SIMON FELIX GALLAGHER

 

 

From 1770 onwards, enlightened citizens of the colonial city of Charleston SC were promoting academic courses "to encourage and institute youth in the several branches of liberal education" After the turbulence of the revolutionary years, the new college was formally chartered in 1785 and by 1790 was holding public examinations in the Classics before a board of trustees.

 

By 1793 the need to expand instruction in the sciences had become evident. To supply this need, the trustees needed to look no further than St. Mary's Church in Hassell St. where the oratory of a newly-arrived Catholic pastor was attracting attention. 

 

A priest of the diocese of Dublin, though possibly a native of Galway, Fr. Simon Felix Gallagher (1756-1825), received his education in France, where he had obtained a degree from the University of Paris. He had come to the United States as part of an interchange between Ireland and the developing Catholic church in America, then under the supervision of a single bishop, John Carroll of Baltimore.

 

Control of priests under their charge was a fairly fluid matter for bishops at this period of the church's development, and Fr. Gallagher had already discovered that the administration of St. Mary's was not going to be easy: there were various factions (of Irish and French immigrants, with pastors often drawn from both cultures as well as the English Jesuits, who had operated in Maryland's Catholic 

 

The development of the college from a gathering of scholars in the home of Bishop Robert Smith in the 1780s, to the housing of the academic activities in a former military barracks and the first graduation (of six students) in 1794 has been well documented, as have the roles of the administrative officers apart from Gallagher: Smith himself, designated as president from 1790 to 1797, Thomas Bee from 1798 to 1805, and George Buist, who served briefly from 1806 to 1808. (Elijah Ratoone served briefly in 1810 after Gallagher resigned for the last time and no other official served in a leading role until Nathaniel Bowen was appointed in 1823, followed immediately by Jasper Adams).

 

What is not clear is how organic Gallagher's involvement in the actual founding process was: some accounts make him a co-founder with the other principals. As a member of the college faculty, which was drawn from all denominations in accordance with the school's liberal charter, Gallagher lectured in logic, mathematics and natural philosophy, and later in astronomy. He also seems to have acted as official chancellor or president of the college from 1800 to 1802 and again in 1809, but, regardless of his title, it is obvious that he was seen as the 'chief academic officer' in many respects during his entire tenure there. He also ran a private school known as the Athenian Academy to prepare students for a college-level education and was involved in the founding of the Hibernian Society, of which he became president.

 

He first resigned in 1802 due to ill-health, but resumed his duties later. From his early days in both church and college, there had been regular reports of his problems with alcoholism (in one famous passage, Bishop Carroll noted complaints that at afternoon service he was not able to stand and 'sometimes used profane oaths'). But his intellectual life seems to have been relatively unaffected, and he was respected nationally for his ability to preach and to defend the doctrines of the church in his writings.

 

After 1810, when he finally resigned in answer to what he claimed was 'the imperious law of self-preservation', it would seem that his life was consumed by difficulties with his bishop and controversy associated with St. Mary's, some of which he took on appeal to Rome. In 1820, when he was sixty-four, a fellow Irishman almost half his age was appointed Bishop of Charleston. John England imposed order on the city's church administration, though Fr. Gallagher seems to have survived well under his regime.

 

In 1822, having been earlier offered more important posts in Washington DC and New York,  Fr. Gallagher moved briefly to St. Augustine in Florida to take over a difficult pastoral situation at Bishop England's request. He later moved to Louisiana, where he was at New Orleans for some time, and finally to Mississippi. He died as pastor of St. Mary's, Natchez, in 1825, having served in that city for just nine months.

 

Just over a decade later the College of Charleston became the nation's first municipal college, a role it continues to fulfil. The Irish connection is maintained through courses in Irish history and literature in its Irish Studies program, which also includes visits to Ireland, and in the academic interests of several professors in other disciplines, including anthropology, geography and music.