Fenwick (Benedict J.) is born in Maryland.

Benedict Fenwick graduates from Georgetown College and is ordained a Jesuit priest in 1808.* After serving in New York, South Carolina, and as president of Georgetown College, he comes to Boston in 1825 to succeed Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus as bishop of Boston. Installed on November 1, 1825, Fenwick presides over a period of dramatic growth for the Catholic Church in Boston, much of it the result of the large numbers of Irish immigrants arriving in Massachusetts. He dies in Boston on August 11, 1846.