Early Parish Church, St. Mary of the Woods

Description:	Drawing of the Naylor House, on North Fourth, near the Pennsylvania Railroad by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect. The Early Parish Church of St. Mary of the Woods. Drawing by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect.The earliest Catholic church in Vigo county was located on the campus of what is now St. Mary-of-the-Woods but was then called Thralls Station. The church was approximately on the site of the Conservatory of Music.Father Buteux, the first priest, was appointed by Bishop brute in 1837 to serve a parish which included Terre Haute, brazil, Sullivan, Montezuma, Merom and in Illinois the North Arm of the Grand Prairie, Paris, Coffeetown and Lawrenceville and the countryside surrounding these towns.At Thralls Station there were only three or four log cabins. Father Buteux purchased from Joseph Thralls a site twelve rods by twenty-four, for fifteen dollars and erected upon it a small frame church called St. Mary-of-the- Woods by Bishop brute. Father Buteux lived in a log house and boarded with the Thralls.This church served until February, 1840, when it was destroyed by fire. Father Buteux had been informed that a group of Sisters of Providence from Ruille, France, were to come to St. Mary-of-the-Woods and establish themselves there later in the year, so because of the need of providing a place for them and the handicap of a depression which followed the panic of 1837 he did not rebuild the church immediately. He got along as best he could for a while using his cabin for the church and also the building that sheltered the sisters.In 1842 a new church was started but it was not until 1844 that it was dedicated. By this time another priest was in charge of the parish. Father Buteux had resigned in 1841 and was succeeded by the Reverend Anthony Parret who stayed only about a year when he was sent to Washington, Ind. The church, which is the one illustrated above, served the community until 1866 when it was razed to make way for buildings of the Institute of St. Mary-of-the-Woods. A new church was erected at that time, where it now stands in the village of St. Marys. This, with a few changes, is the building we know today.The church, which was completed in 1844, has been described as a small brick building modeled on the Pantheon of Rome. The structure had no windows in the walls, and the only light was admitted through small half circle windows in the dome. Those who remember it describe it as closely resembling a jail.No entirely satisfactory picture of this church survives and there are some variations between the existing drawings and descriptions, The accompanying illustration was made from a photograph of what was either a water color or a wash drawing and it shows more detail than the other one, but does not show the half-circle windows mentioned in the description. The library and research departments of St Marys have been most generous in making any information they have available to me.The building is particularly interesting to me because of its style and I should be very much interested to know just why it was selected. In this period and the years that preceded it, it was much more usual to find Greek prototypes used than Roman ones. Thomas Jefferson was one of the few designers of the day who seemed to prefer the Roman characteristics to the Greek, and he also used the Pantheon as his inspiration in the rotunda at the University of Virginia, probably the best known building of this type built during this period. It, however, had windows, which this building and the Roman Pantheon did not.
Origin:	01/01/2005
Contributor(s):	Peddle, Juliet, 1899-1979
Source:	http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rose/id/851
Collection:	Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Logan Library
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/
Copyright:	Copyright Undetermined
Subjects:	Architectural drawings Architecture Churches Catholic churches Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College Architecture Religion

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