Iowa Old Press

Chief Reporter
Perry, Dallas co. Iowa
March 8, 1900

Archbishop Hennessey died at his home in Dubuque on the 4th, after an illness which had extended over a period of several weeks. Archbishop Hennessey was born in the county of Limerick, Ireland, in 1824, and came to the United States when a mere boy. He was educated in St. Luke's University, completing his
course in two seminaries, and came to Dubuque, Iowa where after a successful term in charge of a parish he was consecrated bishop September 13, 1866. He was elevated to the archepiscopal dignity September 17, 1893, and was the ruler of the bishopries centering in Davenport, Dubuque, Omaha, Lincoln and Cheyenne,
beyond whom the only appeal was to Rome. Archbishop Hennessey had thus been a bishop for thirty-four years, and in all his career there was no appeal from his decision. When he was created bishop there were but twenty-seven priests in Iowa, and when he died as archbishop there were 293 priests in the archdiocese
alone, besides 120 in the Davenport diocese, which was divided from the Dubuque diocese in 1881. There are now in his diocese two academies and fifty in the archdiocese, 120 parochial schools, with an enrollment of 15,000, an orphanage, and industrial and reform school and two other charitable institutions.

[submitted by C.J.L., Oct. 2003]


Iowa Old Press
Dallas County