The first American Mass for which a record exists took place during the second voyage of Columbus, on the feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 1494, at a temporary shelter that would serve as a church at La Isabela, 30 miles west of what is now Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Five priests accompanied the expedition: Benedictine Father Buil, Jeronymite Father Ramone Pane, and three Franciscan missionary priests. Fr. Buil celebrated the Mass. The settlers built a church on the site, the foundation of which has been excavated (another church building is now at La Isabela). The original settlement was abandoned by 1498 and its settlers moved to the newly established Santo Domingo on the south side of the island.
There is some solid but as yet inconclusive evidence that in that same year of 1498 the first Mass may have been celebrated on the North American continent (apart from the Norse settlements). The second voyage of John Cabot is believed to have reached a harbor in Newfoundland and included a group of reformed Augustinian friars led Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, who established a religious community there, building a church (which they may have named San Giovanni a Carbonara, after a church in Naples) and, of course, offering Mass. The site was at the present-day town of Carbonear on Newfoundland.[1]
The Spanish Came First
It was a myth that led to the discovery of Florida. In the folklore of Europe, there was a story of a magic spring that existed somewhere in the world. It was called the “Fountain of Youth.” According to the legend, anyone who would drink from that spring would be cured of any sickness and would regain his youth.
The legend first circulated through Europe in the twelfth century when a letter attributed to one Prester John (Priest John, probably John of Montecorvino) made mention of it. For centuries the legend lingered on, kept alive more by the desire of men than by any factual probability. Then somehow after the discovery of the New World, the myth of the Fountain of Youth began to be clothed in new rumors.
Indians are supposed to have told of this magic spring, and even given its location as a place called “Bimini,” north of the West Indies. That these rumors reached Spain is certain, because they are mentioned in a book published in 1511. That book even contained a map that showed Bimini as an island.
One man who heard the rumors and was intrigued by them was a Spanish conquistador, Juan Ponce de Leon, a veteran soldier. Ponce de Leon had first come to the New World in the second expedition of Columbus. For a time, he served as governor of what is now Haiti. In 1508 he led that conquered Puerto Rico and for a time was governor of that island, until he was removed by Diego Columbus, son of Christopher and successor to his father. Finding himself “rich and unemployed,” Ponce de Leon outfitted two caravels and went in search of the fabulous Bimini. After sailing around for six months, he finally made landfall (March 27, 1512) on what he believed was an island. Since he had first sighted the land on Easter Sunday, which the Spanish call Pascua Florida (Flowery Easter), he named his supposed island Florida.
Ponce de Leon was not equipped to colonize so he returned to his base and then proceeded to Spain where he sought and gained permission to colonize his new discovery. The king granted him permission; he equipped three ships in Seville and returned to Puerto Rico. Some fighting against the Carib Indians delayed his plans and it was not until 1521 that he sailed from Puerto Rico with his three ships to begin his colony. According to an historian of the times, “he took mares and calves and pigs and sheep and goats and all kinds of animals, domestic and useful in the service of men.”
Ponce de Leon sailed around the peninsula, almost to Tampa Bay. He made his landing somewhere in the vicinity of the present Fort Myers. But the first attempt to colonize Florida was not successful. The Indians were hostile and put up stiff resistance. In one battle, many of his soldiers were killed and Ponce de Leon was wounded in the thigh with an arrow. He ordered a retreat and died in Cuba of his wound. He had not found the mythical Fountain of Youth, and he died thinking Florida was an island; but he is the first Spaniard of record to set foot on what is now United States mainland.[2]
The brief account of the expedition by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, in his Historia general y natural de las Indias suggests that some days elapsed between their landing and the attack, during which time the priests accompanying the expedition tried to preach to the natives and come to terms with them, but to no avail. If the priests were indeed onshore for a few days, as Oviedo suggests, before being driven away, they may well have offered Mass there, at Charlotte Harbor, which would have been the first Mass offered on what would become the continental U.S. But if they did so, it was not noted in the spotty records that remain of the expedition.[3]
Early Catholic Activities
The very first hospital in the New World was founded in 1580 in Mexico and dedicated to St. Martin de Porres, the patron of hospitality to the afflicted and distressed. A Catholic made the first settlement in New England, and a Catholic conducted the first religious services there. The first converts in New England were to the Catholic Faith. The first governor of New York was a Catholic. The initial act of the first legislative assembly in New York was the “Charter of Liberty” granting freedom of worship to all the citizens. Catholic priests conducted the first religious services in Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas and Missouri. The first record of Mass being celebrated in the present limits of the United States is in 1526, in a chapel situated on a spot that seventy-five years later was destined to become the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown.
[1] (http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2014/05/13/americas-first-mass/)
[2] Albert J. Nevins, M.M., Our American Catholic Heritage, (Huntington, ID. Our Sunday Visitor) 1972, pp. 31-32)
[3] (http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2014/05/13/americas-first-mass/)