Holy Name School

It is important to remember in the early period that Holy Name, then Saint Patrick, was a mission church originating from Father Gallitzin's church in Loretto. The Ebensburg congregation began in 1816 when Father Gallitzin began to pay regular visits to the little log cabin church, but it did not have a priest assigned to it until 1829 and it did n... ot have a resident priest until 1844. Additionally, it remained a mission church until 1857was designated a regular parish and received its first pastor. It served under the patronage of Saint Patrick for 51 years, from 1816 until 1867, when it became Holy Name of Jesus. It is believed a small framed church was erected by Judge Murray in 1816 and that Father Gallitzin dedicated the church to Saint Patrick. It was only the second Catholic church built in Cambria County, and among the earliest built between Lancaster, Pennsylvania and St. Louis, Missouri. The church stood on what is now the old Holy Name Cemetery bounded by Horner and Julian Streets. By 1816, Father Gallitzin had too many mission churches to be able to shepherd them properly. For a long time, he had been pleading with Archbishop Carroll of Baltimore for an assistant. Finally, in 1829, Father Patrick Rafferty was assigned to the mission in Ebensburg. Welsh was still the primary language being spoken in Ebensburg prior to this time, although many German immigrants were farming the surrounding land. But by 1829, an increasing wave of Irish countrymen, brought in to work on the Allegheny Portage Railroad, began to fill the Catholic churches. This influence is reflected in the fact the first set of priests to serve at Saint Patrick also had Irish sounding names. Father Rafferty, Father Duffy, Father Bradley and Father McGirr all served the Holy Name family from 1829 to 1834. Typically, these priests stayed in homes in the Ebensburg area. David Todd, Michael Hasson and John Ivory all served as host families for the priests. Father Duffy had the priviledge of welcoming Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick of the ...Read More