[1] According to the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia: "Though there existed a tradition of ruins of "religious" buildings being still visible in 1803 on Cat Island (probably dating from the temporary Spanish occupation of 1781–83), there is no evidence of any Catholic priest ever having visited the Bahamas until 1845, when a Father Duquesney, on a voyage from Jamaica to Charleston, South Carolina, stayed six weeks at Nassau and held services in a private house.
Cummings of New York, and in 1865 a Reverend T. Byrne each spent a few weeks in Nassau, and conducted services.
[2] "In February, 1885, the Reverend C. G. O'Keeffe of New York, while visiting Nassau, organized the few Catholics, with the result that on 25 August 1885, the cornerstone of the first Catholic Church in the Bahamas was laid by Georgina Ayde-Curran, wife of Surgeon Major Ayde-Curran of the British Army.
Father O'Keeffe, to whom belongs the honour of establishing the first Catholic Church in the Bahamas, remained in charge until 1889.
In February, 1891, Reverend Chrysostom Schreiner, OSB, of St. John's Abbey, Minnesota, took charge of the mission.
The Archdiocese is the Metropolitan See responsible for the suffragan diocese of Hamilton in Bermuda and the Mission sui iuris of Turks and Caicos, both British overseas territories.