By Stephen EnzweilerSpecial to NKyTribune
On April 8, 1890, James Walsh, Sr. died suddenly from a fatal stroke at his residence in Washington, D.C. An immigrant from Ireland, Walsh had lived in Covington and Newport since 1848, entering the employ of a distillery business and rising to become a partner in 1867. Owner of the James Walsh & Company Distillery, he was a wealthy citizen and philanthropist, a supporter of Catholic charities and institutions across Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, and a lifelong parishioner of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Covington. At the time of his death, he was one of the wealthiest men in America. In his Last Will and Testament, he left bequests in large amounts to ten Catholic beneficiaries, including “the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars” to the Rt. Rev. Camillus Paul Maes, “for use and benefit of a new St. Mary’s Cathedral at Covington.”
The $25,000 for the new cathedral was the largest of Walsh’s bequests, and within days all the newspapers across the region carried the many details of his generosity. His example occasioned others to make their own donations to Bishop Maes for the new Cathedral fund. Throughout that year, the money steadily came in, and by November, according to the “Catholic Telegraph,” “the total of the bequests amounted to $90,000.” With the cathedral parish itself having already agreed to pay $75,000 of the cost from their own pockets, it brought the total available means for construction of a new cathedral to $165,000, which was more than the roughly $150,000 the bishop thought it might cost.
For five years, Bishop Maes had been praying for a solution to his new cathedral problem. There were many dark days when he felt that he would never be able to afford such a house of worship as was his wish, and with each passing year, the cost of building materials and labor increased. Sometimes it seemed a new cathedral might never be built…