Holy Roller

PHOTOGRAPH BY GRANT MOXLEY

St. Peter in Chains Cathedral has enough Catholic artifacts to be a museum. One of the most storied pieces in its collection is the fully restored carriage of Archbishop John Purcell. It dates back to a time when German and Irish Catholic immigrants were arriving in Cincinnati in droves, putting their money into Protestant-owned banks. Local Catholics called for a bank of their own, and Archbishop Purcell answered that prayer, allowing his brother (also a priest) to open a bank that found quick success. Purcell’s brother did what most bankers did at the time—he invested the money in real estate. So when a financial panic set in during the 1870s, things turned sour. “Everybody [wanted] their money,” says Rev. Jan Schmidt, director of pastoral vitality at the cathedral. “But most banks don’t keep all the money in the bank. They invest it. And of course, they couldn’t get to it.” The crisis sent Purcell into exile in Brown County, where he lived in the Ursulines of Brown County’s convent for the last three years of his life. Rediscovered in a barn near the convent in the early 1970s, the coach was disassembled, refurbished, and carefully moved into the cathedral as part of the state’s bicentennial celebration.