Our Parish History
Earliest records of Catholic priests working in the Huntington area are from the 1840’s. These priests travelled on foot and on horseback to Greenport, Riverhead, Sag Harbor, Islip, Smithtown and Huntington. Catholics who lived in those settlements might have had a Mass every three months. The first Masses known to be celebrated in Huntington were in the Matthew Hobon house on Main Street and Sabbath Day Path, a house that has since been removed.
Catholicism had been forbidden in the original Dutch colonies and in the English settlements. In 1763, Bishop Challoner of London reported that “in New York, one may find a Catholic here and there, but they have no opportunity of practicing their religion as no priest visits them, and … there is not much likelihood that Catholic priests will be permitted to enter these provinces.“ Though the Bill of Rights later guaranteed freedom of religion in 1791, some states could, and did, drag their feet in granting that freedom, and opposition to Catholicism was not uncommon.
In 1835, the Native American Democratic Association was formed in New York City (this name did not at all mean what we now recognize as Native Americans); the first political party to formally oppose the Catholic Church, and finding the influx of immigrants (many of them Catholic) to be alarming, proposed a waiting period of 21 years for American citizenship.
A priest serving Long Island in those days had to be a horseman and had to be able to ride between Masses, fasting from all food and drink until he’d said his last Mass of the day. Fr. Edward McGuinness was the itinerant priest under whose direction a small wooden church was built on Huntington Road at the site of the present St. Patrick’s Cemetery, to the far left of the entrance gate. The first Mass was said in this church on August 15, 1849. Most Catholics lived near Lloyd’s Neck, so the original church was built in Cold Spring Harbor. Parishioners would have been farmers, whalers, workers at local brickyards, saw and grist mills.
An 1853 estimate is that there were about 60,000 Catholics on Long Island - out of about 260,00 total residents. Long Island had 25 priests then, 20 of whom were Irish or Irish-American. The United States was then a country of about 23 million people total; only about 4 million more than the current population of New York State alone.
The new St. Patrick’s Church had no resident pastor until 1860 when Fr. Jeremiah Crowley moved to Huntington. He was 27 years old, ordained only a year, one of only two priests in Suffolk County, and was to remain pastor for 35 years. He also served other Long Island congregations. He was recalled by someone “driving a carriage with two black horses 18 miles to Smithtown in a blinding snowstorm” to offer another Mass. On weekdays the church was used as a school for 60 students. The first St. Patrick’s burial was Robert Dowden, a child of 18 months who died August 31, 1849. The first adult burial was Mary Anderson, a native of Liverpool, August 19, 1850.
In February 1867, the church burned down and the pastor decided to rebuild closer to Huntington, and bought the property at Main Street and Anderson. Despite the fact that the parishioners were poor, he was able to lay the new cornerstone on Thanksgiving Day of the same year.
He also bought the large white-frame Conklin House that stood on the site of the present school and made it the rectory. At the end of his pastorate, Fr. Crowley was 62, and went to work at a Brooklyn parish for 7 more years. But when he died, his wish was to be buried where the high altar had stood in the first church. His grave can be visited at St. Patrick’s Cemetery.
Fr. John York was the next pastor; he served for 19 years. He was a very gregarious person, said to have transformed Huntington’s attitude toward Catholics. Teddy Roosevelt would ride over to play cards with him. At Fr. York’s 25th Jubilee, the last of five speeches was given by the former president himself. Fr. York had much concern for conditions at the State Institution for the Insane, over in Kings Park. He wrote a strong protest to the governor about conditions there, so the governor made him a member of the Board of Directors - a job he resigned from only at age 82, due to poor health. Like his predecessor, Fr. York was in charge of a number of other places. In Huntington Station, he bought the property and a large fairgrounds building to use as a temporary church. This was the start of St. Hugh of Lincoln Parish.
Fr. John Robinson became pastor in 1914; he opened the newly built grammar school in 1922, under the direction of the Sisters of St. Dominic. He was pastor for 10 years. Msgr. Thomas Murray became pastor in 1924. By then, St. Patrick’s was a parish of 3,000 families. In 1950, Msgr. Murray added a third floor to the school and built a convent (our current Junior High building). Plans for the present church were made during his pastorate, but he did not live to see the building. Msgr. Murray died in March 1963, and the new church was dedicated that June.
Msgr. Martin Flynn became pastor at the dedication of the church and served until 1981. Msgr. James Richter became pastor in 1981 and served until 1995. Fr. John Deniston became pastor in November 1995 and served until 2005. Msgr. John Bennet became pastor in 2005 and served until 2017.
Our current pastor, Msgr. Steven Camp, became pastor in 2017, and since then has overseen multiple additions and much-needed renovations to the church, rectory and school, including the church roof and doors; school security and classrooms, and more.
This is one type of parish history. The other kind is your own history with our parish community, perhaps extending many years back, and including many memories of the important occasions in your lives - baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations, weddings, anniversaries and funerals.
We are a constantly changing and growing community. Just in these last 2 years, dealing with pandemic and political turmoil, our parish has developed and changed in multiple ways. We utilize social media and virtual evangelization more than ever, and continue to try to find positive ways to reach all our parishioners.
Our approaches to many of the ongoing problems of society may be different now than in when our parish was founded 173 years ago, but our Catholic Faith remains strong in the same Lord God who has been worshipped on these grounds since the first Mass in 1949.
We are St. Patrick’s!
