Father Leo Rizzo da Saracena, O.F.M. (1833-1897), Civil War Chaplain

 The Very Rev. Leo de Saracena.
The New York Times, November 5, 1897

A dispatch from Winsted, Conn., announces the death there on Wednesday evening of the Very Rev. Leo de Saracena, rector of St. Joseph’s Church in Winsted, and one of the oldest members of the Franciscan Order in the country. Death was caused by apoplexy. He was born in Italy in 1833, and entered the Franciscan Order in 1848. He was ordained a priest in 1856, and four years later he came to the United States. He was Chaplain to one of the Connecticut regiments during the Civil War, and in 1864 he was made Pastor and Superior of the Franciscan Monastery in Winsted. From 1877 to 1880 he was Provincial of the Immaculate Conception of the Province, which includes the dioceses of New York, Buffalo, Allegany, Boston, and Connecticut. He held the office of confessor in the Hartford Diocese for many years, and attended as confessor the late Bishops McFarland, Hendricken, Galbiney, and McMahon. Father Leo was a man of scholarly attainments. He was much sought after for advice, and and had numerous friends among Protestants as well as Catholics.

NOTE
Father Saracena was a Chaplain with the Ninth Connecticut Infantry, and served as President of St. Bonaventure University in Olean, New York.