Sacred Heart Historians Seeking Info
Sondra Hernandez, Staff
writer
Photo Courtesy Sacred Heart
Catholic Church
Pictured is the first church of Sacred Heart
Catholic Church in Conroe - St. Mary's of the Woods. Sacred Heart historians
are seeking more information on the original wooden structure and what
happened to it.
Photo Courtesy Sacred Heart
Catholic Church
The first church of Sacred Heart Catholic
Church - named St. Mary's of the Woods was a small frame building located on
the west side of South Main Street at the intersection of Avenue G in
Conroe. A historical committee for Sacred Heart is seeking more information
on what happened to the first wooden structure.
Jason Fohtman, Staff photographer / Houston Chronicle
An artist rendering of Sacred Heart Catholic Church new
church is seen Wednesday, June 7, 2017, in Conroe. To the left is a replica
of the original St. Mary’s of the Woods chapel. This replica chapel today
resides as a part of the new church campus at North Frazier and FM 2854 in
downtown Conroe.
Historians with Sacred
Heart Catholic Church are hoping the public can help them solve a mystery.
The group is putting
together information to help the more-than-100-year-old church have a
historical marker placed on the church campus. They are currently gathering
historical information about the church.
Where they are stuck is
in getting more information about the original church chapel — a wooden
structure that stood at South Main Street at the intersection of Avenue G in
early Conroe. There are pictures of the old chapel, but they want to know
what happened to the wood structure?
According to a history of
Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Sacred Heart Parish’s roots began in 1898.
Conroe was a sawmill town in Montgomery County, when Andrew Jackson Madeley
invited the Rev. Joseph I. Kline of Plantersville to visit Conroe and offer
Mass. The first known Mass in Conroe was celebrated in the Andrew J. and
Hattie Fitzgerald Madeley home located on at the corner of Second Street and
Sherman Street near the railroad tracks.
The first church was a
small frame building located on the west side of South Main Street at the
intersection of Avenue G. The McDade family donated the land for the mission
church, a plot about three blocks from the courthouse, and “considered to be
the residential district,” said Father Wilhelm to Bishop Gallagher in his
letter dated May 26, 1910.
The basic funds for the
church came from the Catholic Church Extension Society and local citizens,
both Catholics and non-Catholics donated generously. On Nov. 14, 1912,
Father Wilhelm wrote Bishop Gallagher that “The carpentry work is completed
and the building is painted inside and outside, and will be ready for paper
after the lumber is seasoned. We have no furnishings whatsoever, but intend
to put in a temporary altar and Communion rail soon and we have about 25
souls in our care.”
On Oct. 25, 1916 during
Father George Apel’s tenure, Bishop Nicholas A. Gallagher of Galveston made
his first trip to Conroe. The Bishop confirmed a class of 17, and dedicated
the new church of St. Mary’s of the Woods.
Father Henry Parmentier
served as pastor of New Waverly of which St. Mary’s of the Woods was a
mission church. During his tenure, the completion of a larger and more
substantial church occurred to serve the people of Conroe.
In the 1930s, a brick
church was erected at the present site on land partly donated by the James
McDade family. Both William Pfifner and George Strake, who discovered the
great Conroe oil field in 1931, made substantial gifts to the church.
It is said that an oil
field worker approached Strake at a Mass at Sacred Heart to let him know a
big gusher had hit.
On Nov. 9, 1935, Bishop
C. E. Byrne consecrated the Altar and dedicated the new church to the Sacred
Heart of Jesus.
A third chapel was built
in the 1970s and then in November 2018, a new 1,500-seat church and 200-seat
chapel were dedicated on the campus.
As a part of the design
for the new church, the 200-seat chapel is a replica of the original St.
Mary’s of the Woods church from the early 1900s.
Anyone with more
information on what happened to the first chapel of Sacred Heart Catholic
Church may reach Robin Bartholet at bin@consolidated.net or call her at
936-672-3380.
Reprint
Conroe Courier, August 22, 2021
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