BY ERICH MESLIN
As one walks through Stonehill’s 384-acre campus, one may wonder what’s behind the brick wall with the white gate.
Today, the wall protects well over 160 grave sites of Catholic clergy that have served the Congregation of Holy Cross.
The history of this wall dates back well over 100 years to the original Ames family estate.
Frederick Lothrop Ames commissioned the structure to be built in 1905, after the construction of the “Stone House Hill House,” which is known as Donohue today.
The original brick wall was apart of a conservatory and rose garden constructed by the Ames family.
The original structure had many roses lining the interior path leading to the conservatory.
The wall garnered trellises on top and had roses on the exterior.
The Congregation of Holy Cross would go on to buy the Ames estate and turn the grounds into a seminary in 1935.
The rose garden was turned into a vegetable garden to feed members studying at the seminary.
By 1950, it was commissioned to be a cemetery and was renamed the Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers cemetery.
Father Anthony Szakaly C.S.C is the director of campus ministry, alumni chaplain, and over sees the Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers Cemetery on Stonehill’s campus.
Stonehill does not own the cemetery property, but the Congregation of Holy Cross does, according to Szakaly.
About 2 to 3 burials are held on campus every year, he said.
There are over 160 headstones located in the cemetery, about 20 are just memorial stones placed in honor of an individual, he said.
The others are traditional marked graves that honor men that have served in the Congregation of Holy Cross.
The only exception is that of an infant of a former employee.
Many of the men buried on the site have served in one of the United States military branches.
Many buildings on Stonehill’s campus are named after priests buried including Father Francis J. Boland, who served as a U.S Navy Chaplain in World War II.
Father Patrick Peyton, known as the rosary priest, is also buried within the brick walls.
Peyton was a champion of family prayer and popularized the saying, “The family that prays together, stays together.”
Peyton was a pioneer of evangelism using mass media by using radio, films, and television to spread the faith.
“The rosary is the offensive weapon that will destroy communism—the great evil that seeks to destroy the faith,” Father Patrick Peyton said on a 1946 radio broadcast.
Peyton was remembered best for his rosary rallies that attracted millions of people all around the world and his message of peace during the Cold War.
These rallies, known as the rosary crusades, took Father Peyton around the globe to Belgium, Spain, the Philippines, Peru, Brazil, Papa New Guinea, New Zealand, and Ireland.
Father Patrick Peyton died peacefully on June 3, 1992, holding a small rosary in a small room at the Little Sisters of the Poor residence in San Pedro, California.
He was then buried in the Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers cemetery on Stonehill College’s campus.
Father Patrick Peyton was nominated for beautification on June 1, 2001, Pope Francis named him as venerable on December 18, 2017.
The declaration of venerability is the first step in canonization as a saint in the Catholic Church.