St. Joseph's Catholic Church is a historic Catholic Church, Roman Catholic church in Egypt, Ohio, United States. Built in 1887, this church (building), church is home to a small Catholic parish, and it has been declared a historic site because of its well-preserved Gothic Revival architecture.
Early history
The original settlers of far southern Auglaize County, Ohio, Auglaize County were overwhelmingly Catholic.
[McMurray, William J., ed. ''History of Auglaize County Ohio''. Vol. 1. Indianapolis: Historical Publishing Company, 1923.] At this period, prior to 1850,
[Fortin, Roger. ]
Faith and Action: A History of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati 1821-1996
''. Columbus, Ohio, Columbus: Ohio State University, Ohio State UP, 2002, 400. the region was part of the Great Black Swamp; consequently, travel was extremely difficult. An unsubstantiated claim by a former preacher of St. Josephs Catholic Church suggests that Egypt was named by German immigrants in the early-1830s after a settler described the swampy area back then as being “made by a dab of mud that fell from the wheelbarrow of God.” However, the town name is actually derived from the hometown of the mother of a couple of the earliest pioneers in the area. John Henry Osterloh immigrated from a town called Halter in Lower Saxony, Germany. He purchased a farm in what would later become Egypt in 1829 – 1830. His mother was from Aegypten in Lower Saxony, Germany. John Henry Osterloh died from a typhus epidemic in 1833.
One of his brothers, John Albert Osterloh (1814 – 1901) arrived in 1834 at the age of 20, took over possession of John Henry's farm, & continued purchasing more land surrounding it. The residents got tired of traveling nearly 4 miles to the town of Minster to get to church, so they petitioned to get one in Egypt in 1852 & St. Josephs Catholic Church was subsequently built. John Albert Osterloh donated land for the church & adjoining cemetery.
Egypt's first settlers were members of St. Augustine's Catholic Church (Minster, Ohio), St. Augustine's Church in Minster,
approximately to the east.
[DeLorme. ''Ohio Atlas & Gazetteer''. 7th ed. Yarmouth, Maine, Yarmouth: DeLorme, 2004, 55. .] Because of the swampy character of the land, wheeled transit was nearly impossible; the men of the community could only travel to St. Augustine's on horseback, and the women and children were almost never able to worship at all. At the same time, the membership of St. Augustine's was growing to the point that its facilities were severely strained. Therefore, a movement arose for the creation of a separate parish in Egypt,
and in 1852, three men were sent to petition John Baptist Purcell, Archbishop Purcell for a separate church. The archbishop granted permission for the erection of the parish in that year; it was dedicated to Saint Joseph, St. Joseph, and Subscription (finance), subscriptions soon raised $800 for the construction of a church.
Once the members had agreed on the basic architectural elements of their church, they summoned multiple General contractor, contractors for the bidding process. Each of the contractors independently named $800 as the cost of erecting the new church; consequently, parishioner Henry Rolfes was placed in charge after he named his price at just $300 and the cost of some materials. Even after the cost of all materials was deducted, enough money remained to pay a priest for the first year. Originally, the parish had no priest of its own; Mass (liturgy), Mass was typically celebrated by priests from St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Maria Stein, Ohio), St. John's in Maria Stein, Ohio, Maria Stein or St. Augustine's in Minster. After four years, a rectory and a female convent were built near the church, and the parish obtained a resident pastor for the first time.
Since its earliest years, St. Joseph's Church has been served by the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, Society of the Precious Blood.
Architecture
By the late 1880s, the original church building had become insufficient for the parish's needs. Under the leadership of their elderly priest, John van den Brock, the parish erected a new church in 1887 at a cost of $5,000,
according to a design by Anton Goehr. This building's walls are built of brick, supported by a stone foundation (engineering), foundation with a basement and topped with a gabled roof of asphalt. Its floor plan is the shape of a Christian cross, Latin cross, three bay (architecture), bays wide and six bays long, and the entire building reflects the Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic Revival style of architecture. Inside, the church is ornamented with frescoes on the walls and a heavily decorated ceiling, and the Altar (Catholicism), altars are built in a revivalistic form of the Gothic art, Gothic style. Worshippers enter the church through an arched doorway in the base of the tower.
[Brown, Mary Ann. ''Ohio Historic Inventory Nomination: Egypt Catholic Church''. Ohio Historical Society, February 1977.]
Goehr's design remained little changed until 1927, when the church was modified by the addition of a Steeple (architecture), tower and a sacristy. Although the sacristy remains in place, the tower was further modified in the 1940s by the replacement of its spire with a small domed Bell tower, belfry.
Related buildings
Located immediately to the north of the church is a rectory. After the male and female members of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood became two separate organizations, the male organization donated all of its Egypt properties to the female organization, leaving St. Joseph's Church without a rectory. When a replacement rectory was completed in 1912, it had cost $6,000 plus extensive labor on the part of the parishioners.
The resulting structure is a two-and-a-half storey, story square brick structure, built on a stone foundation and topped with an asphalt hip roof with a dormer, dormer window. Many other Catholic churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Archdiocese of Cincinnati built rectories around this time, due to a directive from the archbishop; like the one at Egypt, they are typically square brick houses with wrap-around porches. These buildings typically resemble the style of houses purchased through the Sears, Sears Roebuck catalogues of the period.
[Brown, Mary Ann. ''Ohio Historic Inventory Nomination: Egypt Rectory''. Ohio Historical Society, October 1977.]
Immediately to the north of the rectory is a parish cemetery, and slightly farther to the north is a former parish school. Located along the road between Minster and Maria Stein,
more than two miles to the northwest,
is part of the abandoned 1856 convent. Once three stories high, it has been reduced to one story, and its brick walls have been covered with modern siding (construction), siding.
Recent history
In 1977, St. Joseph's Church and its rectory were recorded by the Ohio Historic Inventory, a historic preservation program of the Ohio Historical Society. Both buildings were found to be in good condition, but both were seen as endangered by the weak state of the parish that owned them. St. Joseph's Church was one of the smallest parishes in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and priest shortages in the American Catholic Church meant that small parishes such as St. Joseph's were not likely to be able to have their own pastors; consequently, it was believed that the church would close by 1982.
Eventually, this plan was cancelled; St. Joseph's Church is still an active parish of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
[The Futures Project]
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Accessed 2010-06-05. It is clustered with St. Augustine's Church in Minster and served by the same priest,
St. Augustine and St. Joseph Parishes
St. Augustine and St. Joseph Parishes, n.d. Accessed 2010-06-05. and the cluster is part of the St. Marys Deanery.[Brown, Mary Ann and Mary Niekamp. '. National Park Service, July 1978. Accessed 2009-10-13.] Architectural historians have divided these churches into four generations; St. Joseph's is a member of the second generation, which are generally simple rectangular brick buildings without tall spires. Many churches from this generation, such as St. Joseph's and St. Anthony's Catholic Church (Padua, Ohio), St. Anthony's in Padua, Ohio, Padua, were later expanded by the addition of a single tower at the front of the building, due to the prevalence of such towers at the construction of newer churches. Few churches from before this period survive; only St. John's Catholic Church (Fryburg, Ohio), St. John's in Fryburg, Ohio, Fryburg to the northwest and St. Augustine's in Minster remain churches, and St. Augustine's has been greatly modified by the addition of twin towers.
Notes
References
External links
St. Augustine/St. Joseph Cluster
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Josephs Catholic Church, Egypt, Ohio
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1887
19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States
Churches in Auglaize County, Ohio
National Register of Historic Places in Auglaize County, Ohio
Churches in the Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches
Gothic Revival church buildings in Ohio
Religious organizations established in 1852
Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati
1852 establishments in Ohio