{{short description|American Catholic bishop (1768–1832)}} {{for|the British politician|Edward Matthew Fenwick}} {{Infobox Christian leader | image = Edward Fenwick.jpg | type = bishop | honorific_prefix = His Excellency, The Right Reverend | birth_date = {{birth date|1768|08|19}} | death_date = {{death date and age|1832|09|26|1768|08|19}} | birth_place = Province of Maryland, British America | death_place = Wooster, Ohio, United States | title = Bishop of Cincinnati | honorific_suffix = O.P. | ordination = February 23, 1793 | consecration = January 13, 1822 | term = 1822–1833 | ordained_by = Ferdinand-Marie de Lobkowitz | consecrated_by = Benedict Joseph Flaget | successor = John Baptist Purcell | diocese = Cincinnati | name = Edward Dominic Fenwick | appointed = 19 June 1821 }} '''Edward Dominic Fenwick''', {{post-nominals|post-noms=O.P.}} (August 19, 1768 – September 26, 1832) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church, a Dominican priest and the first bishop of Cincinnati in Ohio. Fenwick established the first Catholic churches in both Kentucky and Ohio along with the first Dominican province in the United States.
==Early life== Edward Fenwick was born on August 19, 1768, on the family plantation on the Patuxent River, in the British Province of Maryland, to Colonel Ignatius Fenwick and Sarah Taney. Colonel Fenwick later became a military officer during the American Revolution. The Fenwicks were one of the early Catholic families of Maryland, the starting point of Catholicism in the American colonies.<ref name="Odaniel">{{Cite book |last=O'Daniel |first=V. F. (Victor Francis) |url=http://archive.org/details/rightrevfenwick00odanuoft |title=The Right Rev. Edward Dominic Fenwick, O. P. : founder of the Dominicans in the United States, pioneer missionary in Kentucky, apostle of Ohio, first bishop of Cincinnati |date=1920 |publisher=Washington, D.C. : The Dominicana |others=Kelly - University of Toronto}}</ref>
During the mid-1700's, the Society of Jesus served the Catholic families in the province and some family members joined the order.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Corrigan |first=Mary Beth |date=August 23, 2020 |title=Institutional History of the Maryland Province |url=https://library.georgetown.edu//sites/default/files/Institutional%20History%20of%20the%20Maryland%20Province.pdf |access-date=December 26, 2025 |website=Georgetown University}}</ref> Edward's first cousin, Benedict J. Fenwick, a Jesuit priest, later became the second bishop of Boston; another cousin, Enoch Fenwick also a Jesuit priest, later became president of Georgetown College.<ref name="Odaniel" />
As there were no Catholic institutions of learning in the American colonies, many wealthy Catholic families sent their sons abroad to study. The Fenwick family sent 15-year-old Edward to the Dominican Holy Cross College in Bornem, near Antwerp in what was then the Austrian Netherlands. Edward's uncle was a teacher there.<ref name="McNamara">{{Cite web |title=The Apostle of Ohio: Bishop Edward Fenwick, O.P. |url=https://www.patheos.com/catholic/apostle-ohio-pat-mcnamara-08-07-2012 |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=www.patheos.com |language=en}}</ref> The school was under the jurisdiction of the English Province of Dominicans.<ref name="Odaniel" />In 1788, Fenwick joined the Dominican Order and entered their seminary at Bornem as a theological student, choosing the name, "Dominic". He took his solemn vows to the Dominicans in March 1790.<ref name="cathh" />
== Priesthood == Edward Dominic Fenwick was ordained a priest in Ghent, Belgium. for the Dominical Order on February 23, 1793 by Bishop Ferdinand-Marie de Lobkowitz.<ref name="cathh">{{Cite web |title=Bishop Edward Dominic Fenwick [Catholic-Hierarchy] |url=https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bfenwicke.html |access-date=2025-12-26 |website=www.catholic-hierarchy.org}}</ref> After his ordination, the Dominicans assigned Fenwick as a professor at the Dominican College. The next year, the French First Republic took over the Austrian Netherlands after defeating the Hapsburg Empire in battle. The French occupation forces imposed restrictions on the Catholic church and its priest. Fenwick was imprisoned, but was released after providing proof of his American citizenship. The Dominicans relocated their college Carshalton, England and Fenwick left with them. Later, Fenwick taught at a Dominican school outside London.<ref name="McNamara" />
With the assistance of Luke Concanen, assistant to the Master of the Dominican Order, Fenwick received permission from the Dominican Order to return to what was now the United States and establish a Dominican college there. He arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in the autumn of 1804, accompanied by Brother Robert Angier. Fenwick was received by Bishop John Carroll. Carroll was bishop of the Diocese of Baltimore, which then covered the entire small Catholic population in the United States. He suggested that Fenwick and his fellow Dominicans should evangelize the new states and territories west of the Appalachian Mountains.<ref name="Odaniel" />
==Missionary work== In 1805, Fenwick traversed the entire Mississippi Valley, looking for a central location to serve as a headquarters for his missionary work. He was accompanied by Angier, Reverend Samuel Thomas Wilson and Reverend William Raymond Tuite.<ref name="Odaniel"/>Fenwick decided in 1806 to purchase a 500-acre plantation near Springfield, Kentucky. At that time, Kentucky had a small Catholic population that had migrated there during the late 18th century from Maryland. To help build this venture, Fenwick sold some enslaved African-Americans he owned at the family plantation in Maryland. He use the sale proceeds to purchase enslaved people in Kentucky, who he used to help build his community.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Ryckbost |first=Anne |title=LibGuides: Fenwick History: Who was Edward Fenwick? |url=https://libguides.xavier.edu/c.php?g=630910&p=4431996 |access-date=2025-12-26 |website=libguides.xavier.edu |language=en}}</ref>
Fenwick began construction of a priory and a church almost immediately; the buildings were first inhabited in December 1806, but not completed until 1807. St. Rose Priory was named for Rose of Lima, a Peruvian sister who was the first native of the Americas to be canonized. In February 1807, the Dominican Order approved the erection of the new American Province of St. Joseph. At Fenwick's request, Wilson was appointed prior.<ref name="Petit">{{Cite web |url=http://www.worlib.org/friar/index3a.html |title=Petit OP, Loretta. "Friar in the Wilderness", Project OPUS, Chicago, 1994 |access-date=2014-10-06 |archive-date=2014-10-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006185322/http://www.worlib.org/friar/index3a.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
As an itinerant preacher visiting Catholic families in Kentucky, Kenwick faced many difficulties. He frequently had to swim his horse across swollen streams to reach a mission. On occasion, Fenwick camped out in the forests, which were then populated by bears and wolves. Like other missionaries, he faced the strain of loneliness and health problems caused by overwork and exposure to the weather. While riding from place to place, Fenwick read his breviaryHe would ride forty miles out of his way to visit an isolated family. He often fasted while travelling, in anticipation of celebrating mass once he reached his destination.<ref name="Odaniel" />
In 1808, Fenwick moved on to Ohio, where he ministered to Irish and German families, many of the latter knowing little English.<ref>''Edward Dominic Fenwick Papers 1803—1832: Founding American Dominican Friar and Bishop'', ed. Luke Tancrell, OP (New York: Dominican Publications, 2005), pp. 145–146.</ref> In Kentucky, the Rose of Lima Church was dedicated on December 25, 1809. St. Rose Priory became the first Catholic educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ryckbost |first=Anne |title=LibGuides: Fenwick History: Summary |url=https://libguides.xavier.edu/c.php?g=630910&p=7790368 |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=libguides.xavier.edu |language=en}}</ref> In 1817, Fenwick was joined in Ohio by his newly ordained nephew, Reverend Nicholas Dominic Young, OP. The two priests built St. Joseph's Church in Somerset, the first Catholic church in Ohio, on December 6, 1818. A second log church, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, was soon erected in Lancaster. A third was begun in Cincinnati, at the suggestion of Bishop Flaget, who visited the city in the spring of 1818.<ref>Lamott, S.T.D., John H., ''History of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati'', (1921)</ref>
==Bishop of Cincinnati== Fenwick on June 19, 1821, Pope Pius VII named Fenwick as the first bishop of the new Diocese of Cincinnati. He was consecrated on January 13, 1822, at Saint Rose of Lima Church in Kentucky by Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget of the Diocese of Bardstown. In 1823, Fenwick went to Europe in 1823 to raise money for the new diocese. He petitioned Father Master Pio Maurizio Viviani, pro-general of the Dominicans in Rome, to relocated the Dominican Province from Kentucky to Ohio. Fenwick said that Ohio had good cheap agricultural land and was a free state that had banned slavery. He also asked Viviani to send him Dominican lay brothers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fenwick |first=Edward |date=October 11, 1823 |title=Letter To His Most Reverend Paternity, Father Master Pio Maurizio Viviani, Pro-Vicar General of Preachers |url=https://libguides.xavier.edu/ld.php?content_id=35754952 |access-date=December 26, 2025 |website=Xavier University}}</ref>
Fenwick returned to Cincinnati in 1826 with resources to begin the construction of as cathedral and parochial schools. To staff the schools, he founded convents in Cincinnati for the Sisters of Charity and the Dominicans of St. Catharine, the first in the United States for Dominican religious sisters.<ref name="Petit" />In 1826, Fenwick dedicated Saint Peter's Cathedral, the first cathedral in Cincinnati.<ref name=":0" /> In 1829, Fenwick established the St. Francis Xavier Seminary in Cincinnati. This was the third oldest Catholic seminary in the United States and the oldest Catholic seminary west of the Appalachian Mountains. The Athenaeum of Ohio-Mount St. Mary Seminary claims its roots through the St. Francis Xavier Seminary and is located in Cincinnati<ref>{{Cite news |title=History - Athenaeum of Ohio |url=https://athenaeum.edu/resources/about/history/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613102106/https://athenaeum.edu/resources/about/history/ |archive-date=2023-06-13 |access-date=2025-12-26 |work=Athenaeum of Ohio |language=en-US |url-status=dead }}</ref> In her book ''Domestic Manners of the Americans'', Fanny Trollope wrote of Fenwick:
<blockquote>I had the pleasure of being introduced to the Catholic bishop of Cincinnati, and have never known in any country a priest of a character and bearing more truly apostolic. He was an American, but I should never have discovered it from his pronunciation or manner. He received his education partly in England, and partly in France. His manners were highly polished; his piety active and sincere, and infinitely more mild and tolerant than that of the factious Sectarians who form the great majority of the American priesthood.<ref name=Trollope>[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10345/pg10345-images.html Trollope, Fanny, ''Domestic Manners of the Americans'', Ch. 11.]</ref></blockquote>
In 1831, Fenwick initiated publication of ''The Catholic Telegraph,'' the newspaper for the diocese. The weekly newspaper was carried by stage and riverboat within the diocese and to cities in Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Maryland and the District of Columbia. ''The Catholic Telegraph'' is the oldest continuously published Catholic newspaper in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-12-26 |title=About Us |url=https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/about-us |access-date=2025-12-26 |website=Catholic Telegraph |language=en-US}}</ref> Also in 1831, Fenwick founded The Athenaeum, which later evolved into Xavier University and St. Xavier High School.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Brief History - St. Xavier High School |url=https://www.stxavier.org/about/archives/brief-history |access-date=2025-12-26 |website=www.stxavier.org |language=en-US}}</ref> After 1831, Fenwick returned to missionary work, visiting Native American tribes in the American Midwest.
== Death == Stricken by cholera, Fenwick died in Wooster, Ohio, on September 26, 1832, at age 64.<ref name="cathh" /> He is buried in a mausoleum in the St. Joseph Cemetery in Delhi Township, Ohio.
==Legacy== Several schools are named in his honor: *Bishop Fenwick High School, Franklin Township, Ohio<ref>{{Cite web |title=History {{!}} Bishop Fenwick High School |url=https://fenwickfalcons.org/history/ |access-date=2025-12-26 |language=en-US}}</ref> *Fenwick High School, Oak Park, Illinois<ref>{{Cite web |title=History Fenwick High School |url=https://www.fenwickfriars.com/about/history |access-date=2025-12-26 |website=www.fenwickfriars.com}}</ref> *Fenwick High School, Lancaster, Ohio (now the William V. Fisher Catholic High School) *Bishop Fenwick Middle School, Zanesville, Ohio<ref>{{Cite web |last=Diamond |first=Brian |title=Bishop Fenwick Catholic School {{!}} Zanesville Ohio |url=https://www.bishop-fenwick.com/ |access-date=2025-12-26 |website=www.bishop-fenwick.com |language=en}}</ref>
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== # Lamott, S.T.D., John H., ''History of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati'', (1921)
==External links== {{wikiquote|Edward Dominic Fenwick}} {{commonscat}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090307031645/http://virtualology.com/apedwarddfenwick/ Bio of Edward Fenwick] *[http://www.op-stjoseph.org/dominican/st-rose/history.htm History of St Rose Priory] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080604223525/http://www.mtsm.org/about/history.htm History of the Athenaeum of Ohio] *[http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bfenwicke.html Episcopal lineage of Bishop Edward Dominic Fenwick, O.P.] *[https://fenwickfalcons.org/ Fenwick High School (Franklin, Ohio)] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20051107023725/http://fenwick.pvt.k12.il.us/ Fenwick High School (Oak Park, Illinois)]
{{s-start}} {{s-rel|ca}} {{succession box | title=Bishop of Cincinnati | before=None | after=John Baptist Purcell | years=1822–1833}} {{s-end}}
{{Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati|state=collapsed}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenwick, Edward}} Category:1768 births Category:1832 deaths Category:Deaths from cholera in the United States Category:American Dominicans Category:Dominican bishops Category:19th-century Roman Catholic bishops in the United States Category:Infectious disease deaths in Ohio Category:Roman Catholic bishops of Cincinnati Category:Slave owners from Maryland