Page 170 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

PIONEERING IN LOUISVILLE I49

the "Franklin" on which he had told them he was
traveling, had run aground in a fog near Moriches on
Long Island. The vessel was presumed a total loss. The
passengers had lost their baggage, but all had been
rescued. Brother Ryken knew two priests on board, two
Jesuits from Germany on their way to Boston, Mass.,
where they were to have charge of a German parish,
Holy Trinity.
How many days the Xaverians spent in New York is
not known. Brother Ignatius Melis is the authority for
the statement, generally accepted, that the Brothers
landed on August second-the "Indiana" may have come
in late on the previous day-and arrived in Louisville,
Friday morning, Arigust eleventh. Travel time between
New York City and Cincinnati in those days approxi-
mated a week, so the first Xaverians did not delay more
than two or three days. As it was, they were late for the
scheduled opening of school.
The reception accorded the newly-arrived Brothers,
who had come down the Ohio River from Cincinnati
on a river boat, was strictly informal. They had to fend
for themselves. No one on the Third Street Wharf knew
anything about them. "They arrived," according to
Brother Stephen, "on a good morning, like so many
greenhorns, and after some time a hack brought them
to the Cathedral where they were escorted to their resi-
dence above St. Patrick's Chapel."
The August sun must have beat down unmercifully
on these weary men as they trudged from the Bishop's
house on Fifth street to St. Patrick's on Thirteenth, out-
fitted as they were in knee-length coats, serge trousers,
and all the underclothing that was appropriate to Bel-
gium. En route they saw at least one touch of home:
the pump at every street corner with the housewives
standing about and waiting their turn. The creaking