FENWICH, EDWARD. - American Dominican, “apostle of Ohio” and first bishop of Cincinnati. Born at St. Mary’s, Maryland, on 18 Aug. 1768; entered religious life in 1788 and was ordained priest in 1793. In 1805 he founded in Kentucky the Dominican province of St. Joseph, of which he was the first superior. On 13 Jan. 1822 he was consecrated bishop of Cincinnati. During his decade as bishop he continued his missionary journeys through the states of Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio. He founded the periodical The Catholic Telegraph (1831). He died of cholera at Wooster, Ohio, on 26 Sept. 1832, while on a pastoral visitation.
BIBL.: anon. Notes et documents pour servir à l'histoire de l'ordre des Frères Prêcheurs dans les Etats-Unis d'Amérique, in Analecta S. Ord. FF. Praed., 4 (1890-1900), pp. 86-108, 427-46; V. F. O'Daniel, The Right Rev. Edward Dominic F. O. P., Washington 1920; A. Menance, Les Obispos de la Ordea dominicana en America, Einsiedeln 1939, p. 156.