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St. JoHn tHe evangeliSt cHurcH
The roots of St. John the Evangelist Church in Spencerport date back to 1851, when a priest from Rochester began making regular trips to a wagon shop in Ogden, where he celebrated Mass for the local Catholic population.
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Masses were celebrated in this building regularly until 1857, when local Catholics erected a small wooden chapel east of the Village
of Spencerport.
The congregation soon outgrew this chapel as well, and in 1867 a local Catholic named William Kinney donated a plot of land in the village where a cornerstone was laid for a new church. Father Richard Story was the rst pastor of the new St. John the Evangelist Church, which by 1884 had grown to include more than 500 people.
In 1915 a new church was built using eld stones from the farms of local parishioners, who completed
much of the construction work themselves. The English Gothic structure was completed just seven months after parishioners broke ground. Bishop Thomas F. Hickey celebrated the rst Mass in the new church at 55 Martha St. on Nov. 21, 1915.
In 1984 the parish erected an outdoor shrine to the Blessed Mother, and later dedicated it to Father Francis Hester, who served the parish for nearly 20 years.
The parish celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2017 with a variety of celebrations and special events.
