John Timon was of American birth but Irish parentage. His father, James, emigrated from the county Cavan in the latter part of 1796 or the beginning of 1797, and settled at Conewago,[8] in Adams County, Pennsylvania, where, in a rude log-house, the subject of this biography was born on the 12th of February, 1797, the second of a family of ten children. The father and mother seem to have been remarkably devout people, and from an anecdote related by Mr. Deuther we can fancy that the lavish beneficence which characterized the bishop was an hereditary virtue in the family. Mr. James Timon called, one day, upon a priest whom he had known in Ireland, and, taking it for granted that the reverend gentleman must be in want of money, he slipped into his hand at parting a $100 bill, and hurried away. The priest, supposing Mr. Timon had made a mistake, ran after him, and overtook him in the street. "My dear friend," said the generous Irishman, "it was no mistake. I intended it for you." "But," said the clergyman, "I assure you I am not in want; I do not need it." "Never mind; there are many who do. If you have no use for the money yourself, give it to the poor." The Timon family removed to Baltimore in 1802, and there John received his school education, such as it was. As soon as he was old enough, he became a clerk in a dry-goods shop kept by his father; and Mr. Deuther prints a very foolish story to the effect that he was so much liked by everybody that by the time he was nineteen "he had become a toast for all aged mothers with marriageable daughters," and had refused "many eligible and grand offers of marriage," which we take the liberty of doubting. From Baltimore the family removed, in 1818, to Louisville, and thence in the following spring to St. Louis. Here prosperity at last rewarded Mr. Timon's industry, and he accumulated a considerable fortune, only to lose it, however, in the commercial crisis of 1823. In the midst of these pecuniary misfortunes, John Timon suffered a still heavier loss in the death of a young lady to whom he was engaged to be married. Mr. Deuther's apology for mentioning this incident--which he strangely characterizes as an "undeveloped frivolity" in the life of a bishop of the church--is entirely superfluous; he would have been a faithless biographer if he had not mentioned it. We may look upon it as a manifestation of the kindness of divine Providence, which called the young man to a higher and more useful life, and designed first to break off his attachment to all the things of this world. He heard and obeyed the call, and, in the month of April, 1823, became a student of the Lazarists at their preparatory seminary of St. Mary's of the Barrens, in Perry County, Missouri, about eighty miles below St. Louis.