St. Patrick Church History

by Rev Louis A. Langevin

(transcribed from St. Patrick’s 100th Anniversary Book, 1985)

The official Catholic Directory published by P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1979 edition, lists the following: “Jaffrey, Cheshire County, St. Patrick, Richard A. Smith (CEM), Res. 220 Main St., 03452.  Tel. 532-6634.  School – Sisters of Notre Dame and Sisters of Holy Cross; Sisters 3, Lay Teachers 6, Pupils 160.”

These bare-bone facts and numbers provide no insight into the personalities, events and motivating causes that led to the founding of St. Patrick Church and Parish; nor do they hint at the changes that have occurred in the Parish over the years to make it what it is today.  The evolution of an institution is neither instantaneous nor accidental, but a cumulative result of many contributions of energy, material, aspirations, spiritual ideals, and sacrifices by all its members.  So it is with St. Patrick, which today is the product of the work of countless known and unknown parishioners for over a century.

St. Patrick is a veritable font of personal memories for scores of individuals; of happy christenings, joyful nuptials, and sorrowful funerals.  A complete pageant of human emotions has been unfolded at its altar and in its nave.  Individual and family histories have begun and ended there and will continue to do so into the future.  And, indeed, “the roots of the present lie deep in the past, and nothing in the past is dead to the person who would learn how the present came to be what it is.”

Firstly, the “Jaffrey” of the Catholic Directory spares us geographic distinction.  There was a time when the United States Postal Service gave St. Patrick’s official address as being East Jaffrey.  The western portion of the township bore the designation of Jaffrey Center.  When the town was incorporated in 1773, most of the early settlers , said to be three hundred and fifty-one in number, lived around “the Center”.  It was there that the Meeting House was built and the first Town Meeting took place in 1775.  There was a gradual shift and an increase in population a few miles to the east because the Contoocook River provided a source of water power.  It was not until 1914, however, that a favorable referendum legally moved the site to the annual town assembly and voting place to the eastern portion where the bulk of the population was then residing.  Cheshire County was established after twenty-five or so neighboring towns had been incorporated during this same colonial period.  Keene grew the most rapidly and became the trading and juridical center or county seat.  It was from Keene and St. Bernard Church, some ninety-three years after the legal act of incorporation, that Jaffrey Catholics received their first religious ministrations from a priest.

It all began on a Sunday morning in 1869, when Rev. Daniel W. Murphy came by horse and buggy from Keene to celebrate Mass in the Engine House in Jaffrey Center.  He continued this practice for some two years on a monthly basis.  On alternate Sundays he would travel to Marlboro and perhaps Troy.  It would take almost a full day’s journey to reach these missions and return to Keene using the common mode of travel of that period.

Prior to Father Murphy’s initial trip in 1869, the twenty-two or so Catholic families would make their way, also by equine transport [horse], to St. Peter’s in Peterborough for Sunday worship.  Among these faithful families are recorded the names: Crowe, Dillon, Fitzgerald, and Hogan.  With the extension of the railroad and its passage through East Jaffrey in 1871, this section of the township took on added prominence and population.  The railroad link was particularly important since it increased the speed of travel tremendously over the four to six miles per hour achieved previously by horse-drawn carriages.

George Jaffrey’s town had changed considerably by the mid-1800’s.  Originally the town was named after Mr. Jaffrey, who was born in Portsmouth in 1717.  Jaffrey served as chief executive officer for some forty years for the Masonian Proprietors, which in present day terms would have been deemed a real estate conglomerate.  Around 1750 the company, composed of influential residents, including Governor Wentworth and members of his official family, had offered huge tracts of New Hampshire wilderness for the equivalent of two cents in British sterling.  Apparently there was no great rush among the early pioneers to acquire bargain land.  The lure of the land auctions were being somewhat diminished by local reports of very narrow and rough horse trails, savage, hungry wolves, and prowling, marauding Indians.  Mr. Jaffrey, the legal incorporator of scores of New Hampshire towns, apparently was more enamored of the seacoast region of the state than the southwestern corner since there is no historical evidence to indicate that he was ever here.  Around 1871 Father Murphy was continuing his monthly pastoral visitations from Keene, but with a shifting population and an ever-increasing number of newly immigrating French-Canadians, it became necessary to use the Union Hall for the once-a-month Sunday Mass.  This hall, constructed in 1853, once stood on School Street at the same location where the grammar school is today.

In 1874 a parish church was erected in Peterborough and East Jaffrey became a mission of St. Peter’s.  Traveling by train, Rev. John Holahan provided for the spiritual needs of his Jaffrey flock on a weekly basis.  This arrangement continued until 1882, at which time Father Holahan was replaced as pastor by Rev. Edward E. Buckle.  Father Buckle, for reasons known only to the Almighty and himself, chose to make Wilton and Sacred Heart Church his ecclesiastical headquarters.  Consequently, both Peterborough and East Jaffrey became mission territories of Father Buckle, Sacred Heart Church, Wilton.  The arrangement endured until 1885.

In 1884 an important historical event took place.  It was the canonical erection of the Diocese of Manchester by the Apostolic Decree of Pope Leo XIII.  the new Diocese comprised the same territory enclosed by the boundaries of the state of New Hampshire.  Before the juridical division Catholics in New Hampshire, including the clergy, were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of hte bishop of Portland, Maine.

The 1886 edition of Kenedy’s Directory listed Rev. Patrick J. McEvoy of St. Patrick’s Church.  Upon further study of other records and publications, we find the name of the first pastor spelled McAvoy and his middle initial M.  It could have been the leprechauns of Irish folklore–those tiny elfin cobblers supposed to own hidden treasure–who caused the spelling variants.  Indeed, Father McEvoy was born in Ireland and educated at Maynooth College and Seminary.  And, if the description is accurate, we can picture him as ruddy of complexion, a little taller than average, hearty of appetite, and a bit of an individualist.  He came here as a young priest, as many of the Irish Clergy did, to minister to the Irish immigrants.  In 1885 Father McEvoy received an appointment as parish priest of St. Peter’s, Peterborough from Bishop Bradley.  East Jaffrey was still a mission station.  But before the year had expired, Father McEvoy had moved bag and baggage to East Jaffrey.  Apparently he felt more at home among the Hogans, the Crowes, the Dillons, and the Fitzgeralds.

Again the leprechauns were about.  Father McEvoy found hidden treasure in the form of a white, two-story, wooden-frame house resting on about an acre on the hill on Main Street.  He purchases this house from Mr. Reuben Pierce for sixteen hundred dollars [2014: $39,000].  Now there was a resident pastor happily domiciled in a town of his own choosing, with his church six miles or so away, and looking at a large empty pasture across the street from his rectory.  And so the empty pasture was sold the following year, 1886, by the same Mr. Pierce to Father McEvoy.  We’re not sure of the purchase price for four acres.

The three hundred or so parishioners donated a hundred thousand feet of the best available lumber.  Father McEvoy, its first pastor, invited its first bishop, Bishop Bradley, to dedicate the new church in 1888, just two years, one month and eleven days after his self-transfer to East Jaffrey.  It was, of course, christened St. Patrick after the great missionary and Patron Saint of Eire.  St. Peter Church, Peterborough, became a mission of Jaffrey.  Father McEvoy found a less pleasant but necessary treasure in a piece of land purchased in the section of township called Cheshire.  Just before his transfer to Wilton in 1891, he purchased this plot for the sum of three hundred dollars [2014: $7,900] from a Mr. Arthur Blake.

This last terrestrial acquisition was rather prophetical as Father McEvoy’s next two successors were laid to rest there along with so many of the People of God.  It was named St. Patrick Cemetery and is represented by the abbreviation CEM in the Kenedy Directory.

The second pastor was Rev. Edward J. Furlong, who came from Dover where he had been an assistant for several years.  Father Furlong’s pastorate is the longest in the annals of the parish, having lasted fifteen years.  Both town and church increased so rapidly in population during the last decade of the nineteenth century, that the services of another priest were required.  In 1897 Rev. Francis O. O’Neil was assigned to St. Patrick’s as its first assistant or associate pastor.  Father O’Neil had been newly ordained in December of that year from the Sulpician Seminary in Montreal, Canada.  the present rectory was also built during that period.

An amusing little story has come down to us from that time.  It seems that Father Furlong was sitting on the front porch of the new rectory one Sunday afternoon about to recite Vespers from his breviary.  A very small and polite little boy, carrying a tiny puppy of unknown pedigree in his arms, knocked at the front door of the porch.  “Excuse me, Father, but would you like a little dog?”  Father Furlong is said to have pondered a moment.  “Yes, I think I would like to have it very much, thank you”.  Pausing before transferring the little puppy to its new owner, the boy asked; “What will you call it?”  Father Furlong reflected briefly, looking at his breviary still opened to the opening Antiphon and first Psalm for Sunday Vespers, Psalm 109.  “We’ll name it ‘Dixit'”, replied the priest, having glanced down to the opening words of the Psalm, “Dixit Dominus”, and still totally unaware of the little puppy’s breed or gender.  Henceforth, “Dixit” became well known as the parish dog with a Latin verb for a name.  “Dixit” has a successor today in the canine person of “Patricia”, of known pedigree and gender, currently residing at the Sister of Mercy convent.  Father Furlong died in 1906 after a period of failing health and lies buried in St. Patrick Cemetery.  Rev. Peter J. McDonough, later to return as pastor, served as administrator during Father Furlong’s final days.

In 1907 Rev. R. A.  Bernardin was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Father Furlong.  Father Bernardin was of French-Canadian extraction and during this epoch, along with the names of Crowe, Hogan, Dillon and Fitzgerald, the parish census also contains the names of Cournoyer, Duval, Labonte, Letourneau and Robichaud.  The Industrial Age saw many factories springing up in New England in which cotton and woolen fabrics were manufactured.  At this time many families immigrated, seeking employment in the new manufacturing centers; many came directly from Canada.  Ancillary businesses also sprang up, such as stores to provide the necessary commodities for family and home.

There also existed a language difficulty among the new immigrants and with French-Canadians especially.  Consequently, until new residents achieved a firm grasp of the English language and its syntax, the so-called “French-Canadian” language was the only means of linguistic communication possible among them.  It was almost two decades later when “Oui” and “Non” game way completely to “Yes” and “No” or better yet, many attained a workable cognition of both languages.  Father Bernardin was fluent in both French and English and performed notably in assisting Canadian parishioners  to adjust to the social, cultural and environmental differences of their new country.  Father Bernardin’s musical talents provided instruction and inspiration for the establishment of an excellent church choir.  This tradition has come down and is carried on to this present day.  An eighty-six year-old surviving member of Father Bernardin’s original church choir has continued to entertain as a vocalist in recent years in convalescent homes in the area.

Father Bernardin died an untimely death at the age of forty-one, five years after his assumption of the pastorate of St. Patrick’s.

Another member of the clergy buried at St. Patrick’s Cemetery is Rev. William Hogan, a relative of the original founding families.

In retrospect, perhaps the deaths of the second and third pastors in their late forties and early fifties cannot accurately be termed “untimely” when we consider the life span of americans in 1900 was only an average of forty-nine years.

Rev. Herbert A. Hennon replaced Father Bernardin in 1912.

The nations population had risen from 38,558,371 in the year 1870 to 75,994,575 in 1900.  This growth was also reflected in parish membership.  The three hundred and fity parishioners of Father McEvoy’s 1888 St. Patrick’s had mushroomed to roughly twelve hundred by 1915.

The small, white wooden church seating about three hundred could not adequately accommodate Sunday worshipers.

Father Hennon began plans for a new church and the foundation was laid in 1915 on the west side of the rectory.  He was a man of boundless energy and frugal foresight.  Father Hennon and his flock decided that there was an ample amount of rock lying about the fields and pastures to provide building material for the external walls of the new church.  Gathering the stones also had another beneficial effect in that it helped to clear the terrain for farming and grazing.  So it was that each Sunday for several years, parishioners on their way to church traveled in fieldstone laden buggies and wagons which they unloaded into neat piles.  Father Hennon was also seen about the countryside gathering the loose granite and placing the pieces in his buggy to be deposited near the building site.

Father Hennon next obtained the professional services of a rather remarkable architect in the person of a Mr. Frank. J. Untersee.  Born in Switzerland, he was educated in that country and in Germany.  In 1882 he, too, immigrated to this country and established an office in Boston.  For forty years he designed public buildings and churches in that city and its suburbs.  He was also the architect of record for buildings in New York City, Brooklyn, and along the Hudson River.

Mr. Untersee’s plans called for the construction of a fieldstone edifice one hundred and seven feet long and fifty-seven feet wide, with a tower fifty-seven feet high.  The roof and tower were to be topped with no less than six Celtic crosses.  In the interior, beams, rafters, and wall supports were affixed with wooden pegs rather than nails.  Mr. Untersee supervised the actual construction and the completed entity was considered a unique architectural gem portraying a rural Gothic design in complete harmony with the rough native fieldstone.  The new St. Patrick Church, seating almost six hundred persons, was dedicated on September 3, 1917 by Bishop Guertin.  Later, memorial stained-glass windows and hard-carved Stations of the Cross were donated to beautify the interior of the church.

The homily delivered by the Most Reverend Bishop at the dedicatory Mass at St. Patrick’s in September 1917, contained somber reference to World War I, then raging in Europe, and the gloomy prospects of American entry into the conflict.  The town would later be touched most deeply and intimately by the overseas hostilities.  After general mobilization had taken many of the young men of the parish and town to serve the country, Father Hennon had a parish Honor Roll inscribed with their names in recognition of their bravery and valor.  Pastor and parish were always very proud of these names: Leonard Ashley, Arthur Bessette, Henry Bibeau, William Brunelle, Emilieu Bourgeois, George Burgoyne, Joseph Burgoyne, Henry Blais, Roch Chenevert, Herman Charlonne, Roch Charlonne, John Chouinard, Arthur Chretien, Alfred Cournoyer, Joseph Donahue, Homer Deschenes, Louis Desrosiers, Arthur Dionne, Joseph Dubois, Louis Dufauet, Anthony Duval, Joseph Duval, Alfred Foucault, Linus Foyle, Ferdinand Gamache, Antonio Gelinas, Daniel Gobeil, Harold Griffin, Francis Hunt, Martin Kidder, James McCormack, Silvio Morin, Jean Morin, Joseph Parent, Joseph Perreault, Alcide Pelletier, Frank Pelletier, Philip Rousseau, David Rochford, Emile Robichaud, Levi Sirois, Oliver St. Pierre, Urgel St. Pierre, Joseph Stone, Samuel Taylor, Amedee Taylor, Francis Taylor, Philip Taylor, Wilfred Tremblay, Adelard Vincent, Alex Welcome, and Marcel Williams.

In 1921 Rev. William J. Cavanaugh, a native of Manchester, was named to replace Father Hennon.  Father Cavanaugh was small of stature but large of heart and made a lasting impact on both town and parish.  His two maiden sisters served as housekeepers and they, too, became well integrated in the community, perhaps best by providing an inexhaustible supply of home-baked cookies for hungry children.  Father Cavanaugh, on the other hand, successfully competed with his two sisters by keeping a pocket filled with dimes which he would hand out at the slightest provocation and opportunity.  This too served as a great source of unforgettable endearment to penniless children.  Possessing a keen wit and sharp mind, Father Cavanaugh was an excellent speaker.  Rev. Charles L. Allyson served as associate pastor at this time.

The summer lawn parties at St. Patrick’s were one of the major social events of the town during the thirties.  They were truly old-fashioned church festivals common in New England during this era.  They were simple, quiet affairs in which only a dozen or so booths were arranged on the lawn in a large circle.  The booths contained refreshments, mostly ice cream and cold lemonade at five pennies a glass.  Other booths were laden with home-baked pastries, jams, and jellies.  Still others contained handwork, such as knitted and crocheted articles, that the ladies of the parish had labored on for many weeks.  There was a pristine innocence about all this, totally devoid of anything that would smack of commercial hawking and Vegasian activity.  The church festivals of this period had what is popularly referred to as “class”.  Perhaps a more appropriate word is dignity.

December 5, 1930 marked the installation of a magnificent pipe organ designed especially to fit the choir loft of the church.  It was manufactured by the Tellers-Kent Organ Company and served to replace the old manually pumped wood organ quite worn out by some thirty years of faithful service.  The new organ came about as the result of a windfall of two thousand dollars [2014: $28,000] to Father Cavanaugh from Mrs. Agnes McKenzie of Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Mrs. McKenzie had expressed a desire to donate something in memory of her late husband, and the suggestion was made that an organ was sorely needed.  The McKenzies were part of a growing group of people from Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey who were spending their summers in this area, attending services at St. Patrick’s.  The remaining amount of the total cost of the organ, some twelve hundred and ninety dollars [2014: $18,000] was raised through the individual contributions of resident parishioners.  Hazel Butler and her successor Jean Hampsey have performed at the organ console very capably for many years at countless Masses, weddings and funerals, along with Mrs. Catherine Kirschner.

Father Cavanaugh was transferred to the pastorate of Blessed Sacrament Church, Manchester, in 1932.  Considerable growth had occurred both in town and in parish during Father Cavanaugh’s tenure of eleven years.  The prefix “East” added to the geographic designation of Jaffrey was beginning to disappear both in the popular and official lexicon.  It had been since 1914, when the annual town assembly and voting place had been transferred from the Meeting House in Jaffrey Center to Union Hall in East Jaffrey.  About the late thirties or early forties, the aforementioned prefix was quietly laid to rest with a tear shed by an official act of the United States Postal Service.  From then on the simpler designation of “Jaffrey” was used.

Rev. Peter J. McDonough returned to Jaffrey for the second time in 1932.  These were trying economic times, a vivid reminder in some ways of present conditions.  The entire nation was in the throes of an industrial and financial depression which had begun in 1929.  The full impact was felt in New England about 1932 when factories operated only two or three days a week or were completely closed.  The usual commerce of business and banking slowed perceptibly or ceased completely.  Churches were also slowed perceptibly or ceased completely.  Churches were also adversely affected.  Churches are, for some unknown reason, popularly believed to have an infinite supply of Divine currency and endless flow of imaginary riches to sustain them with temporal necessities or are believed to continually mismanage their temporal assets.  So be it.  Utilities and maintenance bills have no exemptions and rather low salary schedules must be met.  Many weeks during the Depression Era of the thirties, the weekly offertory and general revenue amounted to just thirty dollars [2014: $517]  Ironically, during this period of hard times, St. Patrick’s, along with most churches, could be left safely unlocked both day and night.

Father McDonough remained for thirteen years and was assisted by diligent and energetic associates who supervised many of the youth activities.  Rev. John Feeney was particularly active with various youth groups, including an excellent children’s choir.  Rev. Edward McDonald and Rev. Arthur Mullen, both of Portsmouth, along with Rev. Joseph Donahue of Worcester, Mass., all labored along successively in the parish.  Rev. Matthew Casey left with a large contingent of young men from the town for Shelby, Miss., at the outbreak of World War II.  Fathers McDonald and Donahue also left for military duty as chaplains.  It was also at this time that the old church was converted to a parish hall.  It became a facility for various social functions: whist parties, penny sales, plays and pageants, and a youth center for sundry games and parties.

The rock grotto of the Blessed Virgin was built under the direction of Father McDonough.  Located behind the rectory and at the perimeter of the parking lot, it came into existence under rather strange circumstances.  An anonymous youngster, age ten or eleven, attending Sunday Masses during the summer months at St. Patrick’s with a group of Boy Scouts, was repeatedly insistent and persistent that he could see a Madonna-like apparition located in the brush behind the rectory.  “A Lady is standing there.”  He repeated this observation many times to Father McDonough after Sunday Masses.  After some time Father McDonough, somewhat disturbed by the boy’s tenacity in relating his observation to himself and others, had the young subject undergo an examination in an attempt to ascertain his integrity and his mental and emotional balance.  The boy was found to be quite sound, and in response to his pleading, Father McDonough had the grotto constructed.

Another rather extraordinary event took place about this period which may or may not have a correlation.  It seems that a very fervent parishioner on her way to daily Mass felt compelled to toss a small medal of the Blessed Virgin over the wall onto the lawn of the Stone House, now the convent adjacent to the school.  She responded to this impulse with a somewhat vague objective in mind which came to be realized a few years later.

The Rev. Hubert Mann, Rev. John Pitts, and Rev. John Moran served diligently as associate pastors during the forties and are fondly remembered.  Father McDonough had been in declining health for some three years, and in 1945 he requested a transfer to St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Derry where he died a short time afterwards.  He was succeeded by the Rev. John A. McSweeney.

World War II was still raging and was to terminate the following year.  Fifty-two young men of the parish had served their country in the first Word War; probably well over six times that number wore military uniforms in World War II.  Some died in the conflict and others were destined to perish prematurely as a result of combat-induced wounds, injuries, andn illnesses.  We must also recall the sometimes forgotten valiant service of our parish women in World War II.

At the end of the war Father McSweeney was joined by the Rev. Frank McMullen, a native of Medford, Massachusetts.  He became better known as just plain Father Frank, and is well remembered by scores of contemporary parishioners.

Plans were developed for an extensive commitment of St. Patrick’s into Christian education.  Viggo Brandt-Errickson, a Danish sculptor of note, agreed to sell the Stone House, perhaps totally unaware of the celestial promptings of a small medal deposited on his lawn two years before.  Mr. Brandt-Errickson was also a ceramist of great repute and confided that he wanted to move to California to take advantage of natural gas for his kiln and also a more favorable climate for his work.  One could suspect that Mr. Errickson had a hand in the design or construction of the grotto, but this is uncertain.  And whether there exists a correlation between grotto and school is pure speculation.  But what is fact is that an idea, from wherever it originated, became a reality in 1948 when the Stone House took on a new identity and became known as Our Lady of Monadnock Academy.  And the medal was still on the lawn.  The original enrollment for four years of high school consisted of twenty girls from Jaffrey, Keene, and Troy under the supervision of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.  The recorded cost for the Stone House, adjacent land, and the necessary renovations for Our Lady of Monadnock Academy was thirty-six thousand dollars.  (2014: $353,000)

After eleven years at the helm, along with the invaluable assistance of Father Frank, Father McSweeney had steered the parish ship into the waters of Christian Education, a most necessary adjunct for a truly Christian community.  His pastorate also spanned two wars, the last months of World War II and the Korean conflict.

In 1956 Rev. Msgr. Lawrence R. Gardner succeeded Father McSweeney, who became spiritual shepherd of St. Michael Church in Exeter where he died some six years after his transfer.

Father McMullen remained two and a half more years as an assistant to Msgr. Gardner.  Older parishioners asserted that Msgr. Gardner’s affability reminded them of a much taller pastoral carbon copy of their beloved, Father “Billy” Cavanaugh.  At this time St. Patrick’s had the added good fortune of having ministerial assistance of the priests and seminarians of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart which had purchased the former Shattuck Inn and transformed it into a seminary.  The seminary choir often lent unsurpassed beauty to church functions with their singing.  The seminary contributions of multiple gallons of blood to Red Cross and hospital blood drives were a source of Draculian delight to the sponsors.  Father Frank was transferred at this time to become the founding pastor of Mary, Queen of Peace Church, Salem, where he expired at age forty-nine.

Rev. Lionel W. Boulay replaced Father Gardner in 1960.  He resembled Father Hennon inasmuch as he possessed indefatigable energy and was, in addition, a most capable administrator.

In 1961, to accommodate more children, Our Lady of Monadnock Academy was converted to an elementary school.  Twenty-nine children were enrolled in the first grade.  The growth has peaked at about two hundred and thirty-five boys and girls during subsequent years for the eight-year grammar school program.  To accommodate the increased enrollment, new facilities were constructed adjacent to the original Our Lady of Monadnock Academy, which is now used exclusively as a convent.  The new school was renamed St. Patrick’s.  The last addition was the construction of a gymnasium, which was also designed for use as a parish hall.  Extensive landscaping was undertaken by Father Boulay.  The original simple wooden church, which had been used for some thirty years and then later put into service as a parish hall, was removed to enlarge the parking lot.  The sixties were very turbulent times and saw the beginning of still another conflict involving nation and community, the Vietnam War.

Father Boulay was transferred in 1967 and was replaced by Rev. James F. Quinn, a native of Manchester.  Father Quinn was no stranger to this area, having spent some seventeen years as an associate pastor in St. Bernard Parish in Keene.  Tall and possessing a rich tenor voice, it had been noted there by friendly parishioners that a thespian by the name of Gregory Peck bore Father Quinn some facial resemblance.  By way of a more substantive quality, Father Quinn demonstrated a compassionate dedication in his pastoral concern for the sick and the elderly.  Rev. William Bolt, Rev. John Moran, and Rev. Donald Martineau served as associate pastors during the sixties.  Father Bolt, leaving in 1961 to serve as chaplain in the armed forces, later served as administrator for a brief time upon his return from military service.  A rather disturbing incident significant of the somber clouds hanging over the general moral atmosphere of our present era took place during Father Quinn’s regime, the first burglary of the rectory.  Father Quinn left in 1969 to assume the pastorship of St. Anne’s in Manchester, his home parish.

Rev. Robert E. Barnes became the eleventh pastor of St. Patrick’s in 1969.  His tenure was of three years duration, and during that period he made many friends in the parish and strengthened existing parochial bonds.  Father Barnea continued to implement at the parish level many of the changes wrought by the General Council of Vatican II, especially in the field of Liturgy.  Considerable growth had taken place in Rindge in the sixties with the development of Franklin Pierce College and the arrival of new families.  This new area required Father Barnea’s time and energy as it had that of his immediate predecessors.  In 1972 Father Barnea left his many friends and parishioners to become the spiritual head of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Concord.

In 1972, a new concept of the pastorate was tried at St. Patrick’s.  The Most Reverend Ernest J. Primeau appointed Rev. Thomas J. Bresnahan and Rev. James W. Haller as co-pastors.  The team ministry mode was an experimental idea developed during and after the General Council of Vatican II.  St. Patrick’s and a Manchester church were selected for the ministry.  Father Bresnahan and Father Haller served well in this role until 1974, when Father Haller was appointed as parish priest at St. Mary Church, Hillsboro.  Both Father Bresnahan and Father Haller were instrumental in opening new frontiers at the parish level by their implementation of Ecumenism and the Aggiornamento of Pope John XXIII.  Pastoral participation took place in a joint worship service during the Jaffrey Bicentennial Observance of 1973.  Both priests were active in the Amos Fortune Forum, delivering a lecture in 1974 on the history of local Catholicism.  Father Besnahan again participated in a community wide Ecumenical service in 1976.  The team ministry, indeed, did much to “open up the windows”.  This was in marked contrast to the last joint religious service of 1923, marking the one hundred and fiftieth birthday of the town, when no official Catholic participation had taken place.

In 1977 Father Bresnahan was transferred to St. Joseph Church, Nashua, and he was succeeded by the fourteenth and present pastor, Rev. Richard A. Smith.  Father Smith had the assistance of an ordained deacon, Rev. Mr. Philip Petit, who served his ecclesiastical internship here and who was assigned to St. Theresa’s, Manchester, after his ordination.  Sr. Lorrain Lapete assists Father Smith in the parish apostolate and its daily administrative burdens.  The Carmelite Fathers of St. Joseph Monastery, Peterborough, are also active in the parish when needed.  Father Smith’s extensive pastoral duties are performed quietly and efficiently without fuss or fury.

As we finish with P.J. Kenedy’s official parochial description of St. Patrick’s, we note that the School Sisters of Notre Dame have departed the parish school after a quarter century of faithful service.  They have all quietly gone away just as they used to walk so silently each day from convent to school and back again.  It is characteristic of the various sisterhoods to come quietly into the life of a parish and community and to leave unobtrusively after they have accomplished their education task.  They represent in welcomed relief the antithesis of the raucousness of self-assertive personalities so prevalent in the political and social demonstrations so frequently depicted on our television screens and frequently contacted in our daily lives.  We trust they have not been completely forgotten.

The Sisters of Mercy, four in number, with six lay teachers, have since 1980, directed the educational program of St. Patrick School.  Ironically, it has taken one hundred twenty-two years for the spiritual children and religious descendants of the founders of the Sisters of Mercy in Manchester to reach their present-day mission in Jaffrey.  In its institutional history St. Patrick’s has not bequeathed in spiritual legacy one of its daughters back to the several women’s religious order that have instructed here.  Perhaps there will be some future parochial emanation of women’s religious vocations and the hope is somewhat bolstered with the recollection:  The sister of that good parishioner who tossed the small medal onto the Stone House lawn way back in the mid-forties, she too, was an Irish Sister of Mercy who educated black children of Alabama for some sixty years.

The Sisters of Mercy have been in New Hampshire since 1858, twenty-six years before this Diocese was formed.  Their first mission was in St. Anne’s, Manchester.  Founded in Ireland in 1831 by [Venerable] Mother Catherine McAuley, a group headed by Mother Xavier Ware, a most remarkable woman, had been sent to America to assist the newly-arrived Irish immigrants.  Mother Ware’s original band established schools in the larger cities of that period, Pittsburgh and Chicago.  In 1847, when an epidemic of typhus broke out, she founded a hospital to treat its victims.  Gradually moving east, she established a mission in Loretto, Pennsylvania.  Her next location was Providence, R.I., where her newly built convent and school were threatened with burning by a political group bearing the imposing if not misleading name of “Native Americans of the Know-Nothing Movement”.  During the Civil War Mother Warde and her Sisters of Mercy staffed two military hospitals, one near Washington, D.C.  No less than twenty other orders of Sisters followed Mother Warde in staffing the military hospitals of the North-South conflict.  In 1858 she was asked by Father McDonald, a greatly respected leader, to found a school among the Irish immigrant workers.  Father McDonald hesitated issuing the request, it was said, because of fear caused by the anti-Catholic fanaticism of this period.  Nevertheless, Mother Warde went to Maine to establish a school for Abnaki Indian children at Old Town; some time afterwards, in 1884, she died.  It has been stated that during this Irish girl’s travels in this country while founding many schools and hospitals, no public official east of Chicago could match either her knowledge of this nation’s geographical and political diversity or her courage.