Francis Xavier Gartland

Who was Francis Xavier Gartland?

Francis Xavier Gartland was an Irish American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the first Bishop of Savannah, Georgia, serving between 1850 and his death in 1854.

One of ten children, Gartland was born in Dublin to James and Mary Gartland. At an early age he came with his family to the United States, where they settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied the classics and theology at Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Henry Conwell on August 5, 1832. He then served as curate under Rev. John Hughes at St. John's Church in Philadelphia, becoming its pastor in 1838. Made vicar general of the Diocese of Philadelphia in 1845, he was Bishop Francis Kenrick's "chief lieutenant" in the latter's attempts to restore peace and order following the Know Nothing riots, and became "the most popular priest in the city among all classes."

On July 23, 1850, Gartland was appointed the first Bishop of the newly erected Diocese of Savannah by Pope Pius IX. He received his episcopal consecration on the following November 10 from Archbishop Samuel Eccleston, P.S.S., with Bishops Francis Kenrick and Michael O'Connor, S.J., serving as co-consecrators, in Philadelphia. The new diocese contained 15 churches, eight priests, and around 5,000 Catholics. During his tenure, he doubled the Catholic population in his diocese; greatly increased the number of priests, many of whom he recruited from his native Ireland; erected three new churches; and enlarged the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, which he dedicated in June 1853. He also established an orphanage and several Catholic schools, and attended the Eighth Provincial Council of Baltimore. As a bishop in the South, he considered "the freedom of the slave population" to be "untimely," saying, "All we have to do is mite their souls [so that] whether bond of free they may be saved."