Queen Of The Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church In Bridgehampton To Celebrate Centennial

In 1912, two Bridgehampton farmers, Paul Roesel and Raymond McGee, bought a parcel of land from the Corwith family on Main Street as the future site of the hamlet’s first Catholic church.

The transfer was anything but simple. Because of widespread prejudice against Catholics in that era, the two men had to work anonymously and through a third party to seal the deal. Once they did, they immediately turned the property over to the Archdiocese of Brooklyn and began fundraising efforts.

The fruit of their labors, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church, was dedicated on July 11, 1915.

At first, the new church served as a mission of the already established parish of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Southampton. But after seven years of growth, the archdiocese established Queen of the Most Holy Rosary as its own parish in 1922, appointing the Reverend Alexander I. Vorbath as its first pastor.

A six-month-long celebration of that centennial will kick off this Sunday, April 24, when a special mass will be offered by the church’s pastor, the Reverend Peter Deveraj, at 9:30 a.m. It will be followed by a brunch and the presentation of a proclamation from State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and the unfurling of a commemorative banner that will be on display for the rest of the year.

The parish will continue the celebration with three more special events in the coming months: an anniversary Mass and parish pork roast picnic on June 18, a Bishop’s Mass celebrated by the Most Reverend John O. Barres, the archbishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, followed by a cocktail reception, on August 13, and a closing celebration Mass, featuring the Youth Orchestra, followed by a potluck supper on October 8.

Maryann Buquicchio, a parishioner who has been leading the organizing committee, said Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, like many other parishes, has seen its original population, once made up of Polish, German, and Irish immigrants, age and transform over the years. Today, a large portion of the congregation are Latinos, who often attend Mass offered in Spanish.

“We want it to be one community,” Buquicchio said of the upcoming celebration, adding the committee hoped year-rounders, summer visitors, and Spanish speakers alike would participate.

The anniversary committee is collecting photographs for a commemorative booklet and considering burying a time capsule that it hopes will reflect the diversity of the parish, she added.

The exact founding date of the parish is murky, with The Tablet, the official paper of the Brooklyn Archdiocese, reporting in May 1922 that a new parish had been created in Bridgehampton. With no formal dedication ceremony having taken place, Buquicchio said the parish has settled on June 11, 1922, when Father Vorbach baptized the new congregation’s first member, William J. Brennan, as the date of its founding.

The major events scheduled for the centennial celebration have been chosen because of their proximity to either important dates in the liturgical calendar or the church’s history. This coming Sunday was chosen as the opening celebration because of its proximity to Easter. The anniversary Mass was set as close to the anniversary of the first baptism, the bishop’s visit will be the day before the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, and the closing event occurs in October, the day after the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

The church building was designed by society architect F. Burrall Hoffman Jr., who split his time between New York, Palm Beach, and Paris, and was chosen for the job because his mother, Frances Burrall Hoffman, was an early supporter of the parish and well connected to the church hierarchy.

The building cost just under $15,000 to complete. In 1924, the parish built a 10-room rectory to the east of the church, for just under $21,000.

Unlike most Catholic parishes, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, never had its own school.

“I don’t think the population was ever dense enough to support a school,” said parishioner Ed Wesnofske, a retired sociology professor who serves as an unofficial parish historian. Instead, Bridgehampton students were sent to St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor, which later became the Stella Maris Regional Catholic School before being closed due to declining attendance.

Queen of the Most Holy Rosary parish has had 23 pastors over the years, with many serving relatively short terms. Wesnofske said he believed that was the case because the archdiocese, reasoning the parish was small, typically sent priests who were close to retirement to Bridgehampton.

That changed in 1953, when the Reverend Joseph Rapkowski, known around town simply as “Father Joe,” arrived in 1953 and remained until 1962. Wesnofske described him as a well-educated, but humble man, who fit in with the Polish families. An excellent athlete himself, he umpired local baseball games and encouraged a young Carl Yastrzemski to pursue his baseball career, Wesnofske said.

After Father Joe’s death, a small grotto, including the bell that had been in the original church steeple that was toppled in the 1938 hurricane, was created next to the church.

In 2010, under the leadership of then pastor the Reverend Ronald Richardson, the parish completed work on a parish hall that is named after another long-serving and beloved pastor, Monsignor John Lynch, who served from 1979 to 1991.

For more information about the upcoming celebration, visit qmhr.org or send an email to Buquicchio at marybquick@gmail.com.