Pews—of the old-fashioned kind, provided with lock and key—filled the churches, and were let to the highest bidders by auction. To Gallitzin, such a system, which left the poor no alternative but to be jostled in the doorway or to stop at home, was an abomination. He also strongly resented trial sermons, such as are usual among Presbyterians, where the congregations are free to choose whichever candidate has pleased them best by his discourse. Gallitzin could not and would not be a parish priest under such conditions. It was not for this that he had left home and country and fortune and honors.
In his old age he was asked how the strange idea had ever entered his head of wandering forth into the wilderness to found his Catholic colony, from whence at first he had had to send no less than fifty miles to the nearest mill, and twice as far for coffee, salt, sugar, and other necessaries. He replied: "I migrated to get away from trustees, pew-renting, and all the other evils connected with the system; and there were no means of escape but to devise another system with laws of its own. Wherever the work had been already begun, it was spoiled because Catholics had always copied Protestants. I recollect going to Philadelphia to pay Brosius a visit and to see what the place was like. While saying Mass in the church belonging to the Germans, I heard a constant rolling and banging, with shouts and loud speaking. When I asked what it all meant, I was told that there was a cellar under the church which had been let by the trustees to a wine and spirit merchant. 'Well, well,' I said to myself, 'and has it really come to this? Never will I enter that church again.'"
The idea which soon shaped itself in his mind was to found a little Catholic community in the far West. The "far West" in those days was Pennsylvania; for anything still farther was as yet a complete wilderness, infested by Indians and wild beasts. A small colony had some years previously settled in the present St. Vincent, and thence a few families had pushed on about fifty miles to the northeast into the Allegheny Mountains.
Gallitzin, who had occasionally visited these people from Taneytown, decided to cast in his lot among them, and accordingly wrote to the Bishop for the necessary permission. In his reply the Bishop expressed great surprise at so strange a request, and doubted whether Gallitzin would have strength for so arduous an undertaking. However, he added: "I will grant your petition, and heartily agree to your evangelizing from thence the districts you mention—Huntington and other places lying nearer to the East, and consequently to civilization."
In the August of 1799 Gallitzin and his flock set out for the new mission, in which the indefatigable pastor was to labor for forty years, and where he was to find his last resting-place. Several respectable families, all Catholics, accompanied him; these were people who were too poor to acquire land in already civilized districts.
A journey of this kind was in those days no light matter; for roads were altogether wanting. Women, children and baggage went on pack-horses, or in carts and sledges drawn by oxen; the men acted as pioneers, clearing the way for the caravan to follow. Only short distances could be travelled in one day, and at night they had all to camp in the forests.
An Irishman of the name of McGuire had left a rough tract of land to Bishop Carroll as church property; this the Bishop now handed over to Gallitzin, who, besides, bought out of his own fortune another large piece of ground, which he let to his poor parishioners on most easy terms. Indeed for many plots he never received a penny.
The first buildings erected in the speedily-cleared settlement were two modest log edifices,—one the church, the other the presbytery. On Christmas night, 1799, the first Mass was said in the new church. Fervor was great: no one thought of sleep; all had been made as festive as possible with evergreen decorations and as many candles and tapers as could be mustered in the wilderness. "Thus," observes Gallitzin's biographer, "it came to pass that on a spot where but a year previously had stood a primeval forest, a handful of wanderers of various countries and tongues found a home under the care of an exiled prince; and where formerly at the solemn midnight hour no sounds had been heard but the howling of wolves, now resounded the glad song of the heavenly hosts: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will!'"
The same writer proceeds to draw a pretty picture of the devoted part a priest like Gallitzin is bound to play in a settlement as yet without police, magistrate, doctor, or lawyer: "The love of Christ urges him; he is not satisfied with just fulfilling his priestly duties, such as preaching at stated times, and then treating the hundred little things of daily life that affect humanity with proud disdain, as much as to say, 'That is no affair of mine.' On the contrary, he enters into all his people's interests, is easy of approach to all. He writes their letters to Germany, Ireland or France; and when he is on his missionary rounds he carries back the answers from distant postal stations. He is not too grand to bring the women folk the little necessaries which can be procured only at a great distance and which others might easily forget—some pepper or a packet of needles, and so forth. All this begets appreciation ending in unbounded trust and affection; and as the priest in a new mission of this kind is generally the only educated man, he is soon all in all to his parishioners. He has become a centre of unity, about which the most heterogeneous elements gather in love and obedience; and a patriarchal form of government is once more possible."
It must be admitted that in his great generosity Gallitzin spent more money than was wise upon his beloved settlement; yet he had good reasons for thinking himself wealthy. So long as his mother was able she kept him liberally supplied with money for all his good works, even at the cost of considerable self-sacrifice. At the death of his parents the fortune would be his sister's, and she had solemnly promised that she would "share and share alike" with her brother.