Immigration - St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church

Immigration - St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church

Immigration

St. Francis of Assissi parish was established by Bishop Watterson in 1892. The territory included the area west of High Street to the Scioto River, and from the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks north to the Delaware County line. The founding pastor was Father Alphonse M. Leyden, who celebrated the first Mass in 1892 in the second floor of a former Methodist church at the corner of Collins and Pennsylvania Avenues (now part of Thurber Village). Bishop Watterson laid the cornerstone of the current church in 1895. In 1907, a school was opened and staffed by nuns of the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs.