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John Dubois
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Bishop John DuBois (August 24, 1764 - December 20, 1842) was the third bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of New York. He was the first presiding bishop to reside in the diocese.
He was ordained a priest on September 28, 1787 and ordained a bishop on October 29, 1826. A refugee of the French Revolution he arrived in the United States in 1791 bearing a letter of introduction from Lafayette, whose wife he had once counted among his parishioners. Fr. DuBois made the acquaintance of many of the founding fathers of the republic and offered his services to the first Catholic bishop in the United States, the Most Rev. John Carroll of Baltimore.
His mission territory extended through central Maryland and the Blue Ridge country. Shortly after founding St. John’s Church in Frederick, Md., the circuit-riding priest resolved to purchase for himself a small tract of land in northern Frederick County, not far from the Pennsylvania border, where earlier Catholic colonists from southern Maryland had christened the adjacent summit “Mount St. Mary.” The missionary also desired to affiliate himself with the Society of St. Sulpice, whose members already operated St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. As part of his service to the society, Fr. DuBois agreed to open a “petit seminaire” or school where boys and young men could prepare for eventual entry into major seminary. Students from the Sulpician school at “Pigeon Hills” in Adams County, Pa., were brought to the mountain, where they were soon joined by local boys.
Although the germ of the idea to found Mount St. Mary's cannot be said to have originated with Fr. DuBois, he wasted no time in making the school into his life’s work. A school, Mount Saint Mary's was established in 1808. That year DuBois was named the first president of the school by the Suplicians. Joined in 1812 by the man revered as the Mount’s cofounder, the Rev. Simon William Gabriel Brute, Fr. DuBois and his small faculty strove to offer a full high school and college course to lay students and potential clerics alike, as well as a theological course to future diocesan priests. Although the Mount initially had to give up its theology students to the Baltimore seminary, it gradually won permission to retain students until ordination. By the early 1820s, ties to the Sulpicians were severed, and the Mount continued an independent existence under the archbishop of Baltimore.
In the summer of 1809, Fr. DuBois had the honor of welcoming Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton and her first sisters to Emmitsburg. His earlier work with the Daughters of Charity in Paris was instrumental in the Emmitsburg sisterhood’s adopting a modified version of the Daughters’ Rule. In addition, Mother Seton found in Fr. Bruté her ideal spiritual director. The period of the Mount’s infancy came to a close with the departure of Fr. DuBois in 1826, and Fr. Bruté in 1834, to head dioceses in New York and Vincennes, Ind., respectively.
Rev. John DuBois served the diocese of New York as bishop from October 29, 1826 until his death on December 20, 1842. He is interred in the crypt under the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
| Preceded by: John Connolly |
Bishop of New York 1826-1842 |
Succeeded by: John Hughes |
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