Outagamie County, WI - "First Catholic Church Built in 1861"
       
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Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives
Subject: newspaper article "First Catholic Church Built in 1861"
Submitted by: county coordinator 
EMAIL: jmmarasch@aol.com
Date Submitted: 15 March 2000
       
Source: New London Press newspaper article from Bicentennial issue, undated.

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              First Catholic Church Built in 1861
     Catholic families in Hortonville were visited by Oshkosh or Appleton priests and mass was held in
private homes until 1861.
          That year, a frame church was built on the corner of Nash and Cedar Sts.
          Hortonville was attached to Greenville as a mission from. 1870 to 1878.
     From 1878 to 1897 a New London priest celebrated mass in Hortonville every other Sunday.
     The present brick -- Sts.  Peter and Paul Catholic Church -- was built by the Rev.  P.L. Gasper in 1892. 
Five years later Rev.  Joseph Hemmer was the first resident pastor.
Parish records date back only to 1898.
     The original church building is an apartment building today.

                       Christian Mothers
     The Christian Mothers and Altar Society of S.S. Peter and Paul Catholic Church has grown with the
congregation.
     In 1941 the society contributed a tea kettle for the nuns.
     In 1965 the women donated equipment for the school kitchen - and gave a piano for the school in 1976.
     Although the society dates back to 1894, records before 1938 have been lost.