Church of the Fourteen Holy Martyrs

Church of the Fourteen Holy Martyrs-Baltimore-Catholic

Sources:

History of Baltimore City & County; John Thomas Scharf, 1881, J.B. Lippencott & Company, publishers, Philadelphia PA.

The church was established in 1869 by the rector of St. Alphonsus Church. His goal was a new German Catholic Church to service the German Catholics in the west Baltimore area. The building was erected at the corner of South Mount and West Pratt Streets . In 1870 the upper part served as the church while the lower part served as the school. The corner stone was laid on July 10, 1870. The church was served by the Redemptorist fathers of St. Alphonsus for a short time, but in the spring of 1871 a secular priest took charge of the church. On the first of April, 1874, Rev. Meinard Jeggle of the Benedictine order was appointed pastor.

This parish closed in 1964. M2650-M2651

Some observations from a former parishioner tells us that there was a bowling alley. It was not in the church, but in the school auxiliary building at the SW corner of Pratt Street and Mount Street. It is said that this building was originally a part of a German brewery. Another building that did stand on the NE corner of Mount Street and W. Pratt Street was razed in 1967.

When the church closed many of the congregation went to either St. Martins Catholic Church o Fulton and Baltimore Street, or to the United Brethren of the Third Church at the corner of Fulton and Lombard.

There was a walled garden on the Lombard Street side at the lower end of the church. There was also a grotto on the grounds that is now boarded over.