St. Patrick Catholic Church “disappeared”

In the 1850s, when work proceeded on the ill-fated railroad at Stumphouse Tunnel in Oconee County, most of the 600 workmen were Irish Catholics and made for what then was the largest congregation of Roman Catholics in Upstate South Carolina.  They worshipped at Saint Patrick Catholic Church at Tunnel Hill.  Local historian Lowell Ross’s account of what happened touches on the state’s decision to stop funding its part of the railroad that would have connected Charleston, South Carolina with Knoxville, Tennessee, by way of Oconee County and through three tunnels and nearly 6,000 feet of solid granite at Stumphouse Tunnel.  The name of Father J-J McConnell pops up frequently in Ross’s composition “Saint Patrick Catholic Church-Saint Frances Catholic Church.”  Saint Frances in Walhalla is a mission of the larger St. Paul The Apostle Church in Bountyland.  It was Father O’Connell’s hope that a Catholic community would ensue and thrive into the future.