HISTORY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS PARISH

Before the founding of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, the Catholic residents of Bridgewater had to travel to Taunton, often on foot, to attend Mass. Later, some missionary priests started to celebrate Mass in the homes of some of the Catholic residents of the town, with the first Mass celebrated in 1848. One of these visiting priests, Fr. Aaron L. Roche, saw that private homes were becoming too small to accommodate the growing Catholic population and began working toward the construction of a church for the town. He bought an acre of land for $350 to serve as the space for the church and cemetery. The parish was named after St. Thomas Aquinas (patron of Catholic schools, colleges, and universities) because of the Normal School nearby as well as the fact that Fr. Roche was a Dominican like St. Thomas. The original church building was built by parishioners who came to work on the structure after long days of hard work at the Iron Works or other jobs in the area, and who contributed their limited resources to get materials. They faced threats, attempts to burn the unfinished structure, and other difficulties created by parts of the local population which opposed the building of a Catholic church in Bridgewater. Overcoming all these obstacles, they finished the structure in 1858.
St. Thomas Aquinas Church c. 1860