Journal-News, Sunday, March 5, 1989 St. Stephen Church part of city's big picture

By Jim Blount

St. Stephen Church — one of three Hamilton parishes to merge to form St. Julie Billiart this year — has endured several changes in its colorful 157-year history. Its founding and early history chronicles the growth of German influence in Hamilton in the 1800s.

St. Stephen had its start with Protestants, not Catholics. They were civic leaders who wanted to attract German craftsmen to the town of about 1,600 people (including Rossville).

They believed forming a Catholic church would bring men with the skills and work ethic needed to establish Hamilton as a successful industrial city.

In 1829 Hamilton's Protestant leaders purchased a 200-foot square lot at the northeast corner of North Second and Dayton streets and donated it to Bishop Edward Fenwick of the Cincinnati archdiocese.

"As soon as we can secure enough names, we will begin the Catholic Church in Hamilton, for it would be expecting too much to ask the non-Catholics to pay for the building of the church after they had donated the ground for this purpose," said a church official in noting the $400 Protestant gift,

Early historians said in 1829 there were only about a dozen Catholics in the entire county.

The first mass had been celebrated two years earlier in Rossville, then a separate village, but now a part of Hamilton's West Side. The service was held in a one-story brick house at Ross Avenue and South C Street, the residence of Sebastian Fromm. a 45-year-old native of Wurttemberg, Germany, who is regarded as the first Catholic to live in the community.

In 1832 a brick Gothic church was started, but problems delayed completion. It was dedicated Sunday, Aug. 21, 1836, with the Rev. Stephen Montgomery and the Rev. Adolphus Williamson participating.

The first resident pastor, the Rev. Thomas Butler, was appointed Dec. 25, 1839.

By the end of Butler's tenure in 1845, the church's German membership was increasing rapidly — and contributing to a language and nationality problem within the parish.

Many Germans had difficulty understanding English, while Irish parishioners had trouble understanding German.

The Rev. Daniel M. Hallinan, St. Stephen's second pastor, suggested two churches be formed, based on nationality.

The St. Stephen property was appraised at $6,000. It was agreed that the first group to raise $3,000 would pay that amount to the other group, which then would create its own parish and either buy or build a church.

The German members raised the $3,000 and presented it to the Irish.

The archbishop decreed that the Germans would retain St. Stephen Church with the 1848 split. That year the Rev. Nicholas Wachter became its first Franciscan pastor.

The $3,000 helped the Irish Catholics establish St. Mary Church. Father Hallihan moved from St. Stephen to become the first pastor at St. Mary.

During Wachter's service, St. Stephen membership grew rapidly, and before he left in 1852, it was evident a new church was necessary.

When the building's cornerstone was laid in August 1853, the service featured two speeches — one in German by the superior of the Franciscans, the other in English by the archbishop.

The new church — completed in 1854 — was a tribute to the Rev Pirman Eberhard, pastor form 1852 until 1861, who became known as "the Franciscan beggar of Hamilton."

Father Eberhardt earned that sobriquet because he would borrow a parishioner's carriage and drive to nearby churches in Ohio and Indiana to ask donations for the new building, which remains the nucleus of St. Stephen Church today.