Joseph Greaton

Background

Joseph Greaton was born on February 12, 1679, in London of a gentle family, whose safety in days of persecution lay in its obscurity.

Career

Greaton entered the Society of Jesus, July 8, 1708, and after the usual training, probably on the Continent, was professed and ordained, August 4, 1719, for the English and colonial missions.

About 1720, he departed secretly for Maryland. Here he resided on a Jesuit-owned manor in Anne Arundel County and quietly celebrated mass in private chapels and in homes, going as far as Conewago, Lancaster, Chester, and Philadelphia.

In 1729, he went to reside permanently in Philadelphia whose growth, due to a heavy German and Ulsterite immigration which contained some Catholics, he foresaw.

His residence on the northwest corner of Front and Walnut Streets proving too small for his twenty-two Irish and seventeen German communicants, Father Greaton purchased through John Dixon, a Catholic surgeon-barber, a lot on Walnut Street between Third and Fourth Streets.

Here was erected St. Joseph’s Church, which the pastor decorated with valuable paintings spirited out of England, of which three are said to be preserved.

In 1734, despite the guarantees of Penn, Lieutenant-Governor Patrick Gordon laid complaints before the Council and sought to prevent Catholic worship as contrary to English law; but apparently neither the Council nor the home government was interested enough to take action, though the public character of the “popish” church was noticed in London prints.

Father Greaton’s congregation grew so that in 1741, he was given an assistant, Henry Neale, S. J. , while the Pennsylvania Germans were attended by the Jesuit fathers Wapeler and Schneider. During King George’s War, the Catholic congregation was suspected of French sympathies and annoyed by the non-Quaker colonists.

In 1750, the Quakers actually protected the Catholic chapel from a Presbyterian mob. Otherwise, Father Greaton’s pastorate was uneventful.

Growing old, he assigned the church to his successor, Robert Harding, S. J. , and retired to Bohemia, Maryland, where he served in a less arduous capacity until his death.

Achievements

• Greaton is known as the founder of Old St. Joseph's Church, Philadelphia, in 1733.