1854 Bath, Maine, anti-Catholic riot

April 2023 Anti-Catholic riot thumb|"Burning of Old South Church, Bath, Maine" by John Hilling, 1854 The anti-Catholic riot that occurred in Bath on July 6, 1854,History of the Church from Its First Establishment to Our Own Times J. A. Birkhæuser May 27, 1893 3rd, Revised Fr. Pustet & Co. New York, New York 726fn https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_yRxNAAAAYAAJ/page/n245 Internet ArchiveWilliam B. Taylor Oliver Moses Receipt for Taxes Paid, Bath, 1882 https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/27893 tax record 1882-09-12 Oliver Moses Collection Pattern Free Library Bath Maine Maine Memory Network was one of several anti-Catholic incidents that took place in coastal Maine in the 1850s. The first and most violent anti-Catholic riot in Maine took place in Bangor, Maine, in 1834.April 2023 The resurgence of violence in the 1850s was associated with the rise of the nativist Know Nothing Party and the passage of the Maine law, America's first statewide prohibition ordinance. In addition to the Bath riot in 1854, Catholic priest, Father John Bapst was tarred and feathered in the town of Ellsworth that same year.Maine: A History 1 1919 The American Historical Society New York, New York Hatch Louis Clinton https://books.google.com/books?id=Sg0hAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA304 Google Books 2023-04-25 The Bath mob was gathered and inflamed by a traveling street-preacher named John S. Orr, who called himself "The Angel Gabriel," dressed in white robes, and carried a trumpet.Parradis Wilfrid H. Upon This Granite: Catholicism in New Hampshire, 1647–1997 0-914339-75-3 1998 66–67 Peter E. Randall Portsmouth, New Hampshire https://books.google.com/books?id=EVRUMkz7ndcC Google Books As Orr delivered an anti-Catholic sermon on Commercial Street, the crowd of spectators grew, eventually swelling to over a thousand and blocking carriage traffic. Some began shouting for the mob to move on the Old South Church, a structure built by Congregationalists in 1805 but recently abandoned by that denomination and purchased by Irish Catholics. In the late afternoon, the crowd marched to the church, began smashing up the pews, hoisted an American flag from the belfry, rang the bell, and set the building on fire. After the church was burned, a smaller crowd of at least a hundred roamed through the streets all night. There is no record of attacks upon any Catholic persons.The Riot at Bath, Maine—Church Burned in Open Daylight—Effects of Street Preaching—An Unmolested Mob of Fifteen Hundred The New York Times July 11, 1854 4 Boston Daily Mail https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1854/07/11/76440012.pdf 2023-04-24 Times Machine The event was visually recorded at the time in a series of three history paintings by local artist John Hilling.https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.6595.html John Hilling British, 1822–1894 National Gallery of Art 2018-11-15 A year after the riot, on November 18, 1855, the Bishop of Portland attempted to lay the cornerstone for a new church on the same site, but the congregation was chased away and beaten.Henry De Courcy The Catholic Church in the United States: Pages of Its History May 27, 2024 Edwin Dunigan and Brother New York, New York 2nd, Revised 522 https://books.google.com/books?id=2549AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA522 2023-04-25 Google Books References Category:1854 in Maine Category:1854 riots Category:July 1854 Category:Anti-Catholic riots in the United States Category:Bath, Maine Category:Church arson in the United States Category:Riots and civil disorder in Maine Category:Know Nothing Category:Anti-Catholicism in Maine Category:Irish-American culture in Maine Category:Arson in Maine Category:1854 in Christianity Category:1854 fires Category:1850s fires in North America Category:1854 crimes in the United States