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Catholic Presence in
Queens and Brooklyn Where might the Catholics of early Woodside (if indeed there were any) have attended Mass? Before 1822, they might have traveled by carriage and ferry to the parish of St. Peter's on Barclay Street or old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street in Manhattan. In 1822, the first parish of what would later become the Diocese of Brooklyn was officially established at St. James. It was near the recently established U.S. Brook- lyn Navy Yard, which employed many immigrant Cath- olic workers. The second pastor of that parish, Fr. John Walsh, began riding out to the small number of Cath- olics scattered in the rural county of Queens and cele- brated the first Masses in Queens at Flushing (1826) and Astoria (1835). The gradual growth of Queens called forth a re- sponse from New York's Catholic leaders. The first mis- sion established in Queens was in Flushing in 1833 at what was to become St. Michael's Parish. In 1841, the Rev. Michael Curran, a Harlem priest, crossed by boat to say Mass and hear confessions where Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish was later established in Astoria. The year 1853 saw the establishment of the Diocese of Brooklyn, comprising all of Long Island's 1,000 square miles as a separate ecclesiastical entity. Catholic Parishes in Woodside We cannot say with certainty where any Cath- olics in this part of Newtown might have attended Mass until 1854 with the establishment of St. Mary's parish in Winfield, the "mother church" of Woodside. The indus- try that was the first to attract large numbers of workers, among them Catholic immigrants, was the Winfield Foundry, founded in 1849 at what is now 69 Street and 47 Avenue. Its chief products were sewing machine parts and cast-iron caskets. It may be presumed that the proxi- mity to Calvary Cemetery, established by the Archdio- cese of New York in 1848, contributed to the success of this factory. It is well documented that the town of New- town generated a substantial part of its revenue from a burial tax levied on the numerous cemeteries within its borders. The pastors of St. Mary's came to be founders of several other missions and new parishes, including the parishes of St. Anthony in Greenpoint (1856), St. Mar- garet in Middle Village (1860), Our Lady of Sorrows in Corona (1871), St. Ignatius in Hicksville (1872), St. Sta- nislaus in Maspeth (1872), St. Joseph in Astoria (1879), and St. Adalbert in Elmhurst (1892). Later, St. Sebas- tian's was carved from its territory (1894). |
