St. Charles’ Church of Woonsocket, Rhode Island
Since 1920 Rev. Cornelius J. Holland has been the able pastor of St. Charles’ Church of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. St. Charles’ parish is the oldest Catholic parish in northern Rhode Island. As early as 1828 Rev. Robert D. Woodley visited Woonsocket and said mass in the house of Walter Allen, a generous Protestant, for the ten Irish Catholics who were then living in the town. That house, a two-story Colonial structure in Great Road, known as the Osborne House, is still standing (1930). Father Woodley’s ministry to this district ceased in 1831. During the next ten or fifteen years the …