If you’ve ever driven through the winding country roads around Calvary, Kentucky, there’s a good chance you’ve passed by a place that’s quietly watched over the hills and knobs for more than two centuries — Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church.
Nestled among the rolling knobs and green fields of Marion County, this church is more than just a building. One of the oldest Catholic parishes in the entire state, Holy Name of Mary has stood as a spiritual home to generations. And like many enduring places, its story begins with a journey.

The Journey West – Faith on the Frontier

Back in the late 1700s, when Kentucky was still wild and largely unsettled, a group of Catholic families left their homes in Maryland and set out westward. These weren’t ordinary pioneers. They were people who had already endured religious prejudice back east. Families like the Spaldings, Abells, Wathens, and Buckmans weren’t just looking for farmland — they were looking for freedom. Freedom to live and worship as Catholics, to raise their children in peace, and to build communities where their faith wasn’t something to hide, but something to cherish.
Around 1788, many of these families settled near the Rolling Fork of the Salt River, a lush and fertile area. Life was hard. The woods were thick, the land had to be cleared by hand, and threats from both nature and man were real. Still, these settlers endured. They built cabins, planted crops, raised livestock — and just as importantly, they set aside a place for worship. Even before a church stood, faith gathered them. And from those early gatherings, Holy Name of Mary was born.

Rolling Fork Station and a Frontier Death

Among those early settlers was Ignatius Buckman, born in 1754 in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Along with his brother Clement, he helped establish what was then known as the Rolling Fork Settlement — sometimes called a “station,” in the frontier sense of a small fortified outpost. These stations were necessary in those days. Life on the edge of the frontier meant real danger.
That danger struck close to home in April of 1794. One night, gunshots rang out — four sharp cracks in the dark. The Buckman family ran out to the barn and found Ignatius there, fatally wounded. He’d been shot four times and scalped, likely killed while trying to protect his family and property from horse thieves. He became the first person buried in what would become Holy Name of Mary Cemetery, laid to rest on the hillside behind the church. His grave still stands today.
Even before Buckman’s death, the area wasn’t without tension. In 1792, just as Kentucky was becoming a state, a violent skirmish unfolded along the Rolling Fork River. A group of Native Americans raided a settlement, and a confrontation followed. Four Native warriors and three settlers were killed — one of the last recorded attacks in the region. The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 brought a measure of peace, and the frontier slowly began to stabilize.

A Church is Built – 1805

In 1805, the settlers constructed their first church — a simple log building made by hand with timber cut from the surrounding hills.
As the years passed and the community grew, that original log church was replaced by a more permanent brick structure in 1830.
The third church was constructed in 1891. That building, lovingly maintained and updated through the decades, still serves the people of Calvary today.

The First Priests at Calvary

The early priests who served Holy Name of Mary are almost legends in their own right. Men like Father Stephen Badin, the very first Catholic priest ordained in the United States, rode through the region offering Mass in cabins and churches like Calvary.
Others included Father Michel Barriere and Father Benedict Joseph Flaget, French missionaries who helped nurture the Church across Kentucky. Flaget would go on to become the first Bishop of Bardstown, overseeing one of the largest dioceses in early America.
Perhaps no missionary priest was more beloved than Father Charles Nerinckx, a Belgian priest who arrived in Kentucky in 1805. Though his base was elsewhere, he regularly visited Calvary and inspired religious vocations throughout the region. He even founded the Sisters of Loretto, who would soon play a vital role in Calvary’s history.
By 1811, Holy Name of Mary was formally recognized as a mission parish, and by 1825, it had regular priests serving its people full-time. These men, many of whom are now buried at St. Thomas or the Loretto Motherhouse, laid the spiritual foundations for what would become a deeply Catholic region.

Calvary Academy – The Sisters Arrive

In 1816, the story of Holy Name of Mary took a new turn with the arrival of the Sisters of Loretto. Invited by the parish, the sisters came to open a school: Calvary Academy.
For nearly a century, until 1900, these sisters taught reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, and manners. Discipline was strict — stories of rulers across the knuckles abound — but their mission was clear. They educated the children of Calvary, many of whom would go on to become teachers, priests, and community leaders. They shaped minds and hearts in equal measure.
Though Calvary Academy closed at the turn of the century, its legacy lingers. In 1920, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph arrived in Calvary to teach both elementary and high school students at Holy Name of Mary. Their presence marked a significant development in education for the area, lasting several generations.
Father Thomas Otho Durbin, the parish pastor at the time, oversaw the construction of the second school building, which housed both grade school and high school classrooms.

Holy Name of Mary Cemetery – Where the Pioneers Rest

Behind the church, shaded by trees and dotted with weathered stones, lies Holy Name of Mary Cemetery — or as locals often call it, Old Calvary Cemetery. This quiet plot of land is one of the most historic cemeteries in central Kentucky.
Names like Buckman, Abell, Spalding, and Wathen are etched into stone, marking the resting places of those who built this community from the ground up. Among the graves are at least three Revolutionary War veterans: John Barton Abell, Henry Hudson, and Wathen Benedict Spalding. These men fought for the birth of a new nation and then traveled west to help build not only a life for themselves, but a Church for future generations. Their graves stand as silent sentinels, watching over the land they helped tame.

A Parish That Endures

Today, more than 225 years after that first log church was built, Holy Name of Mary continues to serve as a spiritual home. Mass is still said, sacraments are still celebrated, and generations continue to gather under the old steeple — just as their ancestors did.
Many parishioners today can trace their family roots back to the original settlers — Buckmans, Abells, Spaldings, and more. These families remain deeply tied to the land, the church, and the faith that carried them across mountains and rivers to the Kentucky frontier.
The church’s story will continue as long as the bells ring out across the hills of Calvary.