1825 – 1870 (February 24)

Louis Matthew Edge, son of Philip Edge and Mary McGrath, was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1825. His early education was obtained in Ireland after which he joined the Christian Brothers in England. In 1847 he came to the United States and joined the Third Order of Saint Francis at Loretto, Pennsylvania, where he taught in the college for five years. He was vested as a novice at Villanova on January 11, 1852, and was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop John Neumann in the Chapel of the House of the Good Shepherd in Philadelphia, on June 19, 1854.

Father Edge taught mathematics at Villanova and attended Saint Denis in Ardmore, Pa., from 1854 to 1859. From 1859 to 1865 he served at Mechanicville, New York, and enlarged the church at Schaghticoke, also in New York. He labored hard to liquidate a heavy debt which he had inherited there. In 1865 he was appointed rector of Saint Mary's in Lawrence, Massachusetts. There he initiated the present stone church, the cornerstone being laid on August 19, 1866. While in Philadelphia making preparations for raising the cross on the new church he was involved in a carriage accident while on a visit to Father Patrick Moriarty in Chestnut Hill. Afterwards he died at Old Saint Augustine on February 24, 1870.

Father Edge is buried in the Augustinian plot at Saint Mary's Cemetery, Lawrence, Mass.