October 23, 2005
Fr. John Christopher Drumgoole
In our review of saints of the metropolitan area, and even of the whole United States, we come to an absolutely phenomenal person whose memory unfortunately has been to some degree lost. Fr. John Christopher Drumgoole, who died in 1888, remarkably provided a home, education and a start for over 30,000 homeless children from the street - particularly newsboys and other abandoned youth. A highway that runs through Staten Island commemorates the name of Fr. Drumgoole.
Father didn’t get his start until he was about fifty years old, having been before that time a janitor of the old St. Mary’s Church on the lower East Side. Realizing that the city was filled with homeless youngsters abandoned for various reasons during the immigration, he started by opening the church basement at night so that the youngsters could find shelter. Very little was done for homeless children in the city except by the Children’s Aid Society, which had been founded by Charles Brace, a Protestant minister. The Catholics were just arriving en masse in New York City from the Irish potato famine of 1849-1853.
Divine providence and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit led Fr. Drumgoole to do things in the grand scale. Although an old man, he built the tallest building in his neighborhood downtown on Great Jones Street to house homeless children. He then bought a farm at the bottom end of Staten Island where he opened the “ Mission of the Immaculate Virgin”, the largest orphanage in the world. Everything about Fr. Drumgoole, except his ego, was big. He was a humble, direct sort of man – very much an Irish immigrant and very much a man of prayer. He had the largest herd of cattle in the state along with the largest barn, which was five stories high and held three hundred head of cattle along with horses. His hen house was an incubator capable of hatching one thousand chickens at a time. Fr. Drumgoole at one time was taking care of two thousand children and it is estimated that at the time of his death he had taken care of over 30,000. Even now it is not unusual for me to be talking to a poor homeless man in New York who will tell me, “Father I grew up in the Mission.” I know exactly what he means.
Ideas of child care have changed immensely over the years. Huge institutions have been replaced by foster care; but when one goes back and realizes how desperately poor these children were and how in the course of a single day they could have a nice warm bed, good clean clothes and excellent medical attention, as well as an education and vocational training, one realizes what a single person can do with absolutely no government aid at all. The only thing the government ever did for Fr. Drumgoole was to arrest him when he ran a raffle to raise money.
An out of print biography, “The Children’s Shepherd” by Katherine Burton, will tell you much about Fr. Drumgoole. You can also learn about him on the internet by typing Fr. Drumgoole in Google search. He is almost forgotten at this point, but should be remembered as one of the truly great figures of New York City, a place that is largely remembered for its robber barons and financial moguls who ruthlessly lived in great palaces and neglected everyone around them – if they didn’t actually impose poverty on many. Fr. Drumgoole and Reverend Charles Brace should be well-remembered in New York City as people who brought some charity and love into this great city. The work founded by Fr. Drumgoole still continues at 6581 Highland Blvd., Mount Loretto, Staten Island. It is a special medical and residential treatment center for children with serious problems.
Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR
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