Sacred
Heart Catholic Church
- - During the building of the Pittsburgh & Erie Canal a large
number of Catholics were employed on that public work, and missionary
priests made periodical trips along the line of the canal to hold
services and minister to the spiritual wants of the members of that
faith. Sharon being one of the principal points on the route,
was also one of the places where mass was occasionally
celebrated. It was, however, some years after this period
before the town possessed any Catholic settlers, though several German
families of that faith located east of Sharon, around Hickory Corners,
in the decade between 1845 and 1855, while other Catholic families,
both Irish and German, settled in the vicinity of the blast furnaces
erected in the Shenango Valley during the same decade. For a
few years those settlers were compelled to attend services at the
pioneer Catholic mission north of Mercer, then known as the "Irish
Settlement," or go without the consolations of their
religion. But prior to 1850 Rev.
Andrew Skopez, who died in the fall of 1887, began his
visits to the German settlement at Hickory Corners, and held services
in the houses of members, usually at
Martin Scholl's. He was followed in succession
by Revs. J. Reiser, J.J. Gallagher,
Andrew Schweiger and Joseph
Goebels.
The
first Catholic residents of Sharon were
Henry and William Crosthwaite, natives of Ireland, who
came to the village from the vicinity of Pittsburgh in 1851; Charles O'Hare and family, who
arrived in Sharon in 1854;
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