My focus is more on the town of Gates, but there are certainly details I want about the entire county and region.
One tidbit I picked up was that the first Catholic "church" in Monroe County was a small temporary one built around 1679 and a Mass was celebrated there at the site now occupied by Our Lady of Mercy Motherhouse and High School. Apparently there's a memorial at the site. I never knew that, even though I taught there for 11 years! I need to do a little more digging on this one.
The first "church" in the region was St. Joseph Chapel built near Victor in 1656. It no longer exists.
As for Gates, at one time we had five Catholic churches - four Roman, one Melkite Greek:
Holy Ghost - 1876
St. Theodores's - 1924
St. Helen's - 1930 as a mission, 1940 as a parish
St. Jude's - 1968
St. Nicholas Melkite Greek - 1995 (though it had existed since 1925 in the City of Rochester and moved to Gates)
Gates had been largely farmland (and swamp), but expansion from the city - and the construction of the expressway that gutted city neighborhoods - led to a surge in population and the number of Catholics, so there was a need for the churches.
Alas, demographics changed, and Catholic church attendance fell in the last 30 years or so.
Holy Ghost, St. Helen's, and St. Jude's were clustered in 2010 as the Parish of the Holy Family. In 2020, Holy Ghost and St. Helen's were closed.
So that leaves three Catholic churches in Gates.
I'm not counting the chapel at the Pastoral Center, even though daily Masses were being celebrated there M-F. And since it's not an official parish "church," I'll deal with the wonderful St. Padre Pio Chapel separately.
Pax et bonum
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