St. Peter Catholic Church (Mansfield, Ohio) records

Though Catholics had settled in the Mansfield, Ohio area by 1834, they were not regularly attended until 1848. From that year through 1852 or 1853, they were serviced by the resident pastors at Shelby Settlement, today known as Sacred Heart Parish in Bethlehem Settlement, Ohio and from then until 1861 Mansfield was a station of Immaculate Conception Church in Wooster, Ohio. Mansfield received is first resident pastor in 1861.

In 1850, an old Presbyterian building located near First and Mulberry was purchased, and the first mass celebrated. A second church was built in 1871, but a fire destroyed it in 1889. The parish constructed a third church, including a new school, in 1890, with a fourth church completed in 1917.

The first parish school opened in 1868, a public school building at West First and South Mulberry was converted into a second parish school in 1870, and despite the fire that destroyed church and school in 1889, the school grew rapidly in the years that followed.

Partly due to the overcrowding that eventually beset the school, and partly to the ever-growing Catholic population of Mansfield generally, Bishop Karl J. Alter divided St. Peter Parish in 1949, with the northeast section of Mansfield becoming St. Mary of the Snows Parish.

Sources: History of the Diocese of Toledo, Northern Ohio - West Central Section, Toledo and Lucas County. St. Peter's Parish 1844 - 1994