First Mass

Fall 1808

Photos

Documentation

• HMDB.Org

Notes

"In the Fall of 1808, Father Edward Fenwick, a Dominican priest, met Jacob Dittoe on this site and offered the Holy Mass for his family and their kinsmen, the Fink family. Dittoe had written to Bishop John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, requesting that a priest be sent from Baltimore, Maryland to administer the blessed sacraments of baptism, confession, and marriage. In response, Father Fenwick searched for the Dittoe family on his way through Ohio and following the sound of an axe, found Dittoe in these woods. This meeting was so emotional that Fenwick always recounted the event with tears in his eyes. It was the beginning of the labors of Father Fenwick as the Apostle of Ohio and the birth of the Catholic Church in this state.