James Fitton (priest)

[1] His primary education was received in the schools of his native city, and his classical course was made at Claremont, New Hampshire, at an academy conducted by Virgil Horace Barber, a Catholic convert.

He subsequently labored among the scattered Roman Catholics of New Hampshire and Vermont, and soon the territory between Boston and Long Island was placed under his charge, with Hartford, Connecticut, as the center of his district.

[3] He traveled, often on foot, from Eastport and the New Brunswick line on the northeast, to Burlington and Lake Champlain on the northwest; from Boston in the east, to Great Barrington and the Berkshire Hills in the west; from Providence, Rhode Island and Newport, Rhode Island in the southeast, to Bridgeport and the New York State line in the southwest.

This was also the same year that the Penobscot Indians began making annual visits to St. John’s Parish, camping on Vernon Hill before returning to Maine.

[4] In 1840, while pastor of the church at Worcester, he purchased the site of the College of the Holy Cross, and erected a boarding school for the advanced education of Catholic young men.