St. Anselm, Manchester, NH
Already in July 1886, the first bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire, Dennis Bradley, had communicated to Abbot James Zilliox his ardent desire to have a college in his diocese under the care of the Benedictines. As an inducement, he was also eager to offer an area of the city with a German population for the establishment of a parish by the Benedictines. This would be the base from which the further object of the college could be advanced. Due to Abbot James’ illness and short tenure in office, nothing was done.
Immediately upon the election of Abbot Hilary, and before he had even moved from St. Vincent to Newark, Bishop Bradley made his appeal again on 7 February 1887 through an intermediary. Abbot Hilary responded on 11 February 1887 that he was “not only willing but anxious to accept the bishop of Manchester’s kind offer of a place in his diocese.” He would, however, have to survey the situation in Newark and consult with the Chapter. At this moment the Abbey still owned the farm in Denville, New Jersey. In May 1887, Archabbot Boniface sounded a note of caution: to Abbot Hilary, “…I beg leave to remark that it might be a little premature; since you have so few priests…your day school there [in Newark] must be your main care…” The initial reaction of most of the monks in Newark echoed this opinion.Stretched thin though the abbey was, the Chapter ultimately accepted the invitation, perhaps encouraged by the large number of candidates entering the monastery. Moreover, the prospect of a college offered scope for the endeavors of monks who had earned doctorates and a location for a house of higher education and theological studies for its young religious. Records in the St. Mary’s Abbey Archives, however, don’t indicate any motive other than the care of souls and a response to the Bishop’s desire for a college. The Manchester foundation did indeed provide St. Mary’s with a college and school of theology but as the years passed and St. Anslem grew, it attracted many New England men whose vocations had, quite naturally, no relationship to the distant abbey in Newark.
In any case, on 16 May 1887, Abbot Hilary was able to inform the bishop that the Chapter had accepted the offer of land for a parish church and school. At the same time the abbot requested the bishop’s assistance in obtaining “a square, or rather two, of land” for the prospective college. Pfraengle mentioned that Archabbot Boniface was not much in favor of the project due to the limited personnel and financial means available to the Newark abbey but Pfraengle offered to send two priests in the fall or the following spring. In fact, in February 1888 he sent Fr. Sylvester Joerg to establish the parish. The first stone was laid by Bishop Bradley on 21 August 1888 for a combination church, school and residence to be known as St. Raphael’s.
On 1 July 1890, the Chapter voted to purchase for $5,000 a farm of about one hundred acres close to the city of Manchester to be the site of the future college and in August 1888 the Order of St. Benedict of New Hampshire was incorporated. A letter from the bishop in early 1889 urges the abbot not to wait until he can “begin the college in a grand scale” and he anticipates “some difficulty in preventing the Canadians from making a move in the direction of a college in the event of a delay.” Manchester was home to a considerable French speaking population as well as to the German faction. Bradley even suggested to Pfraengle in an early 1890 letter that he attempt to secure some French speaking Benedictines while abroad. Indeed the bishop deemed it essential for the prosperity of the Benedictines in New England that there be "no small number of fathers whose mother tongue is French."
For the naming of the future St. Anselm College, it appears that the founders were determined to select an English saint, perhaps to avoid any appearance of it being a German school. Abbot Hilary wanted it to be named for St. Bede, but by this time that name had already been taken by a monastery in Illinois, so St. Anselm was an appropriate choice. Although the Italian-born abbot of Bec in Normandy was only English by virtue of having being named Archbishop of Canterbury, he was a genuine doctor of the church and so a most worthy patron for a Catholic college, and neither German nor French.
Fr. Hugo Paff, at the time director of St. Benedict’s College in Newark, was sent in October 1890 to superintend the construction of the college building. On 8 January 1891 the Chapter in Newark, by vote of nine to three, approved the expenditure of $60,000 for the building of the new college near Manchester. The building was all but complete when on the night of 18 February 1892 the Saint Anslem College building was destroyed by fire.
With remarkable courage, Abbot Hilary and the community summoned the energy to salvage hope from the ruins. A new structure was quickly begun on the foundation of the old and on 6 September 1893 St. Anselm College opened its doors to the first twenty-four students. Their numbers increased to one-hundred and two by the end of the first year. The first faculty was composed of seven priests and three clerics, all sent from Newark. Fr. Hugo Paff, the first director and superior was followed by Fr. Sylvester Joerg for one year 1896-1897 (a tale for another place.) For the next quarter century young scholastics and monks of St. Mary’s Abbey completed their education at St. Anselm’s and spoke of their annual migration to Manchester.
Great difficulties beset St. Anselm in the early years. A letter from Abbot Hilary to Bishop Bradley spells out the dire financial situation and expresses a fear of being compelled to close the college or sell it to the Christian Brothers. Bradley responds in a more sanguine tone, however, and makes suggestions for the financial future of the institution. Manchester became the preoccupation of Abbot Hilary who, in fact, was obliged at one point to assume the directorship himself and to reside for a period of five years in Manchester, absent from his abbey in Newark. Despite the criticism this aroused, Abbot Hilary made clear his determination that the New England venture would not fail. His return to Newark only came at the behest of the president of the Congregation, Abbot Leo Haid of Belmont.
The Art Department was one feature of St. Anselm that brought it fame in the early days. Father Bonaventure Ostendarp left his artistic mark in many churches in New England, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey until he died in 1912. Father Raphael Pfisterer followed in his artistic footsteps until his death in 1942, after St. Anselm had become an independent abbey. The tradition of art, however, lived on at St. Mary’s Abbey through the work of Fathers Norbert Hink, Luke Mooseburger and others.