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    We are told that the Catholics attending the first services in Muscatine were from the town itself. In January, 1841, there were only ten adult Catholics here, as we learn from Father Mazzuchelli’s Memoirs. Eight of them received Holy Communion during the first Mass, January 25, 1841. His estimates harmonize with the testimony of local pioneers. For instance, from one source we learn that there were about five families here in 1842. It ought to be recalled at this time that Bishop Loras rendered a fine service to early Catholicism in these parts. There are many things to encourage the pioneer to “move on.” Whenever Iowa’s saintly prelate came to hear of such intentions, he would write in this vein: “You stay there else no other Catholics will come.” That happened in Muscatine; the letter was addressed to Theodore Becke.

     Among other pioneer families, the nucleus of St. Matthias’ Parish, the following names have come down to us: John Theodore Becke, Truesdell, McCrow, H. Wilmering, L. Arnold and his son, George, Timothy Fahey, John Raven Dohaney, J. McMenomy, and John Knapp. The nationalities chiefly contributing to the Catholic population if early Muscatine were Irish and German.

     Like most pioneer communities of Iowa, there was a diversity of occupation. We are told that the Irish, with their two-wheeled carts, drawn by a horse, did most of the grading in Muscatine from 1856 till about ten years later. Many of them also took to farming, some going north towards Wilton and others toward old Watkins. Father John F. Kempker made this statement relative to the racial composition of the early St. Matthias: “ In 1851 the congregation numbered about fifty families, almost equally divided as to nationality as immigrants from Ireland and from Germany, with a sprinkling of other races.” A History of Muscatine County published in 1889 says: “ The congregation of St. Matthias was an assemblage of people of many nations and languages, the English predominating.” Further light on this matter is to be found in two …

p. 23

…lists of contributors of St. Matthias’ Church; the one is for the Irish and the other for the Germans. They were compiled in 1850- about the time of Father Laurent’s coming to Muscatine. Thirty German names are given, and thirty-nine Irish as contributing to the support of the pastor. There is another list- apparently a census- made in 1855. A rather large majority of the 480 names there given is Irish. Still another list made in 1858 gives names of 80 German families. Besides thirteen unmarried adults, the names of 231 German children are given. At this late day it is very difficult to arrive at worth-while conclusions as the composition, regarding nationality, of our first Catholic settlers. The figures above given are serviceable in computing the total number of Catholics in St. Matthias’s Parish. Briefly, the totals for the early years are approximately: 1841, ten Catholics; 1851, two hundred and fifty to three hundred; 1855 four hundred and eighty, at least; 1858, eight hundred. A new Muscatine was emerging out of the old during the seventies and eighties. The humble beginnings were giving way to more pretentious accomplishments. A word of Father Laurent’s will make this plain: “ The Murphy hollow is the last remnant of that old Muscatine, only the hollow as it is now has lost its picturesque loveliness, its ‘Vale on Tempe’ appearance, which charmed the immigrants from Tipperary and Wicklow and made them dream of the hillside cottages where grew the Shamrock in the glory of the rising sun. The Murphys have left the hollow- the name alone remains and it will not take long before the hollow itself will be no more.”

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