Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Gross, William Hickley

GROSS, William Hickley, archbishop, b. in Baltimore, Md., 12 June, 1837. After studying in St. Charles college, he entered the novitiate of the Redemptorist order in 1857, and was ordained priest in 1863. After attending wounded soldiers in the hospitals about Annapolis, and preaching to the negroes, he was assigned to missionary duty in various places, but was attached to St. Alphonsus's church in New York city for five years, and then became superior at the church of his order in Boston. He was consecrated bishop of Savannah on 27 April, 1873, and in 1884 he became archbishop of Oregon. Bishop Gross has done much for the education of the freedmen.