Sacred Heart Church at 139 3rd St NE, New Philadelphia, OH 44663-3900 US - St. Patrick at Mineral City

The church of St. Patrick, Mineral City (then known as Mineral Point) was organized by Father Henry B. Dues of St. Joseph, Dover, Ohio, in January of 1881. The first church was built on the site of the present St. Patrick Cemetery, on land donated by Mr. Thomas Meagher. The first priest in charge of the church was Father Walter Ross, who came to Mineral Point from his position as assistant priest at St. Joseph, Dover, until 1885, then as pastor of St. Stephen, Bolivar, 1885-1888, and finally as pastor of Immaculate Conception church, Morges, 1888-1892. Father Edward Fladung, pastor of St. Francis Xavier church, Malvern, cared for the Mineral City Catholics for 1892-1895, and again from 1896-1907. In November of 1900, Father Fladung purchased ¼ acre of land on First Street, then transferred title to Bishop Moeller of Columbus on September 25, 1901. A church was in use on this property by 1904. The original church had been dismantled and moved here from the cemetery property. This structure served the congregation until1969. The Catholic church of Mineral City never had a resident pastor, being served by the pastors of Malvern until 1924, then by the pastors of Carrollton until the division of the Diocese of Columbus in 1944. When Bishop Ready arrived in Columbus in 1945, he asked the Capuchin provincial in Pittsburgh to have the church cared for by the friars of St. Joseph parish in Dover, as Carrollton was now a part of the newly formed Diocese of Steubenville. This arrangement was not approved until 1948, Bishop Ready assigning care of the church in the meantime to the priests of Immaculate Conception, Dennison, who at the time were also responsible for St. Paul the Apostle church in Midvale. Father Peter Grabaskas in later years told that, while assistant priest at Dennison, he would on many Sundays celebrate the 8:00 a.m. mass at Dennison, then 10:00 at Midvale, and then continue to the 12:00 noon mass at Mineral City, observing the total fast before Communion the entire time. The Capuchin friars served the church from 1948 until the official closing of the mission in 1995. In July of 1955, while Father Christopher Rengers was pastor, a plot of just under four acres was purchased on the east side of State Highway 8 (now 800), just north of the village limits. A shrine to the Blessed Virgin was completed on this property in 1961. The church on the new property was erected in 1968-1969, dedicated by Bishop Elwell of Columbus November 2, 1969. This structure included a basement with kitchen, used for meetings, dinners, and religious education, and upstairs a small set of rooms for the residence of the parish priest. Some of the Capuchin friars stayed here on occasional nights, others did not, eventually removing the bedroom furniture from the quarters. The mission of St. Patrick was officially closed July 11, 1995, as a part of the future staffing plan of the Diocese of Columbus, an attempt to face the hard realities of a rapidly diminishing and aging population of priests. The mission was merged with St. Stephen of Bolivar and St. Aloysius of Strasburg to form the new parish of the Holy Trinity, Zoar, Ohio.

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