George Deshon
Encyclopedia
Life
He was a graduate (1843) of the United States Military AcademyUnited States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
at West Point, where he was a classmate and roommate of General U. S. Grant. His standing in class was high (second) and he afterwards taught mathematics and ethics at the Academy.
Deshon was promoted to the rank of captain, but resigned his commission, was received into the Catholic Church in 1851, and soon after became a novice in the Redemptorist Order. He was ordained priest in 1855 and became associated with Fathers Isaac Hecker
Isaac Hecker
Isaac Thomas Hecker was an American Roman Catholic Priest and founder of the Paulist Fathers, the North American religious society of men; he is named a Servant of God by the Catholic Church....
, Clarence Walworth, Augustine Hewit, and Francis A. Baker, all regularly employed in missionary work. With them he obtained in 1858 a dispensation from his vows as a Redemptorist, and assisted in the formation of a new Society of Apostolic Life
Society of Apostolic Life
A society of apostolic life is a group of men or women within the Catholic Church who have come together for a specific purpose. Unlike members of an institute of consecrated life , members of apostolic societies do not make religious vows...
called the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle; the first house and church of the society were built in New York in 1859.
He remained in this house during the rest of this life, being novice-master for several years, and afterwards assistant superior and in charge generally of the temporal interests of the community, which owed much to his business ability. He also superintended throughout the building of the church of St. Paul the Apostle, in which his skill and knowledge as an engineer, acquired at West Point, were of service.
Father Deshon spent a considerable part of his time on the missions. A volume of his parochial sermons was issued in 1901. He published in 1860 a book entitled "Guide for Catholic Young Women".
Father Deshon was elected superior general of the Paulist Institute in 1897. At that time houses had been founded in San Francisco, and at Winchester, Tennessee
Winchester, Tennessee
Winchester is a city in and the county seat of Franklin County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Tullahoma, Tennessee Micropolitan Statistical Area.- History :...
. The last important act of his life was the founding of the Paulist house in Chicago, for which he arranged with Archbishop Quigley in the fall of 1903.