1867 – 1914 (September 28)

Martin John Geraghty, the son of Dennis Geraghty and Margaret Power, was born in Carthage, New York, on November 11, 1867. He entered the novitiate at Villanova, Pennsylvania, on August 28, 1885, and professed simple vows on August 29, 1886. He was solemnly professed on August 31, 1889 and was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Patrick Ryan on May 31, 1890, in the cathedral of Philadelphia.

After ordination, Father Geraghty served at Chestnut Hill, Pa. In 1894, he was assigned to preach parish missions, and two years later was named its rector of what came to be known as the Province Mission Band. For a time, he served as Master of Novices and of Professed student friars, and was a definitor of the Province. He was also an assistant pastor at Our Mother of Consolation Parish Chestnut Hill and Saint Thomas of Villanova Parish, Villanova.

Father Geraghty was elected Prior Provincial in July, 1902, and was re-elected in June, 1906, and again in 1910. During his terms in this office, he opened Belle Air, at one time the monastery, to the postulants of the Province. He opened the Chicago missions and accepted the mission of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine in the Bronx, N.Y., in September 1905. In 1910 he celebrated the Solemn Mass at the dedication of the new Church in Greenwich, N.Y., and in April, 1912, as Commissary General of the Italian Augustinian Mission in Philadelphia, blessed the new chapel of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine in South Philadelphia. On September 18, 1912, he laid the cornerstone of Corr Hall, the Province’s formation house at Villanova.

Father Geraghty was 47 when he died at 9:00 PM on September 28, 1914 at Chestnut Hill, of Bright’s disease, just three months after the completion of his third provincial term. Bishop William Jones, O.S.A. celebrated the Funeral Mass on Thursday, October 1, 1914, at Our Mother of Consolation Church, Chestnut Hill. Archbishop Edmond Prendergast gave the final absolution. Burial followed at Villanova in the Community Cemetery. Father Geraghty was survived by his mother, who passed away three months later in Carthage, New York.