The Church of the Immaculate Conception

The Church of the Immaculate Conception. . Construction of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, and its neighboring rectory, began early in 1861. It served the large number of recent Irish immigrants, one-fourth of the town's population. By October 25th, the altar was consecrated; the church was declared a parish and received its first priest, Patrick Noonan in 1862. From this parish, a mission church was formed in Freeland called St. Anne's. , Until about 1900, the congregation was primarily Irish. The Catholic immigrants from Eastern Europe, who settled in Eckley in the 1880's and 1890's, walked to Freeland to attend churches with congregations that shared the same nationality and language. , The congregation of Immaculate Conception began to decline slowly prior to world war one, even though the ethnic barrier had begun to break. Surface mining replaced underground mining. Miners lost their jobs, moved away from Eckley and looked for other forms of work in the larger towns and cities. , While the Eckley congregation declined, St. Anne's, the mission church, grew. By 1930, it had more members than its parish. As a result, the Bishop of Scranton raised St. Anne's to the status of a parish and Eckley became a mission church. , The anthracite mining industry declined after World War II and this was reflected in the dwindling population of Eckley and Immaculate Conception's congregation. In late 1958 the church was closed and deconsecrated. , Eckley became a Museum in 1971. Since then, Immaculate Conception has been restored to look as it did about 1920. The altar is original but the other furnishings - statues, stations of the cross and pews-were donated by the Immaculate Conception Church, Berwick, Pennsylvania. They are similar in style to those once used at Eckley.