St. Mary’s Parish is a Roman Catholic parish located in Wharton, New Jersey. The parish was founded in 1845 and serves the surrounding communities of Wharton, Mine Hill, and Dover. As a vibrant and prospering Catholic community, we consider ourselves honored to inspire people to experience a living relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church through faith, the Sacraments, fellowship, and prayer (Acts 2:42), and to serve those in deepest need. We believe every person has received gifts from God to be developed and used for the glory of God and the building up of the Church. We invite all we meet to join us on the adventurous journey of becoming and living as a disciple of Jesus Christ!

Writing and Photos Provided by Mr. Brian Regan

Introduction

St. Mary’s history is founded on faith and geology. The hills in this region are rich in iron deposits, and as demand for iron for various industrial applications grew in the middle of the nineteenth century, workers were drawn to employment in the mines and related businesses. Transportation routes, especially the Morris Canal and the railroad, played an important role in supporting business interests and population growth. Immigrants formed the backbone -- and did the back-breaking work -- of the iron industry. Many were Catholics, some from Germany, most from Ireland.

Prior to this period, the few Catholics in the region were served from time to time by priests from Manhattan and, later, from Madison. By 1845, in the relatively isolated locales of Dover, Mine Hill, and Port Oram (Wharton), a Catholic community took hold and flourished. A year later, there was a priest in residence and a small church was opened. In time, the first settlers were joined by others from Eastern Europe and Italy. And today St. Mary’s continues to welcome new parishioners, some of whom, like the pioneers, are newly arrived in this country.

The parish aspired, from 1872 on, to have buildings that were more than utilitarian. It commissioned legitimate works of architecture that stood out in a region where such examples were not typical. The Catholic Church’s organizational structure no doubt helped St. Mary’s participate in wider artistic trends.

The parish buildings and sweeping grounds constitute a campus surpassed by few churches anywhere nearby. Other elements contribute to St. Mary’s unique ethos. The Grove, Granny’s Brook flowing through it, the wooded hills, Indian Falls -- these have enchanted the young and held allure for adults over many generations. Never a wealthy parish, a rich sense of place has nevertheless ennobled, and still ennobles, the religious and educational and social activities conducted here.

First Church

In 1845-46, St. Mary’s erected a simple single-story church that stood diagonally across Route 46 from the present church, on a site adjacent to the first cemetery. The congregation elected the site by gathering at an appointed time on one of two lots, with the choice going to the place with largest number. It was about equidistant from housing clusters where members lived.

Growth, Building of Current Church

In 1870, during this boom, St. Mary’s was assigned a new pastor, the Reverend Pierce McCarthy. Fr. McCarthy, whose father worked in Mine Hill's mines, was from the parish. When he assumed his position, the congregation had outgrown the small church. Fr. McCarthy had previously been at Seton Hall in South Orange, New Jersey and witnessed the raising of its fine chapel and main building, both designed by Newark architect Jeremiah O’Rourke. After considering less ambitious plans, he chose O’Rourke to design a new church.

On a hot Ascension Day in 1872, the Bishop of Newark, James Roosevelt Bayley, blessed the cornerstone of the new church. St. Mary’s was completed by professional builders recruited primarily from Newark. A year and a half later, on November 1, 1873, All Saints Day, Bishop Michael Corrigan, Bayley’s successor and later Archbishop of New York, noted in his journal that he “…dedicated the beautiful new church of St. Mary in Dover.” Contemporary accounts estimated that the church cost $50,000.

The building stone came from mines near the church, which parishioners helped cart to the site. The source of St. Mary’s stones cannot be doubted. Today, small portions of its wall surfaces are stained with rust -- rust from magnetite, the iron that was mined in nearby shafts. The stones are a special symbol: it is as if the earth itself, with the help of St. Mary’s people, brought forth their church.

A Church by Jeremiah O’Rourke

Jeremiah O’Rourke was born in Ireland. He trained at the Dublin School of Design and emigrated and settled in Newark in 1850. O'Rourke's style reflected the influence of Ecclesiology, a movement that identified the style of the Medieval parish church as the model for church building.

St. Mary’s resembles some churches put up in Ireland from 1840 to the 1860s, especially those by the English architect and writer A.W.N. Pugin in County Wexford.

The building fabric of undressed, local stone, the open timber roof, and the type of tracery in the windows -- all these evoked a church of the Middle Ages.

Tower and Unfinished Spire

The bell in the tower, 1,536 pounds and 42 inches in diameter, was cast by the Meneely Bell Co., West Troy, New York. The handsome spire intended for St. Mary's was never erected. A newspaper account of the church's dedication said the church was complete, “...except for the spire, which it was decided to leave it unfinished until the congregation can better sustain the expense. It is intended, however, to complete it at an early day.” That day never came. In early 1873, while the church was still under construction, the mining industry was jolted by a wider economic collapse. Hard times ensued. Fr. McCarthy was transferred to another parish in 1878 and no funds were ever sought to raise the spire. Unfinished, it has become a kind of monument to the boom-and-bust cycle of an early industrial economy.

Interior

Open Timber Roof

The open timber roof with infills of Victorian tracery intensified the rusticity O’Rourke sought to give St. Mary's. It is a magnificent example from the 1870s of this type of construction. The type here is a scissors-brace system, with the two largest trusses of each system resembling a pair of open scissors.

Appointments

The altar of oak and marble, and other liturgical appointments, and the organ case, were designed in 1997 by Michael Wetstone of New York. The tabernacle and candlesticks, in various decorative metals and enamels, date from a 1962 renovation.

The floor tiles were imported from England from Minton Hollis, renowned for its geometric and encaustic tiles and installed in 1997. The blue and red floriated cross tiles in the sanctuary floor are examples of the latter. The border patterns throughout are derived from the original borders.

Murals

The murals of Christian scenes in the inclined panels of the ceiling were painted, we believe, in the first decade of this century. We know from oral tradition that they are the work of German-speaking artists who lodged in parish homes when they painted them. The borders around the murals were painted in 1997 and have stencils from Pugin's Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament.

Statue of Our Lady

The splendid bronze statue of Our Lady, cast in 1997 especially for St. Mary’s, is the work of Mother Concordia Scott, a Benedictine sister and the Abbess of Minster Abbey, which, coincidentally, is not far from Dover, England. St. Mary’s statue is the third from a cast commissioned by St. Thomas (Episcopal) Church on Fifth Avenue, New York. It is signed by initials on the base. Other works by Mother Concordia are in Westminster Cathedral, London, and the crypt chapel of Canterbury Cathedral. St. Mary's bronze was cast with a small amount of copper in it, giving the statue its warm hue. It is highlighted with pure gold leaf, from sheets of gold that the artist described as “light and fine as a butterfly's wings.” A jewel-stone of blue, for Mary, is set in Our Lady's crown.

Skinner Pipe Organ

The pipe organ in the chancel was installed in St. Mary’s in 1998. It was built by the Skinner Organ Company of Boston as Opus 741 for a Paterson church in 1928-29. St. Mary’s purchased the organ in 1997 and had it restored and placed here by the Peragallo Organ Company. Ernest Skinner was the greatest American organ builder of his time. G. Donald Harrison, another leading organ builder, helped develop the specification. Skinner organs are prized for their tonal color and grandeur of ensemble. A three-manual console controls some 1,500 pipes, chimes, and a harp.

The organ case was designed in the Victorian idiom especially for St. Mary’s in 1997. The outline of the pipes, forming three peaks, echoes the three finials of the high altar that once stood there. In a touch of Gothic whimsy, the design for the finials that crown the organ case’s posts was taken from the drawings for the unbuilt spire. The pipes are painted in traditional Victorian colors, and the stencils are from the same Pugin source as the wall stencils. The pipes in the side bays of the case are façade pipes; those in the center are speaking pipes in the Great division.

Extraordinary Stained Glass

The stained glass windows are remarkable for their extraordinary beauty and also because they were all installed in a one year, 1873. They were probably the work of Slack and Booth, a studio active in Orange, NJ, in the 1870s. Stephen Slack and Charles Booth were stained glass artists trained in their native England. The style of their figure painting reflects the influence of the Aesthetic Movement, which had taken hold in England in their apprentice years. An untouched cycle, St. Mary’s windows constitute a significant collection of American stained glass.

Images and Symbols in the Windows

The chancel rose holds symbols of Mary as named in the Litany of the Virgin:

Star of the Morning Lily (Virgin Most Pure)

Arc of the Covenant Tower of Ivory

Mystical Rose

Mary is also given pride of place in the superb window in the transept. Opposite is one of Jeremiah the Prophet, in effect, how architect O'Rourke signed his design.

The West rose holds the Arma Christi, the heraldic arms or symbols of Christ's suffering, and the Sacred Heart, a subject of popular devotion among Catholics in the 1870s.

The small quatrefoils in the nave windows hold symbols of Christ. Four windows in the transepts bear the symbols of the evangelists:

Matthew (angel) Mark (lion)

Luke (ox) John (eagle)

The lancets in the chancel hold the figures of St. Michael and St. Catherine. Fr. McCarthy was the son of Michael and Catherine McCarthy and arranged for windows of his parents' name saints to be placed near the high altar.

Many windows carry names of the most generous donors to the building campaign. They were parishioners, several Seton Hall faculty and diocesan clergy, apparently friends of Fr. McCarthy, and two T.A.B.S. (Total Abstinence and Benevolent Society). Members took a pledge not to drink alcohol, a discipline for which employers and the clergy had sympathy. The TABS' benevolence took the form of an insurance collective in which members were given disability and life insurance, critical benefits for miners, whose work was dangerous. The chancel rose names the Rev. Wm. McNulty, legendary pastor of St. John’s (now the cathedral) in Paterson and champion of Catholic church building.

Restoration and Renewal

In 1997, the parish began a program of restoration and renewal made possible by the wonderful generosity of parishioners and friends of St. Mary’s. The structure and infrastructure required restoration and long-deferred maintenance. The interior, which over the years had lost much of its earlier character, called for attention. A parish committee, led by Fr. Richard Oliveri (pastor), John Bermingham (chairman) and Brian Regan (project director) developed the plans with Daniel Krief, architect and builder, Morristown and New York. The interior work aimed to restore or renew in a way that respected the church's particular aesthetic and also fit it for use by a vital worshipping community as it entered a new millennium. The committee examined previous interior schemes and studied nineteenth-century design and materials, in general. It chose to use such materials in the new work. By these efforts, St. Mary’s once again has a quality of place where a sense of the holy, of religious feeling, and of aesthetic coherence are to be found.

St. Mary's Church is listed on the

New Jersey Register of Historic Places and was a recipient of a

Matching grant from the New Jersey Historic Trust

Each week our parish bulletin is posted below in case you cannot make it to St. Mary's for mass.  The bulletin contains notes on the current happenings around the parish and diocese, as well as some reflections for the week and Mass intentions.  

 

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Parish Office Information:  

    Monday - Friday: 9:00am - 3:00pm
   
    Tel: 973-366-0184
    Fax: 973-366-5377
    Email: [email protected]


Location:

Mailing Address: 425 West Blackwell Street, Dover, NJ 07801.

GPS Address: 371 South Main Street, Wharton, NJ 07855

For information on becoming a parishioner, how you can get involved in the parish, or for information about the Sacraments, please call the Parish Office.

"Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." --- Pope Benedict XVI

The Catholic Church can be your home too! In fact, the Church exists to attract, invite, and lead people into a living relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church through an authentic faith which nourishes itself through Sacred Scripture and the Sacraments, and expresses itself in word and action.

If you have been away from the Church for a while, or are looking for a new direction in life, please contact us to speak or pray with a member of our pastoral staff. We can help you get (re)connected with Jesus and His "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."

Already a parishioner and want to take the next step? Browse our website, especially our Faith Formation, or Ministries page, to see what opportunities are available to you.

Contributions to the Parish Collection are used to offset the costs associated with furthering the mission of St. Mary's parish through our ministries, programs, and day-to-day operational expenses. These costs include payroll, maintenance and cleaning of buildings, heating and air-conditioning, utilities, and supplies. Additionally, your contribution will benefit the Faith Formation programs, outreach and service initiatives, sacramental preparation, and our liturgical services.
 

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