Thomas O'Neill: Merchant and Benefactor

This entire Cathedral plant is the gift of an individual man, a circumstance which is most likely unique in the venerable and colorful history of cathedral building.

The donor, Mr. Thomas O'Neill, was one of eight children born to John and Anne Lynch O'Neill of County Cavan, in north central Ireland. This county, incidentally, borders on County Langford where the Lords Baltimore, proprietors of Maryland, had their estate. The Gaelic word "Baltimore," which can be translated "the place of the great house," was used to describe part of the Irish property granted by King James II to George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore. As such, it has no link with the small village of Baltimore in southwest Ireland. Through Mr. O'Neill, however, Maryland's Baltimore has fittingly become "the place of the great house" -- of God!

To the Maryland city named after the Lords Baltimore, the O'Neills came in 1866, equipped with little more than courage. That was the year when George Peabody attended the dedication of the Institute and Conservatory of Music which were his splendid gift to Baltimore. Peabody was the first of four 19th century merchant princes who became outstanding benefactors of the cultural wealth of Baltimore. No one had any idea, in 1866, that the sixteen-year-old Thomas O'Neill would one day become a multimillionaire merchant who, by his bequest of a cathedral and a hospital, would join the ranks of this George Peabody; and of Johns Hopkins, who gave the city a university and a hospital; Enoch Pratt, who endowed it with a free public library; and William Walters, who began the fabulous art collection that was eventually left to the city by his son.

According to his gravestone in the New Cathedral Cemetery in southwest Baltimore, Thomas O'Neill was born on November 11, 1849, almost 110 years, to the day, before the dedication of his cathedral. When a young man, while one of his sisters became a a Sister of Charity, he set forth to follow in his father's footsteps as a merchant. Thomas hired himself out as an apprentice in a linen shop in downtown Baltimore.

At the age of 33, he went into a brief partnership to establish his own dry goods store. It's twenty-foot front was located at Charles and Lexington Streets. Buying out his partner, Mr. O'Neill was soon in full command of his promising enterprise. His fortunes grew as his store eventually absorbed three adjacent buildings, provided a livelihood for near half-a-thousand employees, and expanded to branches in Dublin, London, and Paris. In addition to his talents as a merchant, it is noteworthy that Mr. O'Neill also exercised astute judgment in the purchase of real estate in Baltimore.

All of this accomplishment was threatened by the devastating Baltimore fire of February 7, 1904. This famous disaster wiped out 1,343 buildings in a 75-block are as it roared directly toward O'Neill's store.

Miraculously, just as the flames began licking the south wall, the wind shifted and sent the holocaust eastward and his store escaped destruction. This gave rise to a number of colorful stories about how Mr. O'Neill refused to allow his building to be blown up, and how he raced off to a Carmelite convent to enlist the prayers of the Sisters. Whether or not this legend is true, the existence of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen is certainly connected to the path that the fire took.

Mr. O'Neill had married Roberta C. LeBrou, of Baltimore, in the city's Church of the Immaculate Conception, in June of 1890. Their home, which was not blessed with children, was located in Corpus Christi Parish, at 1731 Park Avenue. Some hours after attending Mass there on Passion Sunday, April 6, 1919, he suffered a stroke and died that evening. On Wednesday during Holy Week, he was buried from his parish church.

His will, as probated on April 11, 1919, proved to be "remarkable." According to a Sunpaper editorial, in the April 12, 1919 issue, his will "crowns his life with peculiar distinction." An annual dividend was to be paid to his wife, brother and four sisters. He further gave his employees the opportunity to become stockholders and joint owners of his business, with each worker who had two or more years of service gaining a sizable bonus. These arrangements were to take effect immediately.

The rest of his bequeath would become available only after his wife passed on. She lived many years as a widow and died at their home in August, 1936. Upon her death and the payment of a grant to Loyola College, two thirds of his estate was to become available for the building of a new cathedral in Baltimore, while the remainder was to be devoted to the construction of a hospital.

O'Neill's gift of a cathedral as bequeathed in his will:

... All the balance of my estate (including, after the death of my said sisters and brothers, the sum so as aforesaid put aside by my trustees to pay the annuities above mentioned) unto Most Reverend James Gibbons, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore for the time being, and his successors in the Archiepiscopal See of Baltimore, according to the discipline and government of the Roman Catholic Church, a Corporation Sole, as a nucleus for, and for the erecting of, a Cathedral Church in the City of Baltimore.... In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal, and placing my signature on the margin of the four pages hereof this 10th day Of July A.D. 1912. THOMAS O'NEILL

Why should he want a new cathedral to be built? - more