In April 2006, Carol Brotzman recovered a copy of a thirty-year old commemorative booklet on the history of Catholic churches in Susquehanna and Wyoming Counties, to the east of her home in Bradford County, PA. While the kernel of the story revolves around two yet surviving churches, St. Bonaventure of Auburn, PA and St. Joachim of Meshoppen, PA, the story of Catholicism in the area goes back at least as far as the French setlement at Azilum around the beginning of the 1800s.

We know that the Catholic families of the Irish Settlement at and around Stowell, PA lived, married and worked across at least five county lines: Bradford, Sullivan, Wyoming, Susquehanna and Luzerne. Just to cite one example, in early 2012, Carol sent us photographs of a lone burial located on Jayne Road in Auburn Township, Susquehanna County, just above Jaynes Orchard, in a location now called "Blueberry Haven". The location in general is pictured above, while the details of the stone marker are depicted below.

The stone commemorates Mary A. (Malone) Collins, wife of John Collins. The Federal census for 1900 for Auburn locates Mary as a widow living with her son John Collins and her sister, June ("Jane") Malone. We know from the History of the Irish Settlement that the Collins and Malone families were conspicuous in that community, which lies just above Sullivan County in Bradford County. However, all these Catholics worshipped at churches affiliated with or under the wing of St. Basil the Great Church in Dushore, Sullivan County, PA. In fact, Jane Malone, who lived with Mary (Malone) Collins in Auburn, as shown in the census, is actually buried at St. Basil's. It was a small world for the Catholic Irish in this five county area in 1900!

Mary A. (Malone) Collins
Grave Marker
Blueberry Haven
Jayne Road, Auburn, PA
February 2012
Contributed by Carol Brotzman

Join us in this informative tale of the devotion of Catholics in rural northeastern Pennsylvania more than one hundred years ago.