The Oratory of St. Patrick, also known as St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church is a historic

Roman 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 letter ...

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

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 ...

located at Lagro,

Wabash County, Indiana Wabash County is a county located in the northern central part of the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2020, the population was 30,976. The county seat is Wabash. History The area was inhabited for thousands of years by cultures of indigenous pe ...

. 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 1999.

History

Jesuit Missionaries, on their way from Montreal, Canada, to Vincennes, visited Lagro as early as 1800. The missionary, Father

Stephen Badin Reverend Fr. Stephen Theodore Badin (born Étienne Théodore Badin on July 17, 1768 – April 21, 1853) was the first Catholic priest ordained in the United States. He spent most of his long career ministering to widely dispersed Catholics in Cana ...

, stopped here, in 1833, on his way from Fort Wayne to Logansport. Irish immigrants came to the area to work on construction of

Wabash and Erie Canal The Wabash and Erie Canal was a shipping canal that linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio River via an artificial waterway. The canal provided traders with access from the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Over 460 miles long, it was th ...

, 1834-1837. Many bought land and stayed as permanent residents. The parish was founded in 1836. In 1838, Thomas Fitzgibbon donated two lots, and a frame church, 30x40 feet was erected. Rev. John Ryan, was pastor of St. Patrick's from 1848 to 1865. Mission stations were Huntington, Wabash,

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

and Pierceton, where Mass was offered in private homes. The church bell was obtained during the tenure of Father Ryan. It was brought by ox cart from Buffalo. It hangs in the present church. Rev. George Steiner was pastor from 1866 until 1868. Steiner bought a frame house for $200, and opened in it the first parochial school, with Julia Cannon, the teacher. After completion of the new church, the parish school was relocated to the old frame building, staffed by the Sisters of St. Francis of Lafayette.Alerding, Herman Joseph. ''The Diocese of Fort Wayne, 1857-September 1907'', Fort Wayne, Indiana., Archer Print Company, 1907, p. 208
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Present church

The present church was built by Rev. Matthew E. Campion between 1870 and 1873. Bishop John Henry Luers laid the cornerstone on June 15, 1870. The oratory is classified as "an inactive parish".Weber, Mark. "St. Patrick Oratory", ''Today's Catholic'', Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, March 16, 2016
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Architecture

It is a rectangular,

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style brick church. It has a gable roof and features a square

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

, five tall pointed arched windows, and a half-octagonal

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

flanked by lower, half-hipped sacristies. ''Note:'' This includes and Accompanying photographs It is constructed of brick brought by canal boat from Huntington. Rev. John Grogan, pastor from 1873 until 1882, placed oak pews in the church, a communion railing of black walnut, a handsome pulpit, and a walnut stairway to the gallery, carved by the parishioners. Grogan also had the church frescoed. The pipe organ is an 1800 Erben,"Henry Erben (1850ca.)", Pipe Organ Database
/ref> purchased for $700 by Rev. Patrick F. Roche, who served from 1884 1888. It was listed on the

in 1999.

References

Roman Catholic churches in Indiana Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Gothic Revival church buildings in Indiana Churches completed in 1873 Buildings and structures in Wabash County, Indiana National Register of Historic Places in Wabash County, Indiana {{WabashCountyIN-NRHP-stub