ing, August 16, 1868. Bishop Gibbons took charge of his vicariate November 1, 1868. The entire state with an area of 52,250 square miles had at the time three Roman Catholic churches ministered to by two priests; and the total Roman Catholic population scattered from the mountains in the West to the seaboard in the East was less than one thousand. Bishop Gibbons first opened a school which he personally conducted. He built six churches and instructed and ordained a number of priests. In order to prepare for a more thorough education of the people and especially to supply the growing want for teachers and priests, he induced the Benedictine order to establish a community in the vicariate; and the movement resulted in the erection of Mary Help Abbey at Belmont, Gaston county. He also built a school-house for whites and one for negroes at Wilmington; and placed the schools in charge of the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters subsequently erected the Sacred Heart Convent at Belmont. Bishop Gibbons made the personal acquaintance of every adult Roman Catholic in the state, meeting them at their homes in all parts of the state and exercising a pastoral care over ever}^ household, neglecting none. Four years of this unceasing labor began to bear fruit, and on July 30, 1872, he was translated to the diocese of Richmond, Virginia, as successor to the Right Reverend John McGill who had died January 14, 1872. He was installed as bishop of Richmond by Archbishop Bayley, October 20, 1872. In Richmond he erected five churches, St. Peter's academy, which he placed in charge of the Xaverian Brothers, and St. Sophia's Home for Old People, which was cared for by the Little Sisters of the Poor. He also erected parochial schools in Petersburg and Portsmouth, Virginia; and St. Joseph Female Orphan Asylum in Richmond becoming overcrowded, he enlarged the building. In recognition of this work Archbishop Bayley feeling the approaching end of his labors on earth to be near at hand, asked Leo IX. to make Bishop Gibbons his coadjutor with right of succession; and on May 20, 1877, he was nominated and on July 29, 1877, he was made titular bishop of Jinopohs, with right of succession to the primatial See of Baltimore. By virtue of this nomination and the death of Archbishop Bayley, October 3, 1877, Bishop Gibbons became Archbishop of Baltimore at the age of forty-three years. He was in this way elevated from the bishopric of Richmond to the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the Roman Catholic church in the United States.
