St. Anthony's Catholic Church is a parish church in the Diocese of Davenport. The parish complex is located in downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States, at the corner of Fourth and Main Streets. It is the first church congregation organized in the city of Davenport and the second Catholic congregation, after St. Raphael's in Dubuque, in the state of Iowa. The parish buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church Complex in 1984. The designation includes the church and the former school building, which is the parish's original church building and the oldest standing church building in Iowa. The designation also included the rectory, which was partially torn down in 2009. The complex was also listed on the Davenport Register of Historic Properties in 1992 as St. Anthony's Church Square. The property has been known historically as Church Square. In 2020 the parish buildings, except for the parish center, were included as contributing properties in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District. Because of its recent construction date, the parish center is excluded as a contributing property.
Development
In 1832, on what is now the city of Davenport, Chief Keokuk of the Sauk tribe signed a treaty with the United States government after the tribe's defeat in the Black Hawk War. The tribe ceded land on the west side of the Mississippi River, which was then opened to settlement. Antoine LeClaire, who was French-Pottawattamie and served as the translator at the treaty signing, received two parcels of land. The original section of the city was laid out in 1836. The next year an addition was made to the small town on one of LeClaire's parcels. He stipulated that a Catholic church be built on one of the squares. That same year a frontier missionary, the Rev. Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli, OP, arrived in Davenport and started the parish. At that time there were 25 Catholics in a town of 100 people. It is the oldest church congregation in Davenport.
Mazzuchelli drew up plans for a simple two-story structure that would serve as a church and priest's residence. He actually gave the parish two patron saints. St. Peter is the parish's primary patron, and St. Anthony of Padua is its secondary patron. However, the parish has always been known as St. Anthony's, the patron saint of its benefactor Antoine LeClaire. Ground was broken for the new church on April 27, 1838, and it was built by pioneer settlers Adam Noel, John Noel and Joseph Noel with assistance from Harvey Leonard for $2,000. The first bricks manufactured in the city of Davenport were used to build the church. Bishop Mathias Loras of Dubuque dedicated the new structure on May 23, 1839. The building served many purposes for the small community. It was a church, city hall, courthouse, schoolhouse, public forum, and gathering place for the citizens of the town. The church's bell called parishioners to Mass, children to school, sounded the alarm for a fire, as well as summoning the city's aldermen for their sessions.
The title to the property, named Church Square, was deeded to Bishop Loras in 1839 to support the Catholic Church in Davenport. Commercial properties were built on the east side of the block. Income from these properties was a factor in Davenport being named a see city with its own bishop in 1881.
The church had a small choir which included Antoine LeClaire and Judge C.G.R. Mitchell, who would provide the land for the city's first Catholic cemetery and two of the churches in the city's west end. There was, however, no organ. Instead, music was led by a small ensemble made up of a violin, clarinet, flute, and cello.
The parish's first pastor was a French missionary priest recruited by Bishop Loras, the Rev. J.A.M. Pelamourgues, who arrived in Davenport in September 1839. He served the parish until 1868 when he remained in his native France while he was visiting there. Initially, Father Pelamourgues resided in a partitioned section of the gallery of the church. He was also responsible for more than the small parish in Davenport. He traveled to other Catholic communities in the region: Muscatine, Iowa City, Burlington, Columbus Junction, DeWitt and Lyons (the north side of present-day Clinton). Bishop Loras was also interested in evangelizing the Native Americans in his jurisdiction and he placed Father Pelamourgues in charge of the Sauk and Fox tribes in southeastern Iowa.