St. Veronica Parish (North Philadelphia)

Among the first religious services held in the first half of the 18th century in North Philadelphia were those in Nicetown, which served Catholics living in nearby Frankford and Germantown and what would become Franklinville.

A "young Irish woman" named Elizabeth McGawley, who came with her tenants, built a chapel, in 1729, on the road between Nicetown and Frankford.

After Browne's death, services were held, until 1780, at the home of Paul Miller, a sexton at Old St. Joseph's, near today's North Eighth Street and West Hunting Park Avenue.

[6]The New Cathedral Cemetery, today with about 38 acres, opened in 1868 on land originally owned by Browne that he wanted to become a burial ground.

On June 2, 1872, the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company ran special trains for the cornerstone-laying ceremony of the new parish chapel at Second and Nicetown Lane (today near Butler Street).

Father John J. Donnelly (1851-1927)[8] was appointed rector in 1889 and he found the location of the chapel "not sufficiently central for the parish.

Donnelly purchased a lot on the northeast corner of Sixth and Tioga Streets and a new Norman-Romanesque chapel and school, of Trenton brownstone, was erected and dedicated on April 22, 1894.

The carpenter/builder was the founder of what became one of the largest construction firms in the country and father of John McShain, known as "the man who built Washington" including the Pentagon.

The cornerstone of the new Church of St. Veronica was blessed on November 3, 1907, and was dedicated by Irish-born Archbishop Patrick J. Ryan on October 17, 1909.