Church History

Long before there was a Catholic Church in Jacksonville, Catholic families gathered in their homes to celebrate Mass with a priests who traveled on horseback from Georgia. This period extended from 1829 to 1854. By 1854, Catholics moved from celebrating Mass in their homes to a small wooden building on the corner of Ocean and Duval streets. This was also the year that Pope Pius IX declared that the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION of the Blessed Virgin Mary was now an Article of Faith.

It was fitting, therefore, that the new wooden church building in Jacksonville be named in honor of the new Marian dogma. In fact, William J. Hamilton, a priest from the Diocese of Savannah, was sent to Jacksonville to dedicate the church and become its spiritual leader. He exhibited a singular facility for ecumenism which so many of Immaculate Conception’s pastors carried on through the years. Father Hamilton was, as an observer put it, “a man of amiable and social qualities that endeared him to all, irrespective of creed.”
Following 1857 when Florida was made a Vicariate Apostolic, “Cowford,” as Jacksonville was known at that time, became part of the new Vicariate.

Historic Immaculate Conception Church

The 1860s were perilous times for the nascent church and for Jacksonville as a whole. In 1863, the town was occupied by Union troops and they prosecuted the “war Between the States.” Sadly, some intolerant members of the bivouacked troops decided that the gates of hell shall prevail on the “beautiful little cottage” that the Catholics were using as their church. The entire building was sacked, with Union soldiers marching through town wearing sacred vestments and blowing notes through organ pipes pulled from the church.
After the war, Church officials requested reimbursement for damages by the U.S. government, but their demands fell on deaf ears. Regardless, the parish moved forward and established a school in 1868 under the direction of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

Fortune shone on Immaculate Conception Parish during the next 35 years as men such as Father John Kenny — later a bishop — Father Michael Maher and Father James J. Meehan led the parish into its maturity as a religious cornerstone of downtown Jacksonville. Immaculate Conception was also the mother church of many of the first parishes which were established in the city’s first suburbs. from 1881 to 1964 it operated a school that early in its history also included high school classes.

The present church edifice was dedicated in 1910 on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The former pastor, Bishop Kenny, presided at the dedication of the church which is constructed of white Kentucky limestone. Its interior is decorated with fine stained glass windows produced in Munich, Germany by the Mayer Stained Glass Company. At the time, Immaculate Conception was the tallest building in the city. In modern times, “I.C.”, under the leadership of its current pastor, Father Antonio Leon, has become the cornerstone of Jacksonville’s Catholic community and has more than 800 registered families.

From 1829 to 1854 the Jacksonville mission area was visited by priests from St. Augustine and Savannah. Among the priests who served the area during that time were Edward Francis Mayne (1829-1834) and Benedict Madeore and Edmond Aubril (1843-1854). In 1847 a small farm church was erected on the northeast corner of Duval and Newnan Streets, a city lot that was acquired for the sum of “one penny” from Issiah David Hart, developer of the city of Jacksonville. The church was dedicated under the title of the Immaculate Conception, thus anticipating the definition of that dogma as an Article of Faith by Pope Pius IX in 1854. Father Aubril from St. Augustine, under whom the Jacksonville mission church was built, placed a large painting of the Blessed Virgin, a gift from the French Government, over the altar.

Before construction of the first mission church, visiting priests had celebrated Mass periodically on improvised altars in private homes. In fact, it is a safe assumption that the Catholic Mass was celebrated here even before the white man came to settle. Historians recall that Father Pedro Martinez, leader of the first band of Jesuits who arrived from Spain in 1566 to work among the North Florida Indians, was slain by hostile natives on nearby Fort George Island. Weathered remains of a sandstone chapel said to have been used by the martyred priest may still be seen that Fort George.

From the foundation of the first parish in St. Augustine by Menendez and his expedition, there followed 200 years of evangelical sacrifices by more than 300 Franciscan and Jesuit priests in order to establish mission outposts from the Florida Keys to the hills of Northern Georgia. Missions were formed in Lafayette, Suwannee and Alachua Counties. The area comprising Wakulla, Leon and Jefferson Counties, then the center of a large Indian tribe known as the Apalachee, had 20 missions alone. The period from 1606 to 1675 became known as the Golden Age of Florida Missions. More than 26,000 Indians converted to Catholicism and 38 mission posts were firmly established during that time.

On December, 8, 1857, the Immaculate Conception Church, graduating from the role of a mission church, was formally established as a parish. Father William John Hamilton became the first pastor of the new parish, presiding from 1857 to 1861. Father Hamilton, a native of Ireland and a graduate of All Hallows College in Dublin was ordained at age 24. He was assigned to the Diocese of Savannah where, upon arrival, he was ordered to Jacksonville. At the time, the population of Jacksonville was slightly more than 2,000 and the new church’s congregation was proportionately small. In 1858 the parish purchased land for St. Joseph’s Cemetery at a cost of $10. It is now known as the Old City Cemetery. In that same year, a lot on the southwest corner of Newna and Church Streets was purchased for $150.

Father Hamilton’s arrival in Jacksonville coincided with action by the Holy See in Rome, which separated Florida east of the Apalachicola River from the Diocese of Savannah assigning it an independent status as mission territory. The state now was in a position to receive a resident vicariate-apostolic. However, canonical designation as a diocese would not come until March 11, 1870. Given the assignment on February 1, 1856 was Father Jean-Pierre Augustin Marcellin Verot, a French Sulpicaian priest. Two years after his ordination he had arrived at St. Mary’s College in Baltimore where he had served as a professor of mathematics and science for 22 years. He had then requested duty in pastoral work and was assigned to a small church in nearby Ellicott City. While there, he was appointed by Rome as Florida’s first vicar-apostolic and in 1870, he was consecrated first bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine. He received the mitre and official powers in ceremonies at the Cathedral in Baltimore, April 25, 1858. On May 22, accompanied by Father Madeore who had come up from St. Augustine, Verot left for a new life in Florida. On the evening of June 1, 1858, a happy crowd greeted him as he arrived at the wharf in St. Augustine.

On May 14, 1859, Verot sailed for France in search of priests for service in the new vicariate. It was his first visit home in 29 years. He succeeded in recruiting seven secular priests. With these additional priests to run them, new missions operating from the mother church in St. Augustine were established at Moccasin Brance, Pellicer’s Creek, and Roger’s Settlement. Samson and Palm Valley were attended from St. Joseph’s Church in Mandarin and Amelia Isand ws under the guidance of the Fernandina Church.In September, 1860, Father Henry Peter Clavreul, one of the priests whom Bishop Verot had recruited in France, arrived in Jacksonville