Healy family of Georgia
Encyclopedia
The Healy family of Georgia became notable in U.S. history
because the siblings achieved much in the second half of the nineteenth century, most within the Catholic Church. They were born in Jones County, Georgia
to Mary Eliza, a mulatto
slave, and her common-law husband, Michael Morris Healy, an Irish
Catholic
immigrant from County Roscommon
, who became a wealthy cotton planter
. As they were born into slavery, the children were prohibited from being educated in Georgia, although they were majority European in ancestry. The wealthy planter sent his mixed-race children to the North for education to ensure their futures. The sons attended a combination of Quaker and later Catholic
schools in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, with Patrick
and Sherwood earning doctorates at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France. The three daughters were educated at Catholic convent schools in Montreal
, Canada.
Of the nine children who lived to adulthood, three of the sons became ordained Catholic
priest
s and educators while all three daughters became nun
s. James Augustine Healy became the first American bishop of African descent and Eliza Healy attained the rank of Mother Superior
. Michael joined the United States Revenue Cutter Service
, a predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard. Today he is claimed as the first person of African-American descent to command a federal ship. Three of the Healy children have been individually honored by the naming of various buildings, awards and a ship for them. The former site of the Healy family's plantation near Macon, Georgia
is now called Healy Point. It includes the Healy Point Country Club.
Born into slavery, the children were considered mulatto in the South, a census
classification that recognized mixed race. With three-quarter European ancestry, the children varied in features and complexions, but all were baptized Catholic in the North and were accepted as white Irish Americans. Their stories have intrigued historians and sociologists for their high achievements as the children of an immigrant and enslaved woman. They gained higher educations and most became prominent in the Catholic Church, they negotiated racial issues, and they created alliances with Catholic Church officials and its institutions. The roles of Catholic Church representatives who mentored the young Healy men and women has attracted interest. James M. O'Toole's Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920 (2003) explores many of those issues. A. D. Powell's Passing for Who You Really Are (2005) takes issue with what she calls the distortion of the past by 20th-century activists, who practice their own kind of one-drop rule
. She thinks it is inappropriate to claim as African American individuals such as the Healys, who historically identified and were accepted as Irish American, although they acknowledged their multi-racial heritage. Since the late 20th century, several of the Healys have been noted and celebrated as the "first African Americans" to achieve certain positions.
. He emigrated to the United States, possibly by way of Canada, arriving in the 1818. Through good fortune in a Georgia land lottery
and later acquisitions, he eventually acquired 1500 acres (6.1 km²) of good "bottomland" near the Ocmulgee River
in Jones County
, across from the market town of Macon
. He became one of the more prominent and successful planter
s in an area known for cotton
, and owned 49 slaves for his labor-intensive enterprise.
Among these was a 16-year-old girl named Mary Eliza (whose surname has been recorded both as Smith and Clark), whom he took as his common-law wife in 1829, when he was age 33. His wife Mary Eliza Healy has been described in various accounts as "slave" and "former slave", and as mulatto
and African American
(which covers mixed-race). Commonly in the South, persons of visible or known African racial heritage were considered to be black, or African American (using modern terminology). By that criteria, Mary Eliza and all the Healy children were black, although the children were three-quarters European or more in ancestry. The term "mulatto" was also in use, which recognized mixed race. In Louisiana, mulattoes formed a third class, known as Louisiana creoles; they gained education and property, sometimes as a result of settlements on women and children in the system of plaçage
.
The union of Michael Morris and Mary Eliza Healy was unusual for being relatively formalized, although unions were common between white men and mixed-race or black women. He was not the only wealthy white man to take an African-American wife and to provide for the education of their children. For example, shortly before the start of the American Civil War
, nearly all the 200 young men at Wilberforce College
in southern Ohio, established by white and black Ohio Methodist leaders for the education of blacks, were mixed-race sons of wealthy white planters from the South.
At the time, Georgia law (and most other states) prohibited marriage between whites and blacks. The couple lived together as man and wife from 1829 until their deaths a few months apart in 1850. During that time, they had ten children, nine of whom survived to adulthood.
To overcome obstacles for the children, Healy sent them to northern states to attend school as soon as each was old enough. (He sent the girls to a French-Canadian convent school in Montreal.) The oldest son James
, born in 1830, was sent to Flushing, New York in 1837 where he attended a Quaker school. He later transferred to another Quaker school in Burlington, New Jersey
. Several of James' younger brothers followed him in this path. The Quaker schools presented different issues for the boys. They faced criticism because their father owned slaves, which was in conflict with Quaker principles of equality of men, and some discrimination as sons of an Irish Catholic immigrant at a time of greatly increased immigration during the Great Famine
.
Around 1844, the senior Michael Healy met John Bernard Fitzpatrick
, the Catholic
bishop of the Diocese of Boston
. He learned of the new College of the Holy Cross
in Worcester, Massachusetts
, which was then accepting children of grammar school
age. In 1844, Healy sent his sons James 14, Hugh 12, Patrick 10, and Sherwood 8, to be enrolled at Holy Cross. Michael, then only 6 years old, followed them a few years later, enrolling in 1849 at Holy Cross.
The Healy parents intended to sell their plantation
and move to the North with their three youngest children. When the parents each died unexpectedly in 1850, Hugh Healy risked his safety to return to Georgia to take his three youngest siblings to the North, while executors of his parents' estate liquidated the plantation and other assets. Safe in New York, Hugh arranged for the three youngest children to be baptized as Catholics in the Church of St. Francis Xavier on June 13, 1851. After graduating from Holy Cross, Hugh had gone to New York. He was building a hardware
business in the city, but died as a result of an infection contracted after a boating accident in the Hudson River at age 21.
of the College's first graduating class in 1849. He became the first American with African ancestry to become a Roman Catholic Bishop in the United States
, ordained as Bishop of Portland, Maine
on June 2, 1875. During his time in Maine
, at a period of growth in Catholic immigration, Healy oversaw the establishment of 60 new churches, 68 missions, 18 convents and 18 schools.
, at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris. He was named a dean at Georgetown University
in 1866. At the age of 39, on July 31, 1874, he assumed the presidency of what was then the largest Catholic college in the United States.
Patrick Healy's influence on Georgetown University was so far-reaching that he is often referred to as the school's "second founder," following Archbishop John Carroll. Healy helped transform the small nineteenth-century college into a major university
for the twentieth century. He modernized the curriculum
by requiring courses in the sciences, particularly chemistry
and physics
. He expanded and upgraded the schools of law
and medicine
. In the antebellum years, the college had drawn most of its students from the South; four-fifths of the alumni fought as Confederates
. In the later nineteenth century, it began to draw more students from the Northeast, which had a higher rate of Catholic immigration. During Healy's tenure, the college adopted the colors of blue and grey as a symbol of reconciliation for the nation.
Jumna as a cabin boy in 1854. He quickly became an expert seaman. Soon he rose to the rank of officer on merchant vessels.
In 1864, Michael Healy returned to his family, by then based in Boston
. He applied for a commission in the Revenue Cutter Service and was accepted as a Third Lieutenant, with a commission signed by President Abraham Lincoln
. Michael served with the US Revenue Service along the 20000 miles (32,186.8 km) coastline of the new territory following the Alaska Purchase
of 1867. In 1880, he became the first American of African descent to be assigned command of a US government ship. During the last two decades of the 19th century, Captain Healy was essentially the federal government’s law enforcement presence in the vast territory. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as: judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. Commissioned in 1999, the U.S. Coast Guard research icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20)
is named in his honor.
in 1874 and took her vows in 1876. They were the teaching order of her school and had been established in 1653 by a French nun. After teaching in schools in Quebec
and Ontario
, Sister Mary Magdalen was first named as superior of a convent in 1895 in Huntington, Quebec, where she served until 1897. In 1903 Healy was appointed school administrator and Mother Superior
at a Catholic convent, at Villa Barlow, St. Albans, Vermont
, the first woman of African-American descent to achieve the position. In her 15 years there, Sister Mary Magdalen restored the complex's facilities and finances. In her last year, she served as Mother Superior for the Congregation of Notre Dame at the Academy of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament on Staten Island
, New York, where she restored their finances.
All three of the Healy girls: Martha, Josephine, and Eliza, were educated beginning as children at the convent school of the Congregation of Notre Dame
in Montreal
. They chose to become nuns, following the women and the institution that had been influential in their lives.
Martha and Michael, who married and had children, each chose European-American partners of Irish Catholic descent. Their religion had been integral to their lives and they wanted to ensure that future generations of their family would continue to be part of white Catholic society.
In 1865, Michael Healy married Mary Jane Roach, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants. They had one child, a son named Frederick, born in 1870. According to James M. O'Toole, the historian who wrote about the family and the conundrum of race, Michael Healy
History of the United States
The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, although its territory was inhabited by Native Americans since prehistoric times and then by European colonists who followed the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The...
because the siblings achieved much in the second half of the nineteenth century, most within the Catholic Church. They were born in Jones County, Georgia
Jones County, Georgia
Jones County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It was created on December 10, 1807. As of 2010, the population was 27,740 . The county seat is Gray.-History:The county is named after U.S...
to Mary Eliza, a mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
slave, and her common-law husband, Michael Morris Healy, an Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
immigrant from County Roscommon
County Roscommon
County Roscommon is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the town of Roscommon. Roscommon County Council is the local authority for the county...
, who became a wealthy cotton planter
Plantations in the American South
Plantations were an important aspect of the history of the American South, particularly the antebellum .-Planter :The owner of a plantation was called a planter...
. As they were born into slavery, the children were prohibited from being educated in Georgia, although they were majority European in ancestry. The wealthy planter sent his mixed-race children to the North for education to ensure their futures. The sons attended a combination of Quaker and later Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
schools in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, with Patrick
Patrick Francis Healy
Patrick Francis Healy was the 29th President of Georgetown University known for expanding the school following the American Civil War. He was accepted as and identified as Irish-American. Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark, was constructed during Healy's tenure and is named after him...
and Sherwood earning doctorates at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France. The three daughters were educated at Catholic convent schools in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Canada.
Of the nine children who lived to adulthood, three of the sons became ordained Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s and educators while all three daughters became nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
s. James Augustine Healy became the first American bishop of African descent and Eliza Healy attained the rank of Mother Superior
Mother Superior
A mother superior is an abbess or other nun in charge of a Christian religious order or congregation, a convent or house of women under vows.Mother superior may also refer to:*Mother Superior , a rock band who became ¾ of Rollins Band circa 2000...
. Michael joined the United States Revenue Cutter Service
United States Revenue Cutter Service
The United States Revenue Cutter Service was established by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in 1790 as an armed maritime law enforcement service. Throughout its entire existence the Revenue Cutter Service operated under the authority of the United States Department of the Treasury...
, a predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard. Today he is claimed as the first person of African-American descent to command a federal ship. Three of the Healy children have been individually honored by the naming of various buildings, awards and a ship for them. The former site of the Healy family's plantation near Macon, Georgia
Macon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...
is now called Healy Point. It includes the Healy Point Country Club.
Born into slavery, the children were considered mulatto in the South, a census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
classification that recognized mixed race. With three-quarter European ancestry, the children varied in features and complexions, but all were baptized Catholic in the North and were accepted as white Irish Americans. Their stories have intrigued historians and sociologists for their high achievements as the children of an immigrant and enslaved woman. They gained higher educations and most became prominent in the Catholic Church, they negotiated racial issues, and they created alliances with Catholic Church officials and its institutions. The roles of Catholic Church representatives who mentored the young Healy men and women has attracted interest. James M. O'Toole's Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920 (2003) explores many of those issues. A. D. Powell's Passing for Who You Really Are (2005) takes issue with what she calls the distortion of the past by 20th-century activists, who practice their own kind of one-drop rule
One-drop rule
The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black...
. She thinks it is inappropriate to claim as African American individuals such as the Healys, who historically identified and were accepted as Irish American, although they acknowledged their multi-racial heritage. Since the late 20th century, several of the Healys have been noted and celebrated as the "first African Americans" to achieve certain positions.
Family history
One of Healy's sons found through genealogical research that their father Michael Morris Healy was born on September 20, 1796 in the village of Athlone in the County RoscommonCounty Roscommon
County Roscommon is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the town of Roscommon. Roscommon County Council is the local authority for the county...
. He emigrated to the United States, possibly by way of Canada, arriving in the 1818. Through good fortune in a Georgia land lottery
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...
and later acquisitions, he eventually acquired 1500 acres (6.1 km²) of good "bottomland" near the Ocmulgee River
Ocmulgee River
The Ocmulgee River is a tributary of the Altamaha River, approximately 255 mi long, in the U.S. state of Georgia...
in Jones County
Jones County, Georgia
Jones County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It was created on December 10, 1807. As of 2010, the population was 27,740 . The county seat is Gray.-History:The county is named after U.S...
, across from the market town of Macon
Macon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...
. He became one of the more prominent and successful planter
Planter
Planter may refer to:*A flower pot or box for plants**Jardinière, one such type of pot*A person or object engaged in sowing seeds**Planter , implement towed behind a tractor, used for sowing crops through a field*A coloniser...
s in an area known for cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, and owned 49 slaves for his labor-intensive enterprise.
Among these was a 16-year-old girl named Mary Eliza (whose surname has been recorded both as Smith and Clark), whom he took as his common-law wife in 1829, when he was age 33. His wife Mary Eliza Healy has been described in various accounts as "slave" and "former slave", and as mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
and African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
(which covers mixed-race). Commonly in the South, persons of visible or known African racial heritage were considered to be black, or African American (using modern terminology). By that criteria, Mary Eliza and all the Healy children were black, although the children were three-quarters European or more in ancestry. The term "mulatto" was also in use, which recognized mixed race. In Louisiana, mulattoes formed a third class, known as Louisiana creoles; they gained education and property, sometimes as a result of settlements on women and children in the system of plaçage
Plaçage
Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in which white French and Spanish and later Creole men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of African, Indian and white Creole descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with"...
.
The union of Michael Morris and Mary Eliza Healy was unusual for being relatively formalized, although unions were common between white men and mixed-race or black women. He was not the only wealthy white man to take an African-American wife and to provide for the education of their children. For example, shortly before the start of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, nearly all the 200 young men at Wilberforce College
Wilberforce University
Wilberforce University is a private, coed, liberal arts historically black university located in Wilberforce, Ohio. Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans...
in southern Ohio, established by white and black Ohio Methodist leaders for the education of blacks, were mixed-race sons of wealthy white planters from the South.
At the time, Georgia law (and most other states) prohibited marriage between whites and blacks. The couple lived together as man and wife from 1829 until their deaths a few months apart in 1850. During that time, they had ten children, nine of whom survived to adulthood.
Education
Under the laws, if their mother had been a slave at their births, the children of the Healys would also have been considered slaves, according to the principle of partus by which children were assigned the status of their mother. Various accounts of her status conflict. The laws in Georgia prohibited the education of the children because they were considered black, whether slave or free. Such anti-literacy laws had been instituted in southern states following Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831.To overcome obstacles for the children, Healy sent them to northern states to attend school as soon as each was old enough. (He sent the girls to a French-Canadian convent school in Montreal.) The oldest son James
James Augustine Healy
James Augustine Healy was the first African-American Roman Catholic priest and the first African-American Roman Catholic bishop in the United States...
, born in 1830, was sent to Flushing, New York in 1837 where he attended a Quaker school. He later transferred to another Quaker school in Burlington, New Jersey
Burlington, New Jersey
Burlington is a city in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States and a suburb of Philadelphia. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 9,920....
. Several of James' younger brothers followed him in this path. The Quaker schools presented different issues for the boys. They faced criticism because their father owned slaves, which was in conflict with Quaker principles of equality of men, and some discrimination as sons of an Irish Catholic immigrant at a time of greatly increased immigration during the Great Famine
Great Famine
Great Famine may refer to any of several historical famines:* The Great Famine of 1315–1317 in northern Europe* The Great India Famine of 1344-1345...
.
Around 1844, the senior Michael Healy met John Bernard Fitzpatrick
John Bernard Fitzpatrick
John Bernard Fitzpatrick was an Irish American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Boston from 1846 until his death in 1866.-Early life and education:...
, the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
bishop of the Diocese of Boston
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the New England region of the United States. It comprises several counties of the state of Massachusetts...
. He learned of the new College of the Holy Cross
College of the Holy Cross
The College of the Holy Cross is an undergraduate Roman Catholic liberal arts college located in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA...
in Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
, which was then accepting children of grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
age. In 1844, Healy sent his sons James 14, Hugh 12, Patrick 10, and Sherwood 8, to be enrolled at Holy Cross. Michael, then only 6 years old, followed them a few years later, enrolling in 1849 at Holy Cross.
The Healy parents intended to sell their plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
and move to the North with their three youngest children. When the parents each died unexpectedly in 1850, Hugh Healy risked his safety to return to Georgia to take his three youngest siblings to the North, while executors of his parents' estate liquidated the plantation and other assets. Safe in New York, Hugh arranged for the three youngest children to be baptized as Catholics in the Church of St. Francis Xavier on June 13, 1851. After graduating from Holy Cross, Hugh had gone to New York. He was building a hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
business in the city, but died as a result of an infection contracted after a boating accident in the Hudson River at age 21.
The Healy children
James Augustine Healy
James Augustine Healy (1830–1900) graduated valedictorianValedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title conferred upon the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony. Usually, the valedictorian is the highest ranked student among those graduating from an educational institution...
of the College's first graduating class in 1849. He became the first American with African ancestry to become a Roman Catholic Bishop in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, ordained as Bishop of Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
on June 2, 1875. During his time in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, at a period of growth in Catholic immigration, Healy oversaw the establishment of 60 new churches, 68 missions, 18 convents and 18 schools.
Patrick Francis Healy
Patrick Francis Healy (1834–1910) became a Jesuit, and was the first American with African ancestry to earn a PhDPHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
, at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris. He was named a dean at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
in 1866. At the age of 39, on July 31, 1874, he assumed the presidency of what was then the largest Catholic college in the United States.
Patrick Healy's influence on Georgetown University was so far-reaching that he is often referred to as the school's "second founder," following Archbishop John Carroll. Healy helped transform the small nineteenth-century college into a major university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
for the twentieth century. He modernized the curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
by requiring courses in the sciences, particularly chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
. He expanded and upgraded the schools of law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. In the antebellum years, the college had drawn most of its students from the South; four-fifths of the alumni fought as Confederates
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. In the later nineteenth century, it began to draw more students from the Northeast, which had a higher rate of Catholic immigration. During Healy's tenure, the college adopted the colors of blue and grey as a symbol of reconciliation for the nation.
Michael Augustine Healy
Michael Augustine Healy (1838–1904) was younger than brothers James, Hugh, Patrick, and Sherwood. Unhappy and rebellious at Holy Cross, he was sent at the age of 15, to a seminary in France. However, he preferred a more adventurous life, and fled the school the following year. In England, he signed aboard the American East Indian ClipperClipper
A clipper was a very fast sailing ship of the 19th century that had three or more masts and a square rig. They were generally narrow for their length, could carry limited bulk freight, small by later 19th century standards, and had a large total sail area...
Jumna as a cabin boy in 1854. He quickly became an expert seaman. Soon he rose to the rank of officer on merchant vessels.
In 1864, Michael Healy returned to his family, by then based in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. He applied for a commission in the Revenue Cutter Service and was accepted as a Third Lieutenant, with a commission signed by President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Michael served with the US Revenue Service along the 20000 miles (32,186.8 km) coastline of the new territory following the Alaska Purchase
Alaska purchase
The Alaska Purchase was the acquisition of the Alaska territory by the United States from Russia in 1867 by a treaty ratified by the Senate. The purchase, made at the initiative of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained of new United States territory...
of 1867. In 1880, he became the first American of African descent to be assigned command of a US government ship. During the last two decades of the 19th century, Captain Healy was essentially the federal government’s law enforcement presence in the vast territory. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as: judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. Commissioned in 1999, the U.S. Coast Guard research icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20)
USCGC Healy (WAGB-20)
USCGC Healy is a research icebreaker put into commission in 1999 by the United States Coast Guard.-Construction:Healy was constructed by Avondale Industries in New Orleans, Louisiana and named in honor of Captain "Hell Roaring" Michael A. Healy U.S.R.C.S. Her keel was laid on September 16, 1996...
is named in his honor.
Eliza Healy
Eliza Healy (1846–1918), educated at St. Johns, Quebec, joined her family in Boston for several years. She felt a calling to the religious life and returned to Montreal, where she entered the novitiate in the Congregation of Notre DameCongregation of Notre Dame
The Congregation of Notre Dame was founded in 1653 by Marguerite Bourgeoys in Montreal, Canada. This was one of the first non-cloistered communities. The community's motherhouse has continued to be based in Montreal...
in 1874 and took her vows in 1876. They were the teaching order of her school and had been established in 1653 by a French nun. After teaching in schools in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Sister Mary Magdalen was first named as superior of a convent in 1895 in Huntington, Quebec, where she served until 1897. In 1903 Healy was appointed school administrator and Mother Superior
Mother Superior
A mother superior is an abbess or other nun in charge of a Christian religious order or congregation, a convent or house of women under vows.Mother superior may also refer to:*Mother Superior , a rock band who became ¾ of Rollins Band circa 2000...
at a Catholic convent, at Villa Barlow, St. Albans, Vermont
St. Albans (city), Vermont
St. Albans is a city in and the shire town of Franklin County, Vermont, in the United States. At the 2000 census, the city population was 7,650. St Albans City is completely surrounded by St. Albans town, which is incorporated separately from the city of St. Albans...
, the first woman of African-American descent to achieve the position. In her 15 years there, Sister Mary Magdalen restored the complex's facilities and finances. In her last year, she served as Mother Superior for the Congregation of Notre Dame at the Academy of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament on Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
, New York, where she restored their finances.
Other Healy children
- As previously noted, Hugh Healy (1832–1853) was a graduate of Holy Cross and an aspiring young businessman when he died at age 21.
- Alexander Sherwood Healy (called Sherwood) (1836-1875) was also ordained as a priest, and earned his doctorate degree at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris. He became an expert in Gregorian chantGregorian chantGregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
and canon lawCanon lawCanon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
. After serving his brother James as chancellor, he was appointed director of the Catholic seminarySeminaryA seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
in Troy, New YorkTroy, New YorkTroy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...
and rector of the Cathedral in Boston. His career was cut short by an early death at age 39.
All three of the Healy girls: Martha, Josephine, and Eliza, were educated beginning as children at the convent school of the Congregation of Notre Dame
Congregation of Notre Dame
The Congregation of Notre Dame was founded in 1653 by Marguerite Bourgeoys in Montreal, Canada. This was one of the first non-cloistered communities. The community's motherhouse has continued to be based in Montreal...
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. They chose to become nuns, following the women and the institution that had been influential in their lives.
- Martha Healy (1840-1920) was sent to Canada in the 1840s for her education. She joined the Congregation of Notre Dame in Montreal in 1855. In 1863 she left the order and moved to Boston, where two brothers and her sisters were. On 25 July 1865, in Waltham, MassachusettsWaltham, MassachusettsWaltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, was an early center for the labor movement, and major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning,...
, she married Jeremiah Cashman, a man of Irish heritage.
- Josephine Amanda Healy (1849-1883), also went to the convent school in Montreal. After several years with her family in Boston, she joined the order of the Religious Hospitallers of Saint Joseph. She was the third of the siblings to die as a young adult.
- Eugene Healy (1848-1914), only two when orphaned, was the only Healy who did not achieve as much in life; he seemed to struggle to find a place.
Descendants
Because of their mother's mixed ancestry, the Healy children were more than half European as well as partially African in ancestry. Much evidence exists that, with the social capital of their education and father's wealth, all of the Healy children were accepted into northern U.S. and Canadian society as "white" Irish Americans.Martha and Michael, who married and had children, each chose European-American partners of Irish Catholic descent. Their religion had been integral to their lives and they wanted to ensure that future generations of their family would continue to be part of white Catholic society.
In 1865, Michael Healy married Mary Jane Roach, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants. They had one child, a son named Frederick, born in 1870. According to James M. O'Toole, the historian who wrote about the family and the conundrum of race, Michael Healy
"...repeatedly referred to white settlers [in Alaska] as "our people," and was able to pass this racial identity on to a subsequent generation. His teenage son Fred, who accompanied his father on a voyage in 1883, scratched his name into a rock on a remote island above the Arctic CircleArctic CircleThe Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
, proudly telling his diary that he was the first "white boy" to do so."