DANVILLE — The gothic-styled St. Luke Catholic Church was constructed in 1895 and since then has been a Danville landmark. The church’s steeple rises high into the air, the cross at its top at 120 feet.
The church was officially founded in 1820, although Catholic emigrants from Maryland had been worshipping in Danville since 1805. George and Catherine Sapp moved to Knox County that year from Allegheny County, Md., and hosted worship services in their home. They donated land for a Catholic cemetery on Howard-Danville Road, and for a log church nearby, which was dedicated to St. Luke in 1824. That building was replaced by a frame church in 1838.
Father John Baptist Lamy, a missionary priest from France, was assigned as the first resident priest at St. Luke. A plaque in the sanctuary commemorates his tenure there, from 1839-47, and includes the inscription, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Lamy, who also served churches in Mount Vernon, Newark, Greer and Jefferson Township, would go on to serve churches in Kentucky, then New Mexico, where he was appointed the first Archbishop of Santa Fe. The town of Lamy, near Santa Fe, was named for him.
In 1876 a brick church was built near the cemetery; it burned in 1895. The present-day church was built on donated lots in the village, with the priest’s home next door.
The church sanctuary features stained-glass windows depicting saints. One of the windows is inscribed with the legend “Frohe’s Art and Stained Glass, Est. Buffalo, N.Y.”
In the choir loft, the organ pipes stand tall in front of an ornate rose window that covers most of the loft’s back wall.
The tower is accessed from a storage room off the loft, where the rope attached to the bell dangles and an old wooden ladder leads to a trap door in the ceiling. The base of the tower has two arched stained-glass windows, a niche in the brick wall and an opening to a sort of attic. Critters of all sorts have made the tower and steeple their home over the decades, judging by the dirt, straw, chunks of brick, a broken blue robin’s egg and the skeleton of a baby bird on the floor.
Another fragile wooden ladder, much taller than the first and anchored by a makeshift brace, leads to the bell, but access to the space is impossible, except to a contortionist or a small monkey, as the bell takes up most of the space. Louvers on all sides of the tower’s second level allow the bell’s solemn sound to ring out. The steeple is the third level of the tower.
Above the bell is an inscription painted on an old board: “7179 Fisk.”
“Everybody’s going to want to know why the bell was ringing,” said lifelong church member Jimmy Banbury, as visitors tolled the bell.
The Rev. F. Richard Snoke said the bell is rung only on special religious occasions, to minimize wear and tear. He said an electronic system, with bell tones on tape, provides the tones through speakers placed in the tower, morning, noon and night every day, and before the 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday masses.
The Knox County On High series continues on Monday, March 10 , with an exploration of the Devil’s Backbone.
