175th Fun Facts

The first Confessional inside the original Immaculate Conception Church was finished in April 1902 and cost a grand total of $48.

The cornerstone of the “new” Immaculate Conception Church on Bow Street – built in 1973 – contains copies of The Delmarva Dialog (the Catholic newspaper of our diocese), The Cecil Whig and The Cecil Democrat.

As the Catholic community in Elkton was growing, the pastor at the time (Father George King, S.J., from Old Bohemia) recognized the need for a permanent Church structure in the town. It took two years for the building to be finished along Bridge Street, but as it was nearing completion, the contractor refused to hand over the keys to Fr. King. More than $600 was still owed, and King was nearly remanded into the hands of the sheriff until the bishop and diocese stepped in to save the entire situation.

Parishioner Alice L. McDaniel donated the land which was used to build St. Jude’s in North East. Finished in the summer of 1969, the mission church was dedicated on October 26 of that same year.

According to parish history, the first Immaculate Conception Christmas Bazaar was held on December 6, 1902, in which a dinner set, and silver service were raffled off. Nearly $850.00 was netted at this first fundraiser for the church.

Jesuit priests would minister to scattered Catholics in Cecil County in the 1700s, their home base being St. Francis Xavier (Old Bohemia) in Warwick, Maryland. Many of the Catholics living in Elkton at the time were Irish laborers digging the C&D and Susquehanna canals or working at local iron furnaces.

In 1969, Rev. James P. Eckrich was appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception parish and was tasked with the “good problem” of creating more worship space to accommodate the growing number of Catholic families in Elkton. In time and after many surveys and studies, the decision was made to close the original church on Bridge Street and build a new worship site next to the existing grammar school. Philadelphia-based architect Edward Holland was chosen as designer of the current church structure, and groundbreaking for the new Immaculate Conception Church was held on September 17, 1972 – fifty-one years ago today. Sight and Sound Theatres' "Miracle of Christmas".

The first resident pastor of Immaculate Conception Church was the Rev. Francis Blake, described as a “polished Irishman of short stature and red hair.” He arrived here shortly after the Diocese of Wilmington was created in 1868, and named pastor by our first bishop, the Most Rev. Thomas A. Becker.

The original mission of Immaculate Conception Church (begun in 1849) started with only seven families in Elkton and the outlying very-rural parts of eastern Cecil County.

A practice known as ‘pew renting’ was first mentioned in the Immaculate Conception parish records of 1860. Although the pastor at the time was hoping to raise $300 through this method, only $97 was actually collected, $6.00 of which was found to be counterfeit.