On St. Patrick's Day, 1878, the Reverend Patrick P. Shahan, who had been pastor at Stafford Springs, was appointed pastor of St. Patrick's Church. It was now his task to see that Father Mullen's hopes would be fulfilled -- that St. Patrick's Church would be of such stature that it could be seen from the Thames River.

Reverend Patrick P. Shahan

The plans called for a main tower two hundred and sixteen feet high, and it was completed.

One of Father Shahan's first projects was to see to the incorporation of the church, according to the laws of the State of Connecticut. It was accomplished on March 26,1878. Within a year, the church was ready for the first Mass to be celebrated in it. Although the floor of the church had not been finished, parishioners stood on a temporary floor for the great occasion on March 16,1879.

The formal opening and dedication was set for September 28,1879. As his first official act in the Diocese of Hartford, Most Reverend Lawrence McMahon presided. His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, preached In the morning; Bishop Jeremiah Shanahan of Harrisburg and Father Fitton, in the evening.

The original interior of the church

The first marriage in St.,Patrick's Church took place the following day at a Nuptial Mass, which was unusual at the time. It was customary to have only a marriage ceremony. The couple were Daniel McCormick and Elizabeth O'Donnell, whose son become Bishop Patrick J. McCormick, former rector of Catholic University of America and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington. A second marriage ceremony was performed that day between Joseph P. Monaher and Annie Lee.

The first boy baptized in the church was Thomas Ahern, son of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Ahern of the Jail Hill section. The Norwich Bulletin, in reference to the child, wrote, "May the boy be first in everything good and the last in all that is evil." The first girl baptized in the church was Alice Royston, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Royston. Both children died young.

St. Patrick's became the sole parish for Norwich, and St. Mary's was closed in 1879. It reopened as a Chapel-of-Ease in 1881 to accommodate parishioners living In the Greenville section. It regained parish status in 1898.

As the priests were still occupying the rectory at St. Mary's, Father Shahan bought a house and property on the corner of Broadway and Perkins Avenue on June 17, 1879, and took up residence there in August.

It was time, then, to turn his attention to the education of his young parishioners. The academy, which had opened in 1872, become a free school in January, 1882. He launched an intensive fund raising campaign for a new school building. The cornerstone for the new school was laid on June 21,1882. The building was completed and opened for occupancy in September, 1883. The school had an enrollment of six hundred and fifty students and a faculty of twelve nuns.

St. Patrick's school building was dedicated in 1882

Nine years later a building known as the Blackstone barn was purchased to serve the nuns as a convent. It was located on Perkins Avenue. The first superior at St. Patrick's was Sister Mary Rose Maher, aunt of Dr. Stephen Maher of New Haven, who was an international authority on tuberculosis.

In a 1954 history of St. Patrick's, this tribute was paid to the Sisters of Mercy, "If St. Patrick's has served its purpose in the post, no small credit should go to these unselfish heroines of Christ who have served so well and so unobtrusively. They have been here longer than the Cathedral, but to these gallant Sisters, whose thoughts are on eternity anyway, this comes as only minor praise."