USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > A history of the Catholic church in the dioceses of Pittsburg and Allegheny from its establishment to the present time > Part 37
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There were none of the older Catholic settlements between Pittsburg and Freeport.
About the year 1852 the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company built extensive works for the manufacture of salt and other alkalies at a point on the west bank of the river twenty-three miles above Pittsburg and five below Freeport. Soon a flourishing village sprung up around the works, which was at first called East Tarentum, and later Natrona, but which is generally known as "The Soda Works." The greater part of the population is Catholic, of whom there are at present perhaps seventy-five families, twenty of whom are German and almost the same number Poles. They have always been, and are yet, attended from Freeport. Mass had never been offered for them in the village until after the ap- pointment of Father Phelan pastor of Freeport, in the autumn of 1858. Seeing that it was difficult for some of them, and impossible for others, to hear Mass regularly, he soon began to visit them on a Sunday and offer an early Mass either in one of their houses or in one of the school-rooms. These visits, at first irregular, soon became of monthly occurrence, and later still more frequent. At length the congregation had so far increased that it became expedient to build a church for their better accommodation, and early in 1868 Father Phelan obtained the donation of a lot from the proprietors of the works for that purpose. But before undertaking the church he was transferred to St. Peter's, Allegheny, and was suc- ceeded, in July of that year by Rev. J. Hackett. In the early part of the following summer he built the church, which was dedicated by the Bishop August 22d, under the invocation of St. Joseph. It is a neat frame structure, built with little expense, and without pretensions to architectural style, and is 50 feet in length by 30 in width, and has one altar.
From that time the Holy Sacrifice was offered up on two Sundays in the month by the pastor of Freeport, who went from one church to the other between the Masses. The con- gregation was gradually increasing. To increase the accom- modations Father Nolan built a gallery in the summer of 1874, and in the following summer made an addition to the rear of the church for the altar and sacristy. But the congregation
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BRADY'S BEND.
keeps pace, and the church is a third time inadequate to its accommodation. A Catholic school was at one time attempt- ed, but it did not succeed. Since the appointment of an as- sistant to the pastor of Freeport, in the summer of 1876, Mass is celebrated every Sunday, and the congregation is now in a more flourishing condition than that of which it is a depend- ency.
ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH, BRADY'S BEND.
The village of Brady's Bend is situated on the west bank of the Allegheny River, at the mouth of Sugar Creek, sixty- eight miles above Pittsburg, and it owes its name to a cele- brated Indian scout, Captain Samuel Brady, after whom the bend in the river was called. Its more recent notoriety is due to the blast-furnaces and rolling-mill till recently in opera- tion there. The furnaces, one mile up the creek from its mouth, were built in 1840, and the rolling-mill, at the mouth of the stream, a year later. For many years it was known as the Great Western Iron Works. Catholics, both English and German, began to settle at the works from the date of their erection; and in 1843 Father Cody, of St. Patrick's, Sugar Creek, offered up the first Mass for them. From that date they were occasionally visited by him and by the German priest from Butler.
In 1846 a small frame church was built. But so opposed were the proprietors of the works to Catholicity that they would not permit it to be erected near their premises; and not only so, but when they learned that the Catholics con- templated the purchase of a lot at a considerable distance, they bought it the better to prevent such a desecration of their sacred precincts. It thus happened that the church was built at Queenstown, a village on the hill a mile north of the furnaces. But the proprietors will yet learn, as many others have learned, that the influence of a priest over the class of people usually employed in public works, even in temporal matters, is valuable enough to be purchased at a considerable cost.
Early in the following year Rev. M. J. Mitchell was trans-
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ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH.
ferred from Butler, and became pastor of Freeport and Brady's Bend, to each of which he gave alternate Sundays. The presence of a pastor inspired new life into the little flock, and the church was soon inadequate to its accommodation. The pastor built a transverse addition to the rear of the church, making it 74 feet in length by 45 in the transept, and dedicated it, under the invocation of the Apostle of Ireland, November 18th, 1849. At that time the German element was strong in the congregation, and before the erection of the German church a priest was accustomed to visit the place occasionally from Butler. In 1851 Father Mitchell was suc- ceeded by Rev. Eugene Gray, who remained until 1856. As time passed the capacity of the works was increased, and the congregation became gradually larger. After the departure of Father Gray the changes of pastors were frequent until September, 1861, when Rev. Thos. Walsh was appointed. The old church was by this time too small for the congre- gation, and although the Germans were formed into a separate congregation, a new church was necessary. But a greater change had come over the proprietors of the works than over the congregation. So well had they taken to heart the lessons of experience that they donated a lot of ground near the furnaces as the site of the new building, besides aid- ing in other ways towards its erection. The corner-stone was laid by the Bishop June 19th, 1864, and the church was dedi- cated by the same prelate July 29th, 1866. The building, which is modelled after the Gothic style of architecture, is frame, 90 feet in length by 45 in width, and has three altars. The finish is chaste and simple.
Not long after the completion of the church the proprietors of the works also built a commodious frame house, which with a large lot they have since given rent free to the pastor for a residence. The congregation continued to increase until the time of the panic, when it was the largest and most flour- ishing in the county. In the summer of 1871 the church was neatly frescoed, and a steeple was built in the centre in front, which greatly improved its appearance. But the prostration of business consequent on the panic, which caused the works to cease operation, forced many of the people to seek employ-
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GERMAN CHURCH, BRADY'S BEND.
ment elsewhere. The works have not yet resumed and it is probable they never will, as the machinery, etc., is old and of the old style, and putting it in working order would be equiv- alent to erecting new works. But the discovery of oil in the immediate vicinity gave a transient stimulus to business. Father Walsh was succeeded by Rev. Peter May, the present pastor, in April, 1876. The congregation has never had a parish school.
ST. MARY'S GERMAN CHURCH, BRADY'S BEND.
German Catholics were, as we have seen, among the first settlers attracted by the new iron-works. But they were not organized into a separate congregation until 1865. In the summer of that year they were occasionally visited by Father Chilian, one of the Benedictines from Butler, who purchased for their use a small Protestant church then offered for sale. It was soon after dedicated by the Bishop under the invoca- tion of the Mother of God. The building is frame and small, and is surmounted by a belfry, and, standing as it does on the side of the hill, has a basement under half its length, which has been used from the beginning for a school. On the 15th of October of the same year it was relinquished by the Benedic- tines, and passed into the hands of the secular clergy. Rev. J. Zwickert was the first pastor, and after him came Rev. L. Spitzelberger ; and in the spring of 1868 Rev. Jos. Deyer- meyer. At the end of about two years he was succeeded by Rev. Jos. Buss. In the mean time a frame pastoral residence had been built. The cessation of the works on account of the panic forced many of the laborers to go elsewhere; while the erection of a church on the opposite side of the river at East Brady's Bend, in the Diocese of Erie, drew away another portion. The decimated congregation being no longer able to exist as an independent organization, the pastor was transferred to another mission in the autumn of 1875, and for a time the pastor of the English church offered up the Holy Sacrifice once on Sunday at the German church and once at his own.
But the strength of the congregation returned with the
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KITTANNING.
extension of the oil territory in that direction, and in the fall of 1877 Rev. J. Rittiger was appointed pastor. He was suc- ceeded in the following May by Rev. J. Stillerich, and he in the beginning of 1879 by Rev. Jos. Steger. St. Mary's is not so numerous now as it was before the panic, and, although it may be able to exist as a separate parish, its prospects are not flattering.
KITTANNING.
Kittanning, the county-seat of Armstrong County, is situ- ated on the east bank of the Allegheny River, 45 miles above Pittsburg. It was laid out in 1804, incorporated as a borough in 1821, and had in 1870 a population of 1889. But many years before the town was built it was a place of note. The name is of Indian origin, being properly Kittanyan, which, it is said, signifies " tall corn." When in the middle of last cen- tury the French and Indians were at war with the English, a line of fortifications was built along the Susquehanna to pro- tect the frontier. But the Delaware Indians from their village of Kittanyan, where the famous chief Captain Jacobs, and occasionally also the chief Shingis, lived, made numerous and troublesome raids on the frontier settlers, until in the fall of 1756 Lieutenant-Colonel John Armstrong, from whom the county takes its name, who commanded the Susquehanna forts, planned an expedition for the destruction of the village and the liberation of the prisoners held by the Indians. He reached the place on the 8th of September, attacked and burnt the village, which consisted of about thirty houses and a large store of ammunition which the Indians had collected, and killed the dreaded Captain Jacobs. A fortification known by the name of Appleby's Fort was built on the site of the village for the protection of the frontier in 1776 .*
" After the destruction of the Indian town, the location re- mained unimproved by white men until near the close of the last century. The land was in possession of the Armstrong
* Annals of the West, and Pennsylvania Archives.
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ST. MARY'S CHURCH.
family ; and when the establishment of the county was pro- posed, Dr. Armstrong, of Carlisle, a son of the general, made a donation of the site of the town to the county, on condition of receiving one half the proceeds of the sale of lots .* A plan of the town was soon after prepared, known as "the Arm- strong plot."
ST. MARY'S CHURCH.
The first members of what is now the congregation of St. Mary's settled about seven miles south-west of Kittanning, near Slate Lick, at the beginning of this century. The pio- neers were Andrew and Casper Easly and William Shields, from the Westmoreland County settlement. The first mem- ber on the eastern side of the river was Matthew Lambing, grandfather of the writer, who came from Adams County, Pa., in the fall of 1823 and settled soon after at Manorville, two miles below Kittanning. But the scattered few were obliged to travel to St. Patrick's, Sugar Creek, or later to Freeport, to hear Mass and comply with their other religious duties, or await the stations that were held at very distant intervals in the different settlements. I have heard my father say that he walked fasting to Freeport, a distance of more than fourteen miles, on three successive Sundays before he had an opportunity of confessing and receiving holy com- munion. At length a few families settled in Kittanning and in its immediate vicinity, and it was deemed expedient to have the Holy Sacrifice offered up in the town. The first time this took place was most probably in the summer of 1848, and the officiating priest was either Father Cody, of St. Patrick's, or Father Mitchell, of Freeport. Both came at times, the former, however, but seldom. In those early days Col. W. Sirwell, though not a Catholic, was, as he still is, the steadfast friend of the priest ; and it was generally in a room of his house that Mass was celebrated. About the year 1850 a small rolling-mill was built in the town, which attracted a number of Catholic laborers. Mass was then celebrated at
* Day's Historical Collections, p. 97.
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CHANGES OF PASTORS.
shorter intervals in the court-house or academy by the pastor of Freeport.
At length, in the summer of 1853, the little congregation had increased so much that a church became necessary for its accommodation. Lot No. I of " the Armstrong plot," situ- ated on the bank of the river at the northern end of the town, was purchased by Rev. E. Gray, and a church was built upon it. About the same time the grading of the Alle- gheny Valley Railroad from Pittsburg to Kittanning increased the congregation considerably for the time being. But the church, although occupied, remained unfinished for about ten years, without being plastered and with only temporary pews and altar. The visits of a priest were very irregular, and seldom oftener than once in two months, with frequent dis- appointments. It was visited in this manner by the priest from Freeport, Sugar Creek, Butler, Brady's Bend, or even by a priest of the Diocese of Erie from Clarion County. It was indeed " nobody's child." But from the appointment of Father Phelan to Freeport in the fall of 1858, Mass was cele- brated regularly on one Sunday in the month.
Finally, in February, 1863, Rev. J. O'G. Scanlon was ap- pointed the first resident pastor. But the church was yet un- finished, and the steeple with which it had been provided had been blown off to the roof in the spring of 1858. Soon after his arrival Father Scanlon set about the completion of the in- terior, a work in which Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in the assistance they rendered him. The work was completed and the church reopened, although not then dedicated, February 7th, 1864. Not satisfied with this, he had it neatly frescoed in the summer of the same year, and dedi- cated by the Bishop on the 23d of October. While the im- provements of the church were going on Mass was offered up in the court-house. .
In December, 1865, Father Scanlon was succeeded by Rev. J. A. O'Rourke. But the rolling-mill was burnt down a little later, and many families moved away. The railroad was now extended up the river, and as the parish with its missions embraced twenty miles of the line, it proved to be a very timely assistance to the congregation in its reduced cir-
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FURTHER CHANGES.
cumstances. In the spring of 1870 Mr. John Gilpin, a Prot- estant gentlemen of the town, presented the church with a bell weighing twelve hundred pounds, and Father O'Rourke immediately erected the tower for its reception. It was blessed by Very Rev. J. Hickey, V.G., in the absence of the Bishop, April 3d. The church was now finished. It is a brick edifice 65 feet in length by 43 in width, having the tower in the centre in front. There is a high and one side altar, the space on the other side being occupied by the confessional. Father O'Rourke gave place to the writer of these pages on the 22d of the same April. Up to this date the pastor had lodged in a hotel or with a private family, but now a house was rented and he was more independent. Having remained until January 17th, 1873, and having made considerable im- provement in the church and around it, he was succeeded by Rev. E. J. Dignam. A few acres of ground were now pur- chased near the town for a cemetery.
The difficulty experienced by one priest in attending the numerous missions, especially after the building of the Holy Guardian Angels' Church, next to be noticed, induced the Bishop to appoint an assistant to the pastor in the summer of 1876. But at the end of a year and a half the parish was again left to the care of one priest. The congregation has declined in the past few years, and will not exceed sixty fami- lies in number, which are, as they always have been, English and German mixed. But new and larger iron-works are now being built, and the prospects of future increase are flattering. The pastor has been obliged to give up his house and return to boarding with a private family.
A number of missions were always attached to Kittanning, and were attended monthly on week-days. One of these, eight miles above the town at the site of the old Ore Hill Furnace, consisted of about half a dozen families of railroad men. Another, two miles farther up at the mouth of Mahon- ing Creek, was of the same kind. Ten miles east from the latter place, at Colwell's Furnace, was another, consisting of about twenty-five families; but in the summer of 1878 the furnace blew out with the intention of never again being put into blast, and all the families went elsewhere. Finally, fif-
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HOLY GUARDIAN ANGELS' CHURCH.
teen miles above Kittanning and two miles east from the river is a settlement, principally German, consisting of about twenty families, where-in the house of John Harman-Mass has been celebrated for thirty years. This mission has lately been attached to the German church at Brady's Bend. The Catholics have left all the other missions. There are few Catholics in the county east of the river, and west of it to the north-west of Kittanning there are but two or three families in a circuit of seven miles. Father Dignam was succeeded by the present pastor, Rev. Thos. Howley, December, 1878.
HOLY GUARDIAN ANGELS' CHURCH, EASLY'S SETTLEMENT.
For sixty years the Holy Sacrifice had been offered up at distant and irregular intervals, now in the house of one farmer, now in that of another in the Easly settlement, about eight miles south-west of Kittanning ; and a lot of ground consisting of about an acre had also been set apart for half a century as the site of a church to be built when times and circumstances should favor its erection. The Catholics of the vicinity be- longed at first to the congregation of St. Patrick's Church, Sugar Creek, then to Freeport, and after the erection of the church at Kittanning they attached themselves with few ex- ceptions to it. At length the time seemed to have arrived for the building of the church ; and the writer, who was at that time pastor of the Kittanning congregation, undertook it in the summer of 1872. The corner-stone was laid by the Bishop June 16th, and in the summer and autumn the building was put up, but not finished. In this condition it remained, and Mass was offered in it upon a temporary altar once or twice in the month on Sunday by the pastor of Kittanning, who drove from one church to the other between the Masses until the summer of 1878, when it was finished. It was dedicated by the Bishop, under the invocation of the Holy Guardian Angels, on their feast, October 2d of the same year. The church is brick, and is 57 feet in length by 32 in width, is modelled after the Gothic style of architecture, and is with- out a steeple. The interior is furnished with three altars. The site upon which it is built was donated by Mr. Casper
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PARKER CITY.
Easly. Mass continues to be celebrated as before. The con- gregation consists of about twenty families, and it will not undergo any perceptible change for many years to come.
PARKER CITY.
The last church that we have to notice in this county is situated in the extreme northern part of it. Parker City is on the west bank of the Allegheny River, 82 miles above Pittsburg. It was formerly a place of no importance, and was known only to boatmen as Parker's Landing. The little village on the hill at the southern part, where the church now stands, was called Laurenceburg. Oil was first discovered here in 1865, but it was not until July, 1869, that it was found in such quantities as to create an excitement, and no one who has not seen it can form an idea of what an oil excitement is. Hundreds of oil dealers and producers from the more north- ern fields hastened thither, while large numbers of others in search of work or speculation, or something worse, crowded the throng, and in a few weeks it presented a scene that beg- gars description. Inasmuch as it has since been the repre- sentative town of the lower oil region, a few remarks on it may be interesting to the reader. On the eastern side of the river, which is traversed by the Allegheny Valley Railroad, there is no bottom-land on which to build; but a station- house was erected and ferries started, and later a bridge spanned the river and a mushroom town sprung up on the narrow bottom and on the hill on the west. Soon it con- tained a population of from 2000 to 3000, and was chartered as Parker City in the fall of 1873. It contained hotels, stores, banks, machine-shops, theatres-all but churches. Here lumber, engines, pipe, tools, and all the paraphernalia of the oil business were unloaded from the cars in incredible quan- tities and of every conceivable variety, and hauled to the surrounding country. Derricks, or "rigs" as they are com- monly called, were put up by the hundred, and pipe-lines traversed the country in every direction. From 30,000 to 40,000 barrels of oil, and frequently a great deal more, changed hands daily ; property was bought, leased, and sold, and all
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AN OIL-COUNTRY TOWN. 437
was done peculiar to the oil business. But such a population is seldom brought together. Many were without the con- trolling influence of religion or public opinion, or any other restraint. Business men, crazed with speculation, forgot the principles of honesty, and not unfrequently those also of pru- dence; the common crowd forgot those of virtue, and hun- dreds plunged into the deepest ocean of immorality. To say all in one word, there was presented the bustle and excite- ment of Wall Street, the hurry and confusion of Broadway, and the morality of Pentapolis. Catholics who were exem- plary at home found it difficult to withstand the current that set in against them; those who were remiss at home were little short of infidels here; and many of the girls who were attracted to the hotels and other places by ready employ- ment and high wages were soon swallowed up in a vortex of hopeless depravity. So fetid was the immorality of the at- mosphere that it might be felt like the Egyptian darkness of old. Such was Parker as I have seen it in the early days of its history as an oil town, and such in a greater or less de- gree are all the towns in the oil country while the oil excite- ment remains at its height among them. But after a few years business became more settled, and the unbridled throng began to disperse and go to other places. In the early part of 1874 the Parker and Karns City Railroad began to carry much of the freight directly to the "front," and the excite- ment and activity of Parker City was diminished.
CHURCH OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
The ramifications of the Donegal colony appear to have extended as far as Laurenceburg, for we read in the United States Catholic Miscellany of Bishop Kenrick visiting the place September 6th, 1831, and confirming eighty-three persons. But these were doubtless collected from the surrounding country for a considerable distance. Be that as it may, we hear nothing more of the place until the discovery of oil in- fused a new life into it. Soon after that time it was visited by Rev. Joseph Haney, of Murrinsville, who offered up the Holy Sacrifice in a private house in 1869. He continued to
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CHURCH OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
do so until July of the following year, when lots were pur- chased on the hill at the southern part of the city and a church was commenced. It was occupied in October, al- though not finished until the middle of the next summer, and even then much remained to be done, but it was left for the present. It was then a frame building about 45 feet in length by 30 in width, but without pretension to architectural style. In March, 1871, Rev. J. Stillerich was appointed first resident pastor, and he remained until November of the same year, when he was succeeded by Rev. Jas. P. Tahany. To his en- ergy and zeal the Church in Parker as well as elsewhere owes much of its temporal development. He built a neat frame pastoral residence beside the church, and later, when the congregation had increased, he enlarged the church by the addition of 18 feet to the front, with a belfry and certain decorations, and 24 feet to the rear in the form of a transept. The interior was also finished and the church was dedicated by the Bishop, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, November 24th, 1874. On the same day, as we shall see, the church at Petrolia, erected by the same laborious priest, was dedicated. He also opened a school, but the scattered char- acter of the congregation prevented it from enjoying the patronage upon which its existence depended, and it was dis- continued after a few months.
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