St Andrew Church

It is well established that the first Europeans to set foot on Virginia soil were Spanish Catholic missionaries in the Sixteenth Century, according to research for the Virginia Historical Society. A band of Jesuits settled near the York River opposite Jamestown in 1570 and spent two years trying to Christianize the Indians before they were massacred by the Chiskiacs. There is also little doubt that the first president of the Virginia Colony was a Catholic, Edward Wingfield. Captain John Smith credits the skills of Catholic Polish artisans with saving the colony from starvation. Due to heavy restrictions and deprivation of citizenship rights by the Virginia Colony, only a few hundred Catholics settled in Virginia before the Revolution. There is little wonder then that it took another century for them to appear in countable numbers in the western part of the state. On the 22nd day of September in the year 1879, the Bishop of the Diocese of Richmond, Rt. Rev. John J. Keane, assigned to the church at Lexington and the adjacent counties of Rockbridge, Alleghany, Bath, Botetourt, Craig and Roanoke, the young newly-ordained priest, Father John W. Lynch. The Catholic population was sparse and scattered and the faithful discharge of his duties was arduous indeed, for horseback was his only means of contact. The one Catholic in the village of Big Lick was joined by others with the coming of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad and its joining with the new Norfolk & Western. On November 19, 1882, in Passenger Coach No. 6, Father Lynch said the first Mass celebrated in the then thriving town of Roanoke. Later, old Rorer Hall, located at 3rd Street and Campbell, alternated as a place of worship.