My Genealogy Hound

REV. JOHN J. BULLION, Homestead, was born in 1856, in Sharpsburg, Pa. His parents, John and Catharine (Ruttiger) Bullion, natives of Bavaria, in their youth immigrated to America, and are now living in Sharpsburg, where the former is employed in the iron-mill. The subject of this sketch entered St. Michael’s Seminary in 1869, at the age of thirteen years, and after seven years of diligent study entered the Grand Seminary at Montreal, where two years later he was ordained with forty-five others to the priesthood by Bishop Fabre. He was first stationed at Dudley, Pa., but soon afterward became assistant in St. Peter’s pro-cathedral, Allegheny City. In February, 1881, he came to Homestead, where he held services for nearly one year in Schuchman’s hall. In the fall of the same year the first church was dedicated, the seating capacity being 300. Owing to the growth of the town and the earnest, diligent efforts of Father Bullion, the congregation soon grew beyond the capacity of the little church, and in 1888 a building was erected with a seating capacity of 700, the lower part of which is occupied as a parochial school, and will be used as a church until a handsome brick structure can be erected. The congregation has increased from twenty-five to two hundred families.