Belmont Abbey Founders Day 2026
By Brother Bede Mckeon
Happy Founder’s Day 2026! We invite you today to join us in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of Belmont Abbey and Belmont Abbey College.
It was on this day in 1876 when Father Herman Wolfe made the long journey from Saint Vincent’s Arch-abbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania to found a monastery and educational institution on the old Caldwell Plantation in what was then Garibaldi, North Carolina; the town would later be renamed Belmont at the behest of Haid and the monks. Wolfe was accompanied by two boys who would be the first students of the nascent school, Harry Plageman and Anthony Lauman. Four days later four lay brothers followed from Pennsylvania to help with the farm work. The place was primitive, but Father Wolfe and the first few to accompany him worked diligently.
A pivotal event then occurred in 1885 when the Chapter at Saint Vincent’s elected Leo Haid abbot of the new monastery. Upon his arrival, the prospect of success still seemed dim. Haid, his loyal and indispensable prior Father Felix Hintemeyer and the first monks, however, dedicated themselves to building the monastery and college industriously, laying the physical, intellectual and spiritual foundations upon which Belmont Abbey and Belmont Abbey College stand to this day.
Early on, Haid recognized the promise of his institutions, which has been immortalized in the “Crescat” story. The story is preserved for us eloquently in Father Pascal Baumstein’s biography of Leo Haid, My Lord of Belmont. He writes:
In his first month at the abbey, Haid happened upon a brother about to fell a cedar near the front entrance of the chapel. The abbot stopped the effort with the Latin command, “crescat,” which means, “let it grow” …. The image of the tree was [soon] impaled in 1885 in the abbot’s and the abbey’s first escutcheon, and “crescat” was designated Maryhelp’s motto (71).
The longevity of our monastery and college illuminate the Benedictine vow of stability. Our institutional and spiritual growth over the years is additionally a testament to the Benedictine vow of conversatio morum, a constant turning to God. For it is the Benedictine commitment to our sacred motto, that God be glorified in all things, that has sustained us for a century and a half.
So today let pray in thanksgiving for all of God’s blessings through Jesus Christ and Mary Help of Christians for granting us 150 years of forming hearts and minds in the name of Our Lord, so that in all things God may be glorified. May God continue to grant us many blessings for the years to come.
