St. John's Catholic Church is a historic church at 217 York Street in
Bangor, Maine
Bangor ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of Penobscot County. The city proper has a population of 31,753, making it the state's 3rd-largest settlement, behind Portland (68,408) and Lewiston (37,121).
Modern Bangor ...
. Built in 1855 at the height of the anti-immigrant
Know Nothing movement, it stands as a major symbol of the city's Irish-American heritage, and a high quality local example of Gothic Revival architecture. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1973.
Description
The church is located on the south side of York Street, between Boyd and Newbury Streets, east of Bangor's central business district. It is a brick building with a cruciform plan, with a slate roof and a stone foundation. A tower in height projects slightly from the front (north) facade, with entrances at the tower's center and in the flanking walls, set in Gothic-arched openings. Buttresses reinforce the side walls and building corners.
The church interior is divided into a long nave, with transepts housing chapels at the sides. The supporting columns have capitals decorated with cherubim and foliage.
[ The organ is an 1860 E. and G.G. Hook Opus 288 instrument, which was restored in 1981; there are fewer than 55 known three-manual E. & G. G. Hook organs remaining in existence today.
]
History
The church was designed by New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
architect Patrick Charles Keely
Patrick Charles Keely (August 9, 1816 — August 11, 1896) was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. He was a prolific designer of nearly 600 churches and hundreds of other institutional buildin ...
, and was built in 1855-56, during the tenure of Fr. Johannes Bapst
John Bapst (born Johannes Bapst at La Roche, Fribourg, Switzerland, 17 December 1815; died at Mount Hope, Maryland, United States, 2 November 1887) was a Swiss Jesuit missionary and educator who became the first president of Boston College.
Li ...
. Its construction was done by primarily local Irish laborers during the anti-Irish anti-immigrant Know Nothing movement, which was then at its height. Security had to be posted at the construction site to guard against threats to destroy it.[
The building today also houses the parish offices of St. Paul the Apostle Parish, which includes the church of St. John, as well as St. Mary's in Bangor, St. Joseph and St. Theresa of Avila in Brewer, St. Matthew in Hampden, and St. Gabriel in Winterport.]Dennis Soucy
Dennis or Denis is a first or last name from the Greco-Roman name Dionysius, via one of the Christian saints named Dionysius.
The name came from Dionysus, the Greek god of ecstatic states, particularly those produced by wine, which is sometime ...
founded his credit union, St. John's Credit Union, in the basement of the church in 1956 to serve its parishioners.[
]
See also
*
References
External links
Web site of St. Paul the Apostle ParishHook Opus 288
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Johns Catholic Church, Bangor, Maine
Churches in Penobscot County, Maine
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Gothic Revival church buildings in Maine
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1856
19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in Bangor, Maine