DUBOIS, John, R. C. bishop, born in Paris, 24 August 1764: died in New York, 20 December 1842. His father died while John was a child, and he received his early education from his mother. He afterward entered the College of Louis le Grand, where the Abbe Delille was one of his professors, and Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins were his classmates. He studied theology in the Oratorian seminary of St. Magloire, and on 22 September 1787, though still under the canonical age, was ordained by special dispensation. He was then appointed assistant rector of the parish of St. Sulpice and chaplain to the insane asylum called the Hospice des petits maisons.

At the beginning of the revolution he was forced to flee from Paris. Obtaining a passport and letters of introduction from Lafayette, he escaped to Havre de Grace and sailed for Norfolk, Virginia, where he arrived in August 1791. Bishop Carroll, who appointed him pastor in Norfolk and afterward in Richmond, Virginia, warmly received him.

Father Dubois was taught English by Patrick Henry, and lived in the house of James Monroe, the future president. He also, by invitation, used the state capitol in Richmond, for some time, for religious services.

He was next summoned by Archbishop Carroll to Frederick, Maryland, exercised the duties of pastor in western Maryland and Virginia, and was for a long time the only priest between Baltimore and St. Louis. In 1805 he began the building of a College and Church at Mount St. Mary's, Emmettsburg, Maryland, and the former, under his care, was developed into one of the most important ecclesiastical institutions of the country. He acted as president of Mount St. Mary's until 1826, when he was appointed bishop of New York, his diocese embracing also a part of New Jersey.

He was involved, soon after his consecration, in difficulties with the trustees of his Churches, who refused to pay a salary except to such priests as they had selected. Although hampered by their opposition, he succeeded in erecting new Churches in Albany and Buffalo.

Finding that he could not obtain the funds necessary for his projects, he visited Europe in 1829, returned with some French priests, and, having received a grant of money from the Society for the propagation of the faith, built a College at Nyack. This was hardly finished, however, when it was burned to the ground, its presence in the neighborhood having excited an intense feeling of, religious bigotry. During his administration, a plan to destroy St. Patrick's cathedral, New York, was also frustrated. After an unsuccessful attempt to found a College in Brooklyn, he purchased an estate in Jefferson County and built St. Vincent de Paul's seminary at Lafargeville, whence it was moved to Fordham in 1840.

In 1838 his failing health obliged him to take a coadjutor. When he entered New York there were only a few priests in the state; there were now (1888) forty-three, with twenty-six Churches, a College, two academies, five asylums, and several parochial schools. See "Discourse on Bishop Dubois," by Rev. John McCaffrey, D. D. 

Edited Appleton's Encyclopedia, by John Looby Copyright © 2001 StanKlos.com^TM

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