Haverford Heritage Trail Site 10: St. Denis Church/Cemetery

Directions from Previous Site: From Old Haverford Friends Meeting, St. Denis Church is on the diagonal corner, across from the cemetery.
Physical Address: 2401 Saint Denis Lane, Havertown PA
GPS Coordinates: 39.99148, -75.30421
Parking: Along St. Denis Lane approaching church
Ownership: Private
Arcadia Book Page: 38

Description and History: St. Denis church was the first Roman Catholic church built in Delaware County, serving early 19th century immigrant mill workers and their families. The Quakers, with a strong belief in religious tolerance, supported the establishment of a suitable place of worship for a growing Catholic population. Dennis Kelly, an Irish Catholic immigrant who consolidated many of the mill buildings along Cobbs Creek into a prosperous textile industry called Castle Hill Mills in the mid-19th century, made the land available for the church and later its large cemetery. Many of the immigrants who came to America to work in his mills worshipped here. A wooden church was built in the mid-1820s, and a stone church building replaced it in the 1860s (shown below). The stone church building was in turn replaced by the present, larger church building (shown above) in 1947. The rectory with mansard roof, which had been appended to the first stone church in 1905, was retained.