Beneath Saint Patrick's Church on East Pomfret Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, are the mortal remains of Peter Helbron. He was a German Capuchin priest, his parish being in Westmoreland County. His subterranean presence in Cumberland County raises obvious questions, and those questions lead to a glimpse into the daily life of a country priest in early nineteenth-century America. This paper will look at Father Helbron's life, with special attention to the inventory of his estate. That inventory, originally filed with the Cumberland County Register of Wills, is now in the Cumberland County Historical Society.
Of Peter Helbron's early life, little is known. In the following paragraphs we will rely heavily upon Henry Ganss, local historian and Catholic priest, whose account of Peter Helbron seems to derive in large part from oral tradition Ganss himself had heard. Helbron was born in 1739 in the Rhineland, near Hilbringen, whence derives the surname, and he may have known French veterans of the American war for independence. As a young man Helbron became a good horseman and served in the Prussian army, giving him a life-long military bearing in the saddle. In 1758 he entered the Capuchin Order, and his younger brother, Charles Andrew, entered the Order in 1764, taking the name John the Baptist. Both men were ordained and served as priests in Pennsylvania, sailing in 1787 from Rotterdam on the Dorothea.
In 1790 the younger Helbron sailed from Philadelphia with the intention of returning to Germany to raise money for the Catholic churches in Pennsylvania. A Spanish ship intercepted his ship, and in due course the ships landed in Spain. Helbron sought to cross France for Germany. The bloodbath of the French Revolution was at high tide, and violent lovers of liberty nursed hatred for royalty and religion. Charles Helbron was arrested in Bayonne; there on 25 November, 1793, he was beheaded by means of a guillotine.
In 1791 Peter Helbron was named by Bishop John Carroll pastor of Holy Trinity Church, Philadelphia; the previous four years had seen him serving at Saint Paul's Church in Goshenhoppen, Berks County. Surviving from this time is a letter in Latin from the bishop granting Helbron permission to expose for veneration various relics, including one of the True Cross. Helbron had written the bishop, presumably in Latin, requesting such permission.
In the summer of 1796 a priest and former professor from Austria, John Nepomucene Goetz, was assigned by Bishop Carroll to assist Helbron. Goetz believed that he should have been pastor, and his murmuring divided the congregation, who voted to dismiss Helbron in favor of Goetz. This parliamentary procedure would have been in keeping with the workings of a Baptist congregation, but under Roman Catholic Canon Law, only the local bishop can remove a parish priest.
Helbron defied the congregation's resolution to dismiss him. The bishop from his chancery in Baltimore intervened, saying he would not remove Helbron, since to do so "would be in fact to acknowledge the propriety of that proceeding, by which he was discharged." The bishop said he might consider reassigning Helbron only "if he should consider himself as a bar to restoration of peace, & offer voluntarily to surrender his appointment. " The controversy simmered into the autumn months, and by winter Helbron was assisting at Saint Joseph's Church in Philadelphia. When events caught up with Goetz, the bishop declared that Goetz's machinations had caused his excommunication.
For twenty years, from 1890 to 1910, Father Henry Ganss served as pastor of Saint Patrick's Catholic Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. During that time he produced historical and musical works achieving international appreciation. He has merited entries in two prominent works of reference-The Dictionary of American Biography and The New Catholic Encyclopedia-rare for one whose activities one would assume deserved only parochial notice.