Sacred Heart Church at 139 3rd St NE, New Philadelphia, OH 44663-3900 US - St. Elizabeth at Roswell

Father Lawrence Beck, O.M.Cap., pastor of Sacred Heart parish, New Philadelphia, laid the foundations of the Roswell parish, after the results of a census in May of 1901 showed that the village had a Catholic population of 108 persons (21 families), of Italian, Polish, Slavic and Irish descent. The first mass was offered on May 6, in the home of Owen Donaghue. Soon afterward, permission was obtained to offer weekly mass in the Klondike school. Land was purchased at the top of a hill in the village, as Father Lawrence wanted the church to be out of the way, to avoid desecration by drunkards, as had happened in Dover. During the night of May 27, 1892, vandals had entered St. Joseph church, broken open the tabernacle, strewn consecrated hosts around the altar, and carried off the sacred vessels. (Roswell, a town of only 3000 people boasted eleven saloons, along with four grocery stores and five meat markets, and nine coal mines.) The cornerstone for the new church was laid August 23, 1903, and the building was blessed for use July 2, 1904. An indication of the rapid growth of Roswell (known until 1906 as Vickers) and the surrounding area known as Klondike can be found in the Baptism Register of Sacred Heart church. For the year 1903, the last before the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Roswell opened, Father Lawrence recorded 48 baptisms. Of these, twenty-one were from families residing in Roswell, only five from New Philadelphia families. For the record, of the remaining 22 baptized, nine families resided in Wainwright, 4 in Goshen, 3 in Joyce, two in Barnhill, and one each in Newport, New Jerusalem, Shanesville and Stone Creek. Baptisms at St. Elizabeth peaked at 47 in 1905, and declined steadily thereafter. The first burial in the parish cemetery, an infant daughter of Archangel Denvito, took place April 12, 1904, more than two months before the dedication of the church. The cemetery was originally known as St. Elizabeth, then as Calvary Cemetery (a common name in this county), later as Mt. Calvary, and finally, from about 1930, as St. Elizabeth Cemetery again. Four days after the dedication of the church, care of the parish was given over to the priests of the Diocese of Columbus, with Father Bernard Vogel as pastor. The pastors of Roswell also had care of the church of St. Francis of Assisi at Sherrodsville in neighboring Carroll County until 1944. With the exception of the years 1907-1912, the priests lived in Roswell; Father Vogel and then Father John Mattes resided in Sherrodsville during this term. The parish was returned to the care of the Capuchin friars in 1912. A parish school opened in 1921, under the care of the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement, better known as the Graymoor Sisters. The school was closed in 1927, as the Sisters could no longer staff the school without compensation, as they had done for the six years of its existence. The mines around the town had begun to close soon after World War I. The last, the Blue Shaft, closed in the 1930’s. While Fr. Bernardine Kuhlmann was pastor, the bulging walls of the church were restrained with tie rods and concrete abutments. New steps were added to lessen the steepness of the walk to the church doors, and the pillars and large cross were added to the cemetery. The exterior of the church was covered with insul-brick later in the 1940’s. On March 7, 1953, construction began on the new parish church, on Main Street across from the foot of the hill where the cemetery and original church were located. The new church was dedicated May 2, 1954. In 1988 the Capuchin friars withdrew from the parish, recommending to Bishop Griffin that it be closed, due to the small number of parishioners. The Bishop delayed the closing, appointing Father Robert Manning as pastor there, in addition to his duties as associate pastor of Sacred Heart. Four years later, when it became evident that Father Manning could no longer, because of his poor health, care for the parish, it was closed in July of 1992. Bishop Griffin came to the church to celebrate a final mass with the parishioners, January 31, 1993. The new church property and the lots where the former rectory had been were subsequently sold. Only St. Elizabeth cemetery remains, under the administration of Sacred Heart parish. The large cross in the cemetery was removed in 1995, as the cement was rapidly crumbling and presenting possible danger. In 1999 it was replaced by the statue of Mary that had been for some years enshrined outside the church.

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