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"The French and Irish settlers who arrived in that part of the county before 1870 were visited by priests from Prairie du Chien who crossed the Mississippi into Iowa and used the military road. In the late 1860s the Catholic pioneers in Postville…

"The building of a limestone church in the northeastern corner of Delaware County in 1868 marked the beginning of the parish dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Father Jon Weikmann of New Vienna assisted a committee of eight men to plan the…

"The first Catholic settlers came in the 1860s. The Irish attended Saint James Church at Toronto in Clinton County, which had a resident priest. The Bohemians went to Holy Trinity Church in Baldwin, where a visiting Bohemian priest celebrated Mass…

"The first Catholic church at Osage was a house which Father James Gilchrist bought on the corner of Third and State Streets. When Father E. W. Fowler came to care for the several parishes in 1885, the parish built a brick church on the block known…

"Father Patrick S. O’Connor arrived in Oelwein in 1890 to be the first resident pastor. After a rectory was built, a larger church was planned by Father O’Connor and the frame building was completed in 1891 at a cost of $8,000. A three-story…

"After Father Ambrose Martin, a Canadian convert, came to Charles City in 1867, he frequently visited Roseville. A few years later, Father Patrick Feeley became the pastor of the Charles City parish and directed the building of the first Roseville…

"When Father Kelly left in 1887, Father Lawrence H. Burns came to stay for 27 years. He directed the building of a much larger church in 1893, dedicated to the Sacred Heart in November 1893 by Bishop Joseph B. Cotter of Winona, Minnesota. In 1897…

"The Church of Saint John is eight miles northeast of Cascade and four miles south of Epworth. The two-acre church plot was given by a Protestant neighbor named Hooper. Father John Hawe directed the building of the first church in 1874 and cared for…

"Father James Saunders directed the building of the New Haven church and then saw to the building of the Riceville church. In the early spring of 1879 funds were collected by Pat Mulick and John Dargan. Among those who were generous toward the…

"When Father Henry P. Rohlman, a member of the Archdiocesan Mission Band, conducted a two weeks’ mission in a borrowed church in January 1909, the area Catholics decided to form a parish. Before Father Rohlman left Rockford, the people appointed…