During the desperate yellow fever epidemic of 1867, a young German priest, Father Peter Leonard Thevis, associate pastor at Holy Trinity Church, prayed to St. Roch to spare his congregation. St. Roch, who is thought to have survived the plague in the middle ages, is known as the patron saint of plague victims. Father Thevis promised that, if no one in his parish died from the fever, he would erect a shrine in honor of the Saint. Amazingly, not one member of Holy Trinity died from yellow fever (either in the epidemic of 1867 or 1878).
Father Thevis wanted to build not only a shrine to St. Roch, but a mortuary chapel and a cemetery for members of his congregation. The cemetery would be called Campo Santo - literally translated as "holy field" or sometimes "resting place." Father Thevis traveled to Europe to study the architecture of many great shrines before beginning construction. The shrine was designed in the Gothic style and completed in 1876.
People came to the shrine in large numbers to ask St. Roch for help. At one time, on both All Saints Days and on Good Fridays, thousands of people came, seeking help for themselves or for loved ones. Poignant notes are still left in the shrine, requesting St. Roch's intercession.
A small room just off the altar became (and still is today) the repository for a very unusual variety of accoutrements of illness. Grateful visitors have left everything from crutches to artificial limbs to plaster anatomical parts, to represent the healing of their afflictions and their gratitude to St. Roch (photos on right). Nancy |
