St. Thomas the Apostle Church

In 1831 Father Patrick O’Kelly came from Detroit to minister to the Irish Catholics in the Washtenaw area. He offered his first mass in Ann Arbor on July 12, 1835, in a home located on land bounded by Detroit, Kingsley, and Fifth Streets. St. Thomas parish took more permanent form in 1840, when, under the leadership of Father Thomas Cullen, it purchased land on Kingsley Street near Division Street and built Ann Arbor’s first brick church. It established a parochial school in 1868. The church site was purchased in 1883. The present church, begun in 1896 under Father Edward D. Kelly, was dedicated in 1899. Its granite fieldstone and Bailey bluestone were donated and hauled to the site by parishioners and area farmers. The first hospital to serve the community and two additional Ann Arbor Catholic parishes emerged from St. Thomas Parish.