal twang of Ulster and committed treason with the Presbyterian United Irishmen.
