Near midnight, on Saturday evening, October 14, 1854, a mob of one hundred men in the small shipbuilding town of Ellsworth, Maine, attacked Fr. John Bapst, a Jesuit priest. Bapst had stopped in Ellsworth, hearing confessions for much of the day, en route to a sick call in a nearby town. Carrying lanterns and torches, the members of the mob surrounded the modest home of a Mr. Kent, an Irish immigrant, where Bapst was known to be staying. Kent at first denied that Bapst was inside. “We know he is, and we must have him,” yelled the mob.