John Christopher Drumgoole (August 15, 1816 – March 28, 1888) was an Irish-American Roman Catholic priest who was known for his work in caring for and educating orphaned and abandoned children in New York City, especially homeless newsboys.

In 1844, he became sexton/janitor of St. Mary's, New York City's third Roman Catholic parish, founded in 1826 and located in the poor Lower East Side neighborhood.

Drumgoole grew concerned for the many homeless and orphaned children who lived on the streets of New York City after the Great Irish Famine (1845–1852) and then the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865).

[2] In 1871, he was placed in charge of the "Newsboys' Lodging House", an old warehouse located at 53 Warren Street in Manhattan that the St. Vincent de Paul Society had converted into sleeping quarters.

[2] The Manhattan building was designed to provide light and air to each resident, so as to reduce the spread of influenza and tuberculosis, then-common in the tenements.

However, Drumgoole came to feel that the general environment of the City at the time was not healthy for the younger children, so he sought out a more-rural setting.

[3] They grew their own food, and raised poultry and livestock (including the last cows in New York City when they were sold in 1961 as the orphanage downsized).

On Sunday, March 11, 1888, he boarded a Staten Island Railway train at the Pleasant Plains station near the orphanage, and rode it to St. George Terminal for the ferry to Manhattan.

Drumgoole's will left everything he had to the mission, and Archbishop Michael Corrigan led the funeral in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Easter Monday, April 2.

[1][4] Drumgoole was a hero of the newsboys who thronged the area when Manhattan's Park Row was the headquarters of the city's major newspapers, including The New York Times, and he was considered an unofficial patron saint of the homeless, orphans, and the less fortunate.

The Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, now named Catholic Charities of Staten Island, continues to provide a variety of social services.