St. Casimir’s Church, located at 240 Quinnipiac Street in Wallingford, was established in 1914. The church affiliated with the Polish National Catholic Church in October, 1916 and soon erected a wood-frame church at the corner of Prospect and Quinnipiac Streets. A fire in 1945 destroyed the original steeple and floor-to-ceiling pipe organ. Some years later the exterior of the building was bricked.
Bishop John J. Nilan created Holy Rosary Catholic parish in 1908 to serve Ansonia’s Italian immigrants. The parish worshiped at the former Assumption Parish Church on Main Street (a new Assumption Church had just been erected on North Cliff Street). A new Holy Rosary Church, built at 10 Father Salemi Drive, was dedicated in 1967.
The first Catholic Mass in Wallingford was celebrated on December 22, 1847 in the home of James Hanlon on Main Street. Wallingford became a mission of St. Rose of Lima Church in Meriden in 1851. Services were soon held in Union Hall. As described in the 1895 Souvenir History of Wallingford, Connecticut:
The necessary funds for building of a church were soon after raised, the subscription list being added to liberally by the Protestants of the town. The first church was a building forty by sixty feet in dimensions, the corner stone of which was laid November 23, 1857 the ceremony being performed by Rev. Thomas Quinn. Before the building was completed, during the saying of mass, part of the unfinished floor gave way, resulting in the injury of several persons and causing great confusion.
The church was completed in 1859, but the new Holy Trinity parish would again become Meriden’s mission because of the decrease in members with the outbreak of the Civil War. Holy Trinity was restored to full parish status in 1867 and the cornerstone of a new church (68 North Colony Street) was blessed on September 24, 1876. Quoting again from the Souvenir History:
In 1875, the old church having become too small for the growing membership, ground was broken for a new edifice. On account of the scarcity of funds, progress was slow in the building of the new church, and while in an uncompleted state, in the summer of 1878, the old church was completely demolished by the tornado visiting Wallingford at that time, thirty members of the congregation being included among the citizens who perished thereby. The following year the new church had become so far completed as to admit of services being held in the basement, the present edifice, however, was not completed until 1887. The church property is among the finest of the State. The church is of cuneiform shape and a brick structure, 148 feet in length and 104 feet in its extreme width. From the floor to the apex of the roof the height is nearly 50 feet. The windows of the edifice, presented to the church, are marvels of art. Connected with the church is a handsome parochial residence[.]
The first Catholic Mass celebrated in the Hopmeadow Street area of Simsbury was on October 5, 1902. Simsbury Catholics had previously been traveling to St. Bernard’s Church in Tariffville. The Church of the Immaculate Conception was soon built on the north side of Plank Hill Road and dedicated on May 29, 1904. The parish, organized in 1921, eventually outgrew this wood frame structure and a new brick church. Located at 940 Hopmeadow Street, it was dedicated to St. Mary on February 23, 1936.
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Parish was established in Hartford in 1958 to serve the local community of immigrants from Portugal and the Azores. The founding pastor, Father José Dias Martins da Silva, purchased a vacant Danish Lutheran Church on Russ Street where the parish worshiped until the basement chapel of a new church was completed in 1986. Our Lady of Fatima Church, located at 50 Kane Street in Hartford, was dedicated on April 30, 1988. The parish also later erected a community center.
St. Philip the Apostle Church, 64 Pompey Hollow Road in the Warrenville section of Ashford, was built of native stone in the 1930s through the efforts of the local farming community. Most were of Slovak descent and the church has a Byzantine copper onion dome. The church was erected through the leadership of Father William J. Dunn, who was sent to the new parish, which originally encompassed nine rural towns in eastern Connecticut, in 1921 and celebrated Masses in the old farmhouse in which he lived until the new church was completed. It was designed by New York architect Paul Chalfin, a summer resident of Warrenville.
The first Catholic house of worship in Ansonia was a white frame chapel erected on Main Street in 1867-1868. It was named The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Starting as a mission of Derby, parish status was conferred in 1870. A new church, designed by architect Patrick C. Keeley, was later erected over eighteen years at 61 North Cliff Street. Ground was broken in 1889 and the cornerstone was put into place on Sunday, September 6, 1891. The basement chapel was completed and began to be used in 1900 (it was later remodeled to become the Church Hall in 1967). The completed edifice was dedicated in June 1907. The original plan called for a tower that was never built.
