An archbishop asked to be buried in his aunt's grave

EMMITSBURG, Maryland, October 9, 1877 AD — At twenty past four in the afternoon of October 9, 1877 AD, a special train from Baltimore stopped in front of St. Joseph’s. St. Joseph’s is in the valley below Emmitsburg, Maryland. The train carried the body of Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Baltimore. He had often said he wanted to be buried near his aunt at St. Joseph’s, and he had asked for it officially. His aunt was Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.

The dearest spot on earth

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton became a Catholic in New York in March 1805 AD. Her family felt disgraced by it. They deserted her and refused to support her or her children.

On July 31, 1809 AD, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton brought her small group of Sisters down into this valley. The land had been given to her. The Sisters made their graveyard in a little wood a few hundred yards from their house. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s sister-in-law Harriet Seton was buried there under an oak. Another sister-in-law, Cecilia Seton, was buried there in 1810 AD. The children and the Sisters planted the graves with wild flowers. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton wrote to a friend that “the little enclosure which contains them is the dearest spot to me on earth.”

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton died at St. Joseph’s on January 4, 1821 AD. She was buried in that wood, beside her sisters-in-law, her daughters and the first Sisters to die.

The minister who went to Rome

Archbishop Bayley was the son of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s half-brother, Guy Carleton Bayley. As a young man he wasn’t a Catholic. He was an Episcopal minister, in charge of a church in Harlem, New York.

In 1841 AD he gave up that job and went to Rome. In April 1842 AD he became a Catholic there, just as his aunt had in New York. He became a priest in 1844 AD.

He became the first Bishop of Newark in 1853 AD. In 1872 AD he became Archbishop of Baltimore. In 1877 AD he was ill, and he went abroad hoping to be cured. He wasn’t, and in August he came home to Newark. He died there on October 3, at sixty-three.

Mother Euphemia Blenkinsop led the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg. She had the small monument over St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s grave made bigger and rebuilt. That way the vault underneath it would be ready for Archbishop Bayley’s coffin.

Hundreds of voices at sunset

When the train came in, the Sisters of Charity and the pupils of St. Joseph’s lined up along one side of the avenue. The Sisters wore white headdresses, and the pupils wore long white veils. The teachers and students of Mount St. Mary’s College lined up along the other side. A young man training to be a priest carried the cross in front of the coffin. Cardinal John McCloskey, the Archbishop of New York, walked among the mourners. Hundreds of mourners sang the Miserere (Have mercy on me, O God) as they walked.

The sun was going down when they reached the graveyard. It was still full of autumn flowers. They went on to the monument over St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s grave, in a grove of oaks behind the house where she had lived. The singing stopped there. Cardinal McCloskey said the Church’s last prayers over the coffin. Then the coffin was lowered, and Archbishop Bayley was laid in the same vault as his aunt.