Birth of St. James Parish


	St. James: The Birth of a Catholic Community


	By the early 1800’s, immigrants were coming to Long Island in larger numbers. Many of them were Irish and Catholic. Before the Navy Yard was founded, Brooklyn’s Catholic population was miniscule. A significant portion of them worked at the Navy Yard. One of them was Peter Turner (1787-1862), who emigrated from County Wexford in Ireland in his teens and settled on Fulton Street.


						An Irish neighborhood known as Vinegar Hill, named for a battle fought during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, soon formed near the Navy Yard.


					For Mass, Brooklyn Catholics had to take the Fulton Street Ferry to Manhattan, where they attended St. Peter’s on Barclay Street. Tradition has it that Brooklyn’s first Mass took place in 1820 at William Purcell’s home on the corner of York and Gold Streets.



	Father Philip Laricy, an Irish-born Augustinian priest, celebrated it. As Catholic numbers increased, Brooklyn Catholics started to talk seriously about getting their own church. On January 1, 1822, Peter Turner sent out a petition to his fellow Brooklyn Catholics ...

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