St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Wilmington, DE

St. John Neumann consecrated it in 1858 when Wilmington was still part of the Diocese of Philadelphia. At the time it was the fourth church in New Castle County.

The parish was established to serve the growing population of mostly Irish immigrants, and some Germans, drawn to the industry on the East Side of the city. The lot had been purchased by Philadelphia's Bishop Kenrick in 1848.

The parish flourished, and a school building was completed in the second decade after the dedication of the parish. The school continued until 1975, and the parish now rents the building.

Membership peaked at about 3000 souls, but like its sister parish, Saint Patrick's, with which it was yoked in 1974, it saw rapid decline in membership in the years following World War 2 and is now the smallest parish in the diocese.

A steeple fire and other deterioration had left the building in very poor condition by the mid-seventies when a large team of volunteers were recruited to begin major restoration of the building, thus saving the building from further decay and the parish from probable closure. In 1976 St. Mary was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. To commemorate the canonization of St. John Neumann in 1977, the parish secured from the well-known local popular sculptor Charles Parks a life-sized image of the new saint. During the same time period the demolition of the old rectory made it possible to install a lawn and garden around the church, making the grounds an island of peace and beauty in the East Side.

In more recent years major repairs to the steeple were concluded and the church hall painted and refurbished. The small, close-knit, racially mixed parish continues to bear witness where it was planted 160 years ago.