The finished building was a three-story, cream brick Italianate structure, surrounded by acres of forest, farmland and ornamental gardens.

[2] He was replaced by Charles Fessler, who led the school for nine years during a difficult period of financial stress and seemingly inevitable closure.

[2] On 15 August 1889, Matthias M. Gerend became St. John's fourth Director, and immediately set out to stabilize the school's finances.

[2] He changed the name to St. John's Institute for Deaf Mutes,[1] and requested from Archbishop Michael Heiss permission and funding to construct workshops adjacent to the school in which students could produce altars, confessionals, baptismal fonts, statues, pulpits, cabinets and carvings.

The Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, who staffed St. John's throughout its operation, still hold pews from the workshops in the chapel of their motherhouse in St.

[5] The gym was an early home to the school's basketball teams, held a classroom in its basement, and hosted movie showings on Saturday nights, according to alumni.

[5] In 1895, St. John's Institute for Deaf Mutes became a fully independent school, and was no longer an entity within Pio Nono College.

[1][4] In 1938, Gerend, by then raised to the rank of monsignor, died, leaving St. John's with a new chapel, workshops, stable finances, and a faculty of eleven Sisters, multiple lay teachers and two assistant directors, Steven Klopper and Eugene J.

[1][7] Murphy addressed in his tenure St. John's two pressing issues: the aging facilities and deaf education technology and the lack of a high school.

He felt that he could address both issues at the same time by demolishing the old buildings and constructing new, larger ones that would have sufficient facilities to serve high school students.

[1] He presented them to Archbishop William Edward Cousins, who endorsed Murphy's efforts and provided archdiocesan funding for the project.

That money as well as funding from the Knights of Columbus and the Christ Child Society provided all the school needed to proceed with construction.

He was sent to live in his mother's house in the Diocese of Superior, and was never held accountable for his crimes, despite an ecclesiastical trial that was ended due to Murphy's poor health later in life.

On 10 February 1982, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland announced St. John School for the Deaf would close in May 1983 in a letter to parents of students.

[9] Milwaukee Archbishop William Edward Cousins gave Murphy a leave of absence in 1974 and allowed him to move to his mother's house in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, which is in the Diocese of Superior.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone instructed Wisconsin bishops to convene a canonical trial,[15] which could have resulted in a range of punishments, including laicization.

A formal church trial was initiated but later dropped because Archbishop Weakland decided that a pastoral solution was more appropriate because Murphy was elderly and in poor health.

[13] Murphy had a massive stroke while gambling at a casino and died several months after he requested that the Vatican halt a canonical trial against him because of his ill health.

It contained poems, personal accounts, short stories, and other articles relating to deafness, all with a Roman Catholic theme.

[5] Directors Principal Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue discussed and debated the sexual abuse scandal at St. John's School for the Deaf in a March 2010 appearance on Fox News Channel.

[20] The 2012 documentary film Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God directed by Alex Gibney follows the story of sexual abuse at St. John's School for the Deaf and the protests against it years later by four of the victims.