Parish History

Parish Pastors

Seneca Falls

The first Mass in Seneca Falls turned out to be an eventful one. On Oct. 4, 1835, Father Francis O'Donoghue visited to celebrate Mass. With no church available, the Mass was celebrated in the home of the Henry Graham family on Center St. The crowd that gathered was too much for the house, and the floor collapsed, sending the faithful into the basement. Father O'Donoghue, holding the chalice aloft, led the congregation across the street where he finished the Mass in the home of James Hurley.

The small congregation started collecting funds to built a church. On May 24, 1836, St. Jerome's Church was dedicated on Swaby Street.

Dedicated as St. Thomas's Church, its name was later changed to St. Patrick's.

The congregation's continued growth led to the need for a new, larger church. In 1848 the foundation was laid for a new church at the intersection of West Bayard and Toledo streets. The new church, named for St. Thomas, was dedicated in 1851. That building served the parish until 1931. The outline of the church's foundation can still be seen at times of the year in the lawn adjoining the existing church.

St. Columbkill Cemetery was created in 1863.

On July 12, 1864, the 13-year-old parish church was rededicated as St. Patrick's in recognition of the large number of Irish immigrants who had moved to Seneca Falls in the years following the potato famine in Ireland.

In 1879, St. Patrick's School opened, staffed by Sisters of St. Joseph. For a time their convent was a mansion on Terrace Row in Seneca Falls, a building which later housed The Armitage. In 1926 they moved to a newly built convent on West Bayard Street near the school.

The construction of the current church began July 28, 1929 at an estimated cost of $150,000. The cornerstone was laid Oct. 26, 1929, just three days before the stock market collapse which led to the Great Depression. As a result, construction moved slowly on the new building, which wasn't dedicated until Feb. 15, 1931.

The St. Patrick's School was expanded over the years, but after the year 2000 declining enrollments were a problem. St. Patrick's School officially closed in 2005, but for the following two school years the building housed St. John Bosco School, which was a merger of St. Patrick's and St. Mary's School in Waterloo. It, too, closed in 2007 due to declining enrollment.

The parish convent was sold in the 1990s, and the school was sold in 2019. The parish rectory, built in 1956, houses the priests of the St. Frances and St. Clare Parish.

St. Mary's Church, school and rectory in a postcard picture possibly from the 1950s

Waterloo

The history of St. Mary's Parish dates to 1836 when Mass was first celebrated in the village. The foundation of the parish's first church was laid May 1, 1846, and the church was opened on Oct. 17, 1846. A second church opened in 1873.

The parish cemetery at the end of West Wright Avenue was consecrated in 1888.

Work on the existing church took many years as the parish raised the funds needed for the work. The church was dedicated in 1889. The church's 142-foot-tall tower was added later and the church project was completed in 1900.

St. Mary's School opened in 1904 in the former church building with about 100 pupils. A new four-room school house facing Center Street opened in 1910. The building, which still exists, served as the parish school for many years. Staffed by Sisters of St. Joseph, the school had two grades in each classroom.

An early picture of the interior of St. Mary's Church. Date unknown.

To eliminate the doubled-up grades and provide room for more students, an addition was added. It opened in September 1960. Later during the 1960s the parish also built look-alike rectory and convent on the property adjoining the church. The rectory at the corner of Center St. and Wright Ave., was demolished, and the brick home on the corner of Center and Elizabeth streets which had served many years as the convent was sold.

Due to declining enrollment, the school was merged with St. Patrick's School in Seneca Falls in 2005. A newly established school to serve both Waterloo and Seneca Falls children, St. John Bosco, was housed in the former St. Patrick's Building.

The convent and rectory in Waterloo have been sold for use by a human service agency serving the community.

St. Francis and St. Clare Parish Established

In part due to the decline in the number of priests, the decision was made to merge St. Mary's and St. Patrick's into a single parish in 2007, which was named St. Francis and St. Clare. The parish operates with two churches, St. Mary's and St. Patrick's. The parish Ministry Center, which contains parish offices, religious education and activity space, is in the former St. Mary's School.