The Churches 285 



be established. This may have been the case with some of 

 the churches in Westchester County. 



In 1840, St. John's College was established at Fordham, 

 and, though the chapel there was for the use of the priests and 

 students, worship was permitted to the Catholics of the vi- 

 cinity as a chapel of convenience. In 1843, the college came 

 under control of the Society of Jesus, whose priests engaged 

 in missionary work throughout the county. The same year 

 the first church within the Borough, that of St. Raymond, was 

 established at Westchester by an Italian priest named Father 

 Villanis. The first burial in the adjoining graveyard had 

 taken place the year previous. The fine church edifice on the 

 site of the original one was dedicated on October 23, 1898. 

 In 1844, the first mass was celebrated at Kingsbridge by Father 

 O'Reilly; and in 1848 Father McGuire officiated there. 

 There is an interesting fact in regard to early worship at PCings- 

 bridge, and that is that owing to the lack of proper rooms for 

 the use of the different denominations, the services were all 

 held in the schoolhouse. Mass would be celebrated in the 

 morning, and the Catholic altar would be removed; in the 

 afternoon, the Episcopalians would hold their services, and 

 in the evening, the Methodists. 



Until about 1840, Catholic communicants had been few 

 in number, 1 but about 1837 there began the construction of 

 the great public works — the Harlem Railroad, the Hudson 

 River Railroad, and the Croton Aqueduct. This brought 

 in great numbers of Irish, most of whom were Catholics; and 

 so the Catholic population increased very rapidly in the decade 



1 A good Catholic desires to be buried in consecrated ground, and we may 

 use the number of burials recorded in the Catholic cemetery in New York 

 as a criterion to judge of the number of Catholics. Of the number re- 

 corded from beyond the Harlem between the years 1813 and 1833, the 

 average is just one a year. 



