Tri-Counties Genealogy & History by Joyce M. Tice St. John's Cemetery, Troy Township, Bradford County, Pennsylvania Bradford County PA Chemung County NY Tioga County PA

Tri-Counties Genealogy & History Sites How To Use This Site Warning & Disclaimer Troy Township Page Flagholders & Commemorative Plaques of Organizations No Commercial Use Say Hello to Joyce See Also 2002 Complete St. John's Listing Photo of St. John's Church in Troy by John McCabe     Rows 1 - 10 Rows 11 - 21 Rows 21 - 31 Index St. John's Cemetery Index Troy, Bradford County, PA

Joyce's Search Tip - December 2007 - Do You Know that you can search just the Bradford County Cemetery Records on the site by using the Cemeteries -Bradford button in the Partitioned search engine at the bottom of the Current What's New Page? If you use that partition follow these steps to search just one cemetery.  1. Choose Cemeteries - Bradford.  2. Enter part of the cemetery name [ie Ballard or Berrytown] AND a surname. 3. Choose the Find ALL Words option. Then it will find just the pages with that surname in the one cemetery you indicated.  See also - Bradford County Cemetery Addresses

"Although it is quite probable that priests from French Asylum (near Towanda, PA) visited the Troy-Canton section of Bradford County and offered Mass at the end of the eighteenth century, the first recorded Catholic services were not conducted until 40 years later. In 1836, Father Henry Fitzsimmons of St. Augustine Church, Silver Lake, Susquehanna County, made a missionary visitation in this locality.

A few years later Mass was celebrated with regularity in the homes of the Troy Catholics by Father John O'Reilly, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church of Towanda. This arrangement continued until 1851 when Father P. J. Noonan was assigned to the newly established church of St. Andrew in Blossburg and the Catholics of this area were then placed under the care of the pastor of St. Andrew.

The present Troy church on the hill north of West Main Street was built by the Episcopalians in 1842. According to an historical account written by the Reverend Hiram Rockwell Bennett, D.D., a native Episcopalian priest, and published in the Troy Gazette-Register in 1955, "after a few years the climb proved too strenuous for some people. So the church was sold to the Roman Catholics (they were younger and more energetic)."

On October 9, 1853, St. John's Church was formally blessed and dedicated to his patron Saint by the Venerable John Nepomucene Neumann, C.SS.R., fourth Bishop of Philadelphia, who at that time had jurisdiction over the entire state of Pennsylvania. It was not until 1868 that the Diocese of Scranton was erected as a separate entity.

Bishop Neumann was a man of great sanctity and, at the same time, was an extraordinary administrator. The cause for his canonization as a saint has been introduced at the Holy See and in 1921 Pope Benedict XV issued a decree in which he gave solemn recognition to the heroic virtues of this Servant of God and conferred upon him the title of "Venerable".

St. John's continued as a mission of Blossburg until it was canonically established as a parish on January 1, 1859 by Bishop Neumann; on the same date he appointed Father Charles Mangin as its first pastor.

Early records show that Father Mangin and his immediate successors celebrated Mass and held other services not only in the parish church, but also in the homes of parishioners in Columbia Cross Roads, East Union, Sylvania, South Creek, Alba, Canton, Cascade, Union, and Ralston."

From a book, "Troy", by Rev. Hiram Bennett, we read that "Roman Catholic missionaries had come into the county with the French émigrés at Asylum. But in early Troy they were so few of that faith that it was not until the coming of the railroad in the fifties, when many people came from Ireland, that a pastor was settled in Troy."

As is the case in many cemeteries, the headstones have been carved from a variety of materials. Probably the best-preserved are those made from slate, where the letters are usually as crisp today as they were when they were carved many years ago. Those utilizing granite as usually in good condition. Unfortunately, many older stones have been carved on limestone. Here, the effects of weather have wrecked havoc, and in some cases nothing is still readable. Also, lichens seem to grow more prevalently on these stones. With a careful cleaning with chlorinated water the lichens can be removed, and the writing can be made more readable by making a wax rubbing.

I transcribed the names and dates from as many of the headstones as were readable on June 17, 1998. I feel that it would be a good project to clean those that were not readable, and make rubbings before there is any further deterioration of some of the older stones. This might be a useful project for a school class, and it could be broadened out to include the other two cemeteries in Troy. Time does nothing to improve the condition of the information contained on tombstones.

John M. McCabe
June 17, 1998

 

Rows 1 - 10

Rows 11 - 21

Rows 21 - 31

Index