George Thomas Montgomery

George Thomas Montgomery (December 30, 1847 – January 10, 1907) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first American-born Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles (1896–1902) and later served as Coadjutor Archbishop of San Francisco from 1902 until his death in 1907.

Early life and education George Montgomery was born on December 30, 1847, on a farm in Daviess County, Kentucky. He was one of nine children of Pius Michael and Harriet Elizabeth (née Warren) Montgomery; his uncle was the journalist Zachariah Montgomery and his cousin, Zachariah's son, was John Joseph Montgomery, a pioneer of aviation George's mother died of typhoid fever when he was ten years old, leaving him to be raised by his Aunt Margaret Montgomery Head.

George Montgomery worked in farming until 1867, when he entered Cecilian College, an all-male boarding school near Elizabethtown, Kentucky. After arriving in San Francisco, Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany.appointed Montgomery as his private secretary. When Patrick William Riordan succeeded Alemany in 1884, he retained Montgomery as secretary and also named him chancellor of the archdiocese.

In San Francisco, Montgomery became known as "one of the foremost temperance advocates that California has ever known." He described alcohol abuse as "not only debauching our young men and women, not only affecting the individual as an individual, but as a citizen—a factor of society." In 1886, he established a local chapter of the League of the Cross, which encouraged young men to abstain from alcohol until they turned 21.

Episcopal career Coadjutor Bishop and Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles

On January 26, 1894, Pope Leo XIII appointed Montgomery as titular bishop of Thmuis and coadjutor bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles to assist Bishop Francisco Mora y Borrell.

When it came to more secular issues, Montgomery believed, "If ever the respective rights and duties of labor and capital are to be even properly defined, it must be upon the principles which religion lays down." During the address, Debs pointed to an American flag over his head and said, "These very stars and stripes, our emblem of liberty, are manufactured in a sweatshop"; when it was Montgomery's turn to speak, the bishop declared, "If that flag was made in a sweatshop, it floats over the freest country on the face of the earth."

Coadjutor Archbishop of San Francisco

On September 17, 1902, Montgomery was appointed coadjutor archbishop of San Francisco, with the right of succession to his former superior Archbishop Riordan, as well as titular archbishop of Axum.

At the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Riordan was away on travel and it was Montgomery who led the archdiocese's immediate response to the disaster and helped extinguish a fire at St. Mary's Cathedral. A few days later, he wrote to his successor in Los Angeles, Thomas James Conaty, to say "I do not know how I have lived through [it]" and to praise the “good humor, the common interest, and forgetfulness of self that are everywhere."

Death Montgomery died suddenly from complications from appendicitis and diabetes in San Francisco on January 10, 1907. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California.