CELEBRATING OUR 175TH
Growing Pains
In 1846, Bishop Whelan moved to Wheeling in the northwestern corner of the Diocese of Richmond. He took charge of St. James Parish and opened a small school for German Catholic children.
Within two years, women religious from the Visitation Sisters came to Wheeling to open the Wheeling Female Academy (later known as Mount de Chantal Academy).
Also in 1848, St. Patrick Parish in Weston was established to serve an increasing Catholic community of Irish immigrants who had labored on the Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike. Father Austin Grogan purchased property at a corner of High Street for $100 to build a two-story church. Because of the generosity of both Catholics and non-Catholics, the church was opened in 1848 without debt.
The year 1849, saw the establishment of St. John church in Summersville, and a newly constructed St. James Church in Wheeling – moved from its Chapline Street location to 13th and Eoff Street in Wheeling.
In 1853, the Sisters of St. Joseph (today the Congregation of St. Joseph) arrived in Wheeling to operate a hospital, which continues to thrive today as Wheeling Hospital, the oldest Catholic hospital in WV. The sisters’ essential ministries in health care, catechism, evangelization, education, charity, and prayer have continued for more than 170 years, an indelible and living link to the earliest days of our diocese.
