St. Joseph's Church

About this property

St. Joseph's Church is a historic church located at 1355 North Main Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. Designed by notable church architect Patrick C. Keely, it was built in 1880 in the Gothic Revival style. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, the same day as St. Patrick's. The parish was founded to accommodate the growing numbers of Catholics who had settled in the northern section of the city in the 1870s to work in the cotton mills, including the Border City, Narragansett, Mechanics, Sagamore Mills. It was split off from St. Mary's in 1873. The first pastor was Reverend William H. Bric. Bric was born in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland, in 1841, and made his preparatory studies for the priesthood at Killarney, and then at Cambrai, in southern France, after which he came to this country and was sent by the then Right Reverend Bishop Francis Patrick McFarland to the Seminary of Saint Sulpice at Baltimore, Maryland, where he was ordained to the priesthood. After curacies at Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and at the Providence Cathedral, he was named as pastor for Harrisville and Slatersville, Rhode Island, remaining in charge there for four years. Then it was that he was selected by Right Reverend Bishop Hendricken to form the new Saint Joseph's parish. He arrived in the early part of April 1873 and made his abode in what was then known as the Leland house, located on North Main street at a point just north of the present President Avenue. The first mass celebrated there for the scattered flock that comprised the congregation, took place on Low Sunday, April 20, 1873. A temporary edifice was gotten under way in short order at a spot close by what is now known as Vestal Street across from the Old North Burial Ground, and here the Catholics of the northern section of the city worshiped for a period of between three and four years. Somerset was a mission of St. Joseph's until 1877. Father Bric purchased a large tract of land at the corner of North Main and Weetamoe streets. To the rear portion of this lot was then removed the small building that was being used for Mass, and to it were added two wings and a small choir loft. As the congregation grew and the seating capacity became inadequate Bric decided that it was time to erect a new church building. Architect Patrick H. Keeley of Brooklyn, was entrusted with the working out of the details, and on Monday, August 5, 1880, ground was broken on the North Main Street side of the lot. The contract called for an excavation nine feet deep, the work to be finished within four weeks. And so it was done.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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