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"Father John Nemmers, their Gilbertville pastor, celebrated the first Mass in the new church in the summer of 1906. It was probably on July 4, as the first recorded baptism took place after Mass on that date. The church was probably named and…

"Father F. Kenny was pastor of Sabula and caring for the Preston Catholics, when Bishop John J. Hennessy appointed him resident pastor of Preston and in charge of the Sabula parish as well. He was the first to celebrate Mass in the area, first in the…

"The 1850s brought to Iowa some priests willing to ride from one settlement to another to provide pastoral care for the Catholic pioneers. Among them was a Czech Redemptorist missionary, Father Francis Kroutil, who spent himself visiting the…

"In 1874 Bishop John Hennessy granted the Vernon and Center Township Catholics permission to build a church and appointed Peter Erschens and Nicholas Mayer to organize the people. During the construction Father Bernard W. Coyle of Saint Anthony’s in…

"Before the early settlers built their first church, Father James Harding from Cresco began to visit Ossian in 1858 and celebrated Mass in the railroad depot or the John Collins home. Before that it was not uncommon for the Catholic pioneers to walk…

"Saint Catherine Parish, about eight miles south of Dubuque, bean in 1851 with the building of a log church on land donated by two settlers, Anthoy Noel and Hubert Rider. Before that, Mass was celebrated occasionally in the home of John Noel, three…

"The French and Irish settlers who arrived in that part of the county before 1870 were visited by priests from Prairie du Chien who crossed the Mississippi into Iowa and used the military road. In the late 1860s the Catholic pioneers in Postville…

"The building of a limestone church in the northeastern corner of Delaware County in 1868 marked the beginning of the parish dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Father Jon Weikmann of New Vienna assisted a committee of eight men to plan the…

"The first Catholic settlers came in the 1860s. The Irish attended Saint James Church at Toronto in Clinton County, which had a resident priest. The Bohemians went to Holy Trinity Church in Baldwin, where a visiting Bohemian priest celebrated Mass…

"The first Catholic church at Osage was a house which Father James Gilchrist bought on the corner of Third and State Streets. When Father E. W. Fowler came to care for the several parishes in 1885, the parish built a brick church on the block known…