Listed as Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church, it was added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places in 1997.

The iron mining attracted immigrants from Ireland, many of whom were Catholic and needed a church closer than Madison, over 15 miles (24 km) away.

Father Louis Dominic Senez, from St. Vincent Martyr in Madison, having served the Dover area since 1844, decided that it needed its own parish.

Father Pierce McCarthy, recognizing that the congregation needed a larger church, organized efforts to build a new one.

Those stones were transfigured into the building fabric of a beautiful place illuminated by light filtered through shimmering stained-glass windows.

What's more, those stones held the iron ore that parishioners extracted from local mines and which was the prime economic driver of the entire region in the nineteenth century.

The two and one-half story rectory was built in 1899 and designed by architects Benjamin J. Schweitzer and Julius J. Diemer with Châteauesque architectural style.

[3] St. Mary's Cemetery is located nearby on Hurd Street in Mine Hill Township and extending into the town of Dover.