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Scanlan was neither elated nor discouraged; he was ready to work for the one purpose which had brought him to Utah, the growth of the Catholic Church. Early in his career in the stronghold of Mormonism, the young priest (he had just turned thirty) seems to have d e termined a course of action toward the Latter-day Saints from which he rarely varied in all the subsequent years. He would live among them on terms of cordiality, avoiding intimacy on the one hand, and antagonism on the other. Among his predecessors, Father Kelly seems to have shared some of the Gentile bitterness toward Brigham Young and his followers, 43 and accasionally, as time went on, Scanlan detected a like tendency on the part of several of his associates in the Utah priesthood. 44 He never encouraged it. He took no part in the anti-Mormon crusade, though there was never any doubt as to his stand on the issue of polygamy. He came to Utah too late to know Brigham Young in the latter's prime, but years later, at the unveiling of the famous monument to the great colonizer and leader, he referred with no little feeling to Young's personal benevolence toward him and his fellow Catholics in the days when the Church was struggling to obtain a footing in Utah. 45 The first two years of Scanlan's ministry in his enormous parish were devoted to the development of mission stations scattered over the area. Unable to cope with the situation alone, he was supplied with an assistant priest. Father Lawrence Breslin, and turn by turn the pair visited the mining camps where Catholics were employed. A fairly regular circuit was evolved, bringing one or the other to Park City, Bingham Canyon, Mercur, Stockton, and Ophir at least once a month, while Mass was provided every Sunday at the parent church in Salt Lake City. Breslin remained on the Utah mission until September, 1874, when he was replaced by Father Denis Kiely.46 A native of Waterford, Ireland, where he was born in 1849, Kiely's preparation for the priesthood closely followed the pattern of his new superior. Coming to Utah little more than a year after "Walsh, op. erf., 205, quoting Bishop Eugene O'Connell. "Daily Tribune, April 27, 1876; also April 18, 22, 1880. "Salt Lake Tribune, July 21, 1897; reprint, July 24, 1947. "Baptismal and Marriage Records, Cathedral of die Madeleine, Salt Lake City.
