St. Peter's Church (Hyde Park, New York)

Church of St. Peter
Location	Hyde Park, New York
Denomination	Roman Catholic
History
Founded	1837
Dedication	St. Peter
Administration
Archdiocese	Archdiocese of New York

Church of St. Peter is a Roman Catholic parish church under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, New York. It was established as a parish in 1837 (initially in Poughkeepsie). It is the second oldest Catholic Church on the Hudson (after St.Mary's in Albany) and is considered the Mother Church of the Hudson Valley because from it all the parishes in Ulster and Dutchess counties were founded.

Twenty-two years after the Diocese of New York was founded in 1808, Bishop John DuBois, in 1830, authorized a Dominican, Father Phillip O’Reilly to establish parishes on the Hudson River north of Manhattan Island. The first congregation he ministered to was the small group of 28 Irish-born Catholic families, who on October 14, 1831 were organized as the Congregation on the Hudson.

Philip O'Reilly O.P. was stationed at Newburgh, New York from 1830 to 1832 and would visit Poughkeepsie once a month in summer. Fr. Patrick Duffy was pastor of Paterson, New Jersey from 1823-1836, when he was sent first to Our Lady of Loretto in Cold Spring. From there he served congregations in West Point, Cold Spring, Newburgh, Saugerties, Rondout, and Poughkeepsie. When the house of Robert Belton became too small for the number attending, Mass was celebrated in the old brewery, near the Lower Landing at Pine Street. And later at the Hibbasus' hall on Market Street near Jay Street.

By 1825 emigrants from Ireland were numerous enough in Poughkeepsie to form a well defined segment of the population. In 1837 a church building was erected on land donated by Peter Everett. When some bigoted individuals threatened to burn it down, a vigilance committee, made up of Catholics and Protestants, was formed to defend it. Dr. Pyne, a non-Catholic offered the defenders the loan of a small cannon. There was no further trouble. The church was dedicated by Bishop DuBois on November 26, 1837. The pastor at that time was Rev. Patrick Duffy, who was then transferred to Newburgh. Rev. John McGinnis succeeded Duffy. The missions at Saugerties and Rondout were made dependencies of St. Peter's with expectation that each would be attended at least once a month.

In 1839 McGinnis was succeeded by Rev. John N. Smith. It was Smith who erected a small frame church at Rondout. He also made trips to Rosendale. In 1842 Smith was assigned to St. James in New York, and Rev. Myles Maxwell became pastor at St. Peter's. Smith died in February 1848, having contracted ship's fever while attending the deathbed of Father Mark Murphy who had been ministering to immigrants at the quarantine station on Staten Island.

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