Our Catlzolic Heritage in Texas
30
recklessly into debt. The warning was unnecessary. Timon knew Ar- mengol's qualifications well. Fathers George W. Haydon and Edward A. Clarke, teachers in St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky, upon learning that a group of Kentucky-Missouri settlers was planning to migrate to Texas, wrote to Timon offering their services as missionaries. They wanted to do parish work and open a school or college. They expressed special interest in the San Antonio area and wanted to know how they could obtain Faculties.Soi Timon was delighted at the prospect of getting volunteers, but his enthusiasm was cooled by a letter from Guy Ignatius Chabrat, Bishop Coadjutor of Bardstown, to Bishop Rosati respecting the two volunteers. Out of concern for the immigrants and for the clerics, the Bishop declared he was unwilling to release them as unsuited for parish or missionary work. On the strength of this statement Timon advised Bishop Blanc not to issue them Faculties. But the picture changed again in the fall. When Bishop Benedict Flaget returned to Bardstown from a trip to Europe, he unhesitatingly granted Haydon and Clarke the requested leave to go to Texas. Timon was puzzled. While in St. Louis in December, 1839, he learned from Bishop Rosati that he had recommended the two clerics to Bishop Blanc as "two good and respectable clergymen . . . worthy of your esteem and protection." Bishop Blanc, equally puzzled by the conflicting reports, gave them provisional powers and they finally sailed from New Orleans for Texas the day after Christmas, 1839. They carried a letter of recommendation from Father Anduze to President Lamar, in which the wise old padre told Lamar that the appointment of an apostolic vicar was expected momentarily. Haydon and Clarke had given up the idea of going to San Antonio and at the suggestion of Bishop Blanc went directly to the Lavaca River to join colonists from Missouri. The judgment of Bishop Rosati as to their character was borne out by their work in Texas. 55 Prefecture, vicarate, bisliopric, or arcltbisltopric? Almost a whole year had elapsed, yet no definite word had come from Rome. Timon had repeatedly urged prompt action and others, unbeknown to him, had been 5'Haydon to Timon, March 15, 1839, C. A• T. sschabrat to Rosati, May 12, 1839; Rosati to Blanc, Novernber 13, 1839, Notre Dame ArcMves; Anduze to Lamar, Lamar Papers, V, 342; Bayard, Lo"' Star Vanguard, 72-76.
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