Browse Items (254 total)

"Foreseeing the need for a much larger church, Father Kortenkamp worked with his assistant, Father Joseph Brinkmann, to plan and construct the present Gothic style church with twin spires towering over 200 feet, until recent years the largest church…

"Father John M. Molloy was appointed pastor of the Belmont and Ryan parishes in January 1909. Later that year he moved the Belmont rectory to the town of Ryan. Since the Belmont church was a truly rural church, it was easy for Father Molloy to close…

"Saint John Parish at Delhi in Delaware County received its first resident pastor in 1872, but the next pastor moved the residence to Manchester in 1875. Delhi was a mission of Manchester for seventy years, when a resident pastor was appointed in…

"Only four Catholic families were living in the town of Earlville in eastern Delaware County, when Saint Joseph Church was built in 1886. The project was sponsored mainly by townspeople who were not Catholic. They thought another church in the…

"A Catholic church of their own was only a dream for the Edgewood Catholics until 1916. Some were members of the Greeley parish to the south; others were members of the Littleport parish to the northeast. But all attended Mass in Cox Creek, Garber,…

“The first Catholics of the area came in the 1850s. From the family names we know they are mostly Irish. Although a church was built in Nevada in 1870, it was 1881 when the church was built in Colo. They were under Father Patrick Smith’s direction at…

“The first church in Dorchester parish in Allamakee County was completed in 1855 under the direction of Father William Jacoby of Lansing. Irish pioneers were the first to settle in the Dorchester area. In 1854 the Theodore Scwhartzhoff family were…

“Eight men organized Eagle Township in Black Hawk County in 1858. At least three of them are buried in the Eagle Center parish cemetery. A majority of the first settlers were Catholic. The first church was built on five acres of high ground, but…

“Bishop Mathias Loras purchased a site in 1854 for the first church in Colesburg in northeastern Delaware County. Before that time, visiting priests celebrated Mass in various homes for the Irish settlers, who came into the area as early as the…

"Bishop Clement Smyth directed Father Richard Nagle to acquire land within the town of Clermont, and a frame church was dedicated by the bishop in the fall of 1860. It was named for the patron saint of Peter Cummings who donated the land. Father John…