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

Next year, 1999, St. Joseph, currently the oldest Catholic parish in Tuscarawas county, will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its beginning. It seems that this might be a proper occasion to begin a series of notes on the history of the Catholic parishes of this locale. The first Catholic church to open in this part of the state of Ohio was St. John the Baptist, in Canton, in 1824. Subsequently, churches were built in Navarre (St. Clement) 1833; Morges (St. Fidelis) 1834; Louisville (St. Louis) 1836; and Calmoutier (Ste. Genevieve) 1836. The first known Catholics of Tuscarawas county were farmers who had emigrated from France and Germany, and settled in Lawrence township, in what were for some time known as the “Hessian Hills.” In 1839, a group of these farmers incorporated in the state of Ohio as “St. Peter’s Catholic Church of Bolivar,” Tuscarawas county. This was unfortunately a misstep on their part as, unknown to them, the laws of the Catholic Church by that time required that all parishes and property be in the name of the local bishop, the only legal entity of the Catholic Church in the state. This error was very likely the cause of future difficulties for the small group. For a short time (April through August of 1840), the pastor of St. John in Canton was Father Henry Damian Juncker, later Bishop of Alton, Ill. In the 1918 history of the Diocese of Columbus, it is stated that while at Canton Father Juncker built the church of St. Peter in the Hessian Hills. This note is the probable reason that the local assembly of the Knights of Columbus, Fourth Degree, is known as the Bishop Juncker Assembly. It may be true that Father Juncker did encourage the endeavor, but it can hardly be said that he built the church, as construction did not begin until later in 1840, and was not completed until 1841. Actually, local traditions tell of the work of the members of the congregation providing the labor, even to the point of hauling lumber on their shoulders, as no machinery or animals were available. Once the church was completed, it was placed under the care of the new pastor of Canton, Father Mathias Wuertz, who visited only occasionally to care for the spiritual needs of the people. This rare visitation may have been a blessing, as the priest is described by contemporaries as “mean and petty.” On his first visitation, his first instruction to the congregation was to “have his money ready, or saddle his horse.” Bishop Purcell of Cincinnati, whose diocese at the time embraced the entire state of Ohio, reported in the December 11, 1841, issue of the Catholic Telegraph, the diocesan newspaper, concerning his first official visit to the church: “…thence we rode, same day [sometime after November 17] to Bolivar, whence we reached, in time, next morning, the little church of St. John of the Cross built on a breezy hill, commanding an extensive and somewhat romantic prospect. A procession was here formed, by all the congregations, who wound up the hill in good order to the sound of some edifying and well sung hymns. On the way, the Bishop was met by young girls of the congregation, who presented to him, on a Salver, the deed and key of the church. From this place we lost no time in passing through Dover, New Philadelphia, Gnadenhutten, where the Indians of the Moravian Missions were cruelly butchered by the whites in 1700 [sic], New Comerstown, Coshocton, Roscoe, Dresden and Zanesville to the church of St. Remy, Columbus, where we had promised to hold Confirmation on the 1st Sunday of Advent.” For some time after this, the church was, in official records, referred to as St. John of the Cross, and in the early 1850’s as St. John of God. One might suspect that this was, at least in some degree, in response to the earlier incorporation of St. Peter church without the approval of the Bishop, who retained his personal right to name the church. By the mid 1850’s, the name of St. Peter came into official as well as common use. The property on which the church was built was finally transferred to Bishop Purcell on January 5, 1842, “Being One half acre and of the South East corner of the South half of East half of the South East Quarter of Section senteen [16] in township ten Range tow [!] [2].” (Tuscarawas county deed records, volume 17, page 591). The settlers feeling a deep need for the education of their children, a school was built on the church property, probably by 1844, and Mr. Conrad Antoni was engaged as the first teacher. For many years after this, Mass was celebrated once a month, on whichever day of the week the pastor could come from Canton. The first celebration of Confirmation was on August 28, 1844, when Bishop Purcell conferred the sacrament of a class of twenty-nine young people and one adult. On May 9, 1850, St. Peter became a part of the duties of the first pastor of St. Joseph church, Canal Dover, Father Peter Herman Joseph Muckerheide. This arrangement of St. Peter with the pastors of St. Joseph continued, except for the years 1856 to 1858, when the pastor of Morges was responsible, until the eventual closing of St. Peter. Bishop, by now Archbishop, Purcell visited the congregation again in 1850 and in 1853. In 1868, after Tuscarawas county had been made a part of the new Diocese of Columbus, Bishop Sylvester Rosecrans made his first visit to this part of the state. The Catholic Telegraph for November 4 of that year carried his report: “On Sunday, 24th ult. Confirmation was conferred on 58 persons in St. Joseph’s, Canal Dover, Tuscarawas county. The confirmed were of this congregation and the neighboring one of St. Peter’s, all instructed in Dover. St. Peter’s church has not had Mass said in it for some time owing to the influence of certain evil disposed persons who refuse to submit to ecclesiastical authority. The majority of the congregation attend to their Christian duties at the Dover church which has been very much improved during the past year.” On September 9, 1902, St. Peter was seriously damaged in the same storm system that destroyed the first St. Stephen church of Bolivar. The entire roof was torn off, along with the cross, but the walls and bell tower were left standing. As the repairs were completed, the cross was replaced atop the tower, but left in its bent condition as a reminder of the storm. After 1868, Mass was never again regularly celebrated in the church of St. Peter. There were many funerals held there over the years, and for some time an annual memorial mass celebrated near the June 29 feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. I myself was privileged to be one of the altar servers for the 1962 memorial Mass while I was in the area on a seminarian’s summer assignment. The parish school closed for the last time in 1882. That building has long been removed from the site. In the early summer of 1888, Father Felix Lex of Dover, concerned about the lack of religious education for the children of the neighborhood, instituted classed in St. Peter church on Saturday mornings. It is thought that these classes continued until the foundation of St. Aloysius church of Strasburg in 1910. At the request of Bishop Ready in 1947, St. Peter church was renovated, with the addition of aluminum siding and painting. At the same time, the Lawrence Township trustees helped by the widening of the roads leading to the newly designated shrine. The final page of the history of St. Peter was written on October 24, 1978, when the original hewn wood church burned to the ground, presumably the work of vandals. After that time, the Diocese of Columbus disposed of all the land except the parish cemetery, which still remains under the care of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Zoar.

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