Sacred Heart School established a proud Catholic school legacy in Gardner
Mike Richard
Special for The Gardner News
The history of the Catholic Church in Gardner actually dates back 165 years when those Catholics of the community attended Mass at the area’s lone church, St. Martin’s of Otter River. At that time, there were some 125 Catholics in the community.
In 1856, Gardner’s first Catholic Mass was celebrated in a grove off Baker Lane. Some 18 years later, in 1874, the first Catholic Church of Gardner – the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish – was built.
Holy Rosary parish opened the community’s first parochial school in 1903, and 20 years later Sacred Heart parish established its own school in 1923, the same year Gardner became a city.