St. Nicholas Catholic Church is a historic

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

church in Osgood,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

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. Built in the first years of the 20th century, it houses one of the newest

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

es in a heavily Catholic region of far western Ohio, but it has been recognized as a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...

for its architecture.

Parish history

Although Osgood lies near such heavily Catholic communities such as Minster and Fort Loramie,Brown, Mary Ann and Mary Niekamp. '.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

, July 1978. Accessed 2009-11-21. its early settlers were predominantly

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

.Brown, Mary Ann. ''Ohio Historic Inventory Nomination: St. Louis Catholic Church''.

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, August 1977. Accordingly, the formation of a Catholic parish in Osgood came far later than the formation of parishes in nearby villages; St. Augustine's Church in Minster and St. Michael's Church in Fort Loramie were established by 1850, but the foundations of a parish in Osgood were not laid until 1904, and formal establishment of the parish came in 1906.Wilson, Frazer. ''History of Darke County Ohio: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time''. Vol. 1. Milford: Hobart, 1914, 602/603. In its earliest years, the

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

was celebrated in common buildings; after worshipping for a time in a school, the parishioners purchased a barn for ecclesiastical purposes. For many years, the improvement of the parish's facilities was hindered by its size; the fewness of its members meant that money was frequently scarce. Nevertheless, parishioners took significant steps in late 1906; their first temporary

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

was completed in September, and in this year they purchased a tract of land on the eastern side of the village. Construction of a permanent brick church soon began, and the finished church was dedicated on September 6, 1908 after costing $22,000. By 1914, membership had increased to eighty-five families from just thirty-five families in 1906.

Structure

Saint Nicholas Church (Osgood, Ohio) - view from the loft

The church rests upon a stone

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

with a basement. Brick walls, trimmed with stone, are laid in a

stretcher bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by siz ...

, and the building is covered by an asphalt roof. Its plan is primarily that of a rectangle, but gables on each side have the effect of forming a slight

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

. The church's dominant feature is its octagonal

steeple In architecture, a steeple is a tall tower on a building, topped by a spire and often incorporating a belfry and other components. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religi ...

, located atop a tower at the entrance. Equipped with a belfry and ornamented with corbelling, the tower is topped with a golden cross. Worshippers enter the church through a vestibule and proceed through the base of the tower; until the addition with the vestibule was built in 1970, the church's exterior doors were a part of the tower.

Rectory

Parishioners erected a brick rectory for their pastor in 1914. Supported by a foundation with a basement and topped with an asphalt

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

, the two-

story Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events) ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting * Story (American English), or storey (British ...

house lies adjacent to the church's eastern side. Among its features are a porch that faces the church on the house's western side and a dormer that pierces the house's southern roof. The house is a square, three bays wide on each of its sides.

Preservation

In 1977, an architectural survey ranked St. Nicholas Church in good condition, both inside and out; it was noted that there were no significant threats to the building's continued existence. Two years later, the church and its rectory were added together to 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 ...

for their architectural significance. Twenty-six other church buildings in the Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches were listed on the National Register at the same time; two others in Darke County, St. Louis' Church in

North Star Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris ( Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude tha ...

and Holy Family Church in Frenchtown, were among these churches. Today, St. Nicholas remains an active parish of the

Archdiocese of Cincinnati The Archdiocese of Cincinnati ( la, Archidiœcesis Cincinnatensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese that covers the southwest region of the U.S. state of Ohio, including the greater Cincinnati and Dayton metropolitan ...

. It is clustered with St. Louis parish in North Star and St. Remy's Catholic Church in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

; the entire cluster is a part of the Sidney Deanery.The Futures Project

. Accessed 2010-03-26.

References

External links

Parish profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Nicholas Catholic Church, Osgood, Ohio 1906 establishments in Ohio Christian organizations established in 1906 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1907 Churches in Darke County, Ohio Churches in the Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati Gothic Revival church buildings in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Darke County, Ohio 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States