Hubbardston's Irish parish on the hill

The federal historic nomination tells this story more carefully than some local retellings do. John Cowman settled in North Plains Township in 1849, and other Irish families followed. They built a small chapel on his farm in 1853. St. John the Baptist Parish was founded in 1855 as the first Catholic parish in Ionia County. The nomination does not describe that chapel as a converted sheep shed, and it does not call St. John’s the only Irish Catholic parish in Michigan.

The present church came next. The parish bought its Hubbardston site in 1868, laid the cornerstone that June, and completed the church in August 1869. An 1881 Ionia County history, quoted in the nomination, said the church was then considered the county’s largest church building. It put the cost at $8,000 and the seating at perhaps 700. That is a historical description of one kind of building, not a current biggest-building record.

The cemetery opened in 1884. Many older stones name the Irish parishes, towns, and counties where people were born. The brick rectory followed in 1907-08 and the school building in 1917. Together with the 1868-69 Gothic Revival church, they form the historic complex listed in the National Register on September 24, 2001.

This is still a working parish, not a museum with guaranteed visiting hours. The Diocese of Grand Rapids parish listing is the current place for service information and visiting details.