After eight years of four pastors and two administrators, St Mary’s was happy to see a new young pastor in February of 1856. During his pastorate of only nine years (he died on May 5, 1865) St. Mary’s was transformed, he built a new school, doubled the size of the church building, brought the Sisters of Charity and the Christian Brothers to teach in the school and guided the parish through a most difficult time, the Civil War.
His family history is interesting. His uncle, James Lynch of Country Kerry, Ireland, Enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a shipping clerk during the war of 1812. (There would always be military careers for Lynch men. It may explain why the future pastor of St Mary’s was a staunch supporter of the union army in the Civil War. One of his nephews died in the war.) Eventually he came to America and married Elizabeth Van Mullers from a prominent New York City Knickerbocker family. He was invited by Thomas McCarthy to join him at Salt Point, Salina (later called Syracuse) near the Erie Canal. He opened a store and prospered. His brother John followed in 1833. He and his wife, May Scanlon, sailed from Ireland with their six sons and one daughter, the youngest son being our Edward Lynch (born in 1829). Another son was born on the ship and a ninth son was born in USA on their farm in Dewitt, New York. Edward’s oldest brother, Cornelius, prospered in the dry goods business. Since he and his wife had no children of their own they invited Edward, now age nine, to live with them. Years later when Cornelius was very sick, he and his wife lived with the now Fr. Edward in St. Mary’s rectory. When her husband died in 1857, she remained in the rectory and helped take care of Fr. Edward until he died
At the age of fourteen, Edward met a young priest, John McCloskey (The future Cardinal of New York) who encouraged him to become a priest. After some initial objections from his family who wanted him to run their business (he had a knack for it, as is evident at St. Mary’s), he entered Holy Cross College in Worchester, Mass. And then transferred to St. John’s College at Fordham (where Jesuits were also serving at St. Mary’s). After graduation he entered the seminary, St Joseph’s, on the same campus. He was ordained a priest in 1854 by Archbishop Hughes and, after brief assignments at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and, for health reasons, at St. Mary’s in Rondout, N.Y., he was assigned as pastor to St. Mary's. He does not seem to have enjoyed good health and may have been suffering from the illness, consumption, which eventually killed him nine year later at the age of thirty-six. Archbishop Hughes called consumption, "The natural death of the Irish". We now know it to be tuberculosis.
The first order of business for the new pastor was to build a school and find religious sisters and brothers to come and teach. An opportunity immediately presented itself when the Sisters of Charity were looking for property to build their new motherhouse.
Thomas Cornell persuaded them to look at property in Riverdale, owned by the Shakespearean actor, Edwin Forrest. This is the same Edwin Forrest who was unwittingly involved in the Astor Place riots in 1849. At least twenty-five people were killed and more than one hundred and twenty wounded. It was the first time a state militia had fired into a crown of citizens. The theater in those days was a very audience participation affair (see the movie "Gangs of New York.") audiences rooted for and against the actors. When Forrest, who was a favorite of the Irish Catholics, was replaced by an English actor, the Irish audiences were enraged and took to the streets.
Thomas Cornell knew Forrest and convinced him to sell his property to the Sisters of Charity. At the time Riverdale was part of Yonkers and therefore part of St. Mary's parish. In 1856 a meeting was arranged with Fr. Lynch, Archbishop Hughes, and Thomas Cornell (his description of the negotiations is very detailed) at the rectory of St. Mary’s. They then proceeded over to the Forrest property where they met Angela Hughes, mother superior and sister of the Archbishop. Cornell was very proud of his role in convincing all the parties involved, especially archbishop Hughes to buy the property. They bought the land in December of 1856. Within a few months, two Sisters of Charity, sisters Chrysostom and Winifred, came to teach at St. Mary’s School which at the time was a small schoolhouse with eighty- three girls. Fr. Lynch provided a carriage to bring the sisters to school every morning and returned them to their home at Mt. St. Vincent's every night. At that time there was also a boy's school in the basement of the church under the direction of Mr. Riley. There were about one hundred students.
A much larger school was built in 1860. In 1861 four La Salle Christian brothers came to teach the boys under the leadership of Brother Clementian (Peter Muth). He was twenty- one years old. Enrollment jumped to two hundred and sixty three boys in 1861 and then to two hundred and ninety- seven in 1862. The brothers taught the upper grade boys and they lived on the top floor of the new school.
In 1863 Fr. Lynch convinced his parishioners to enlarge the original church -almost doubling its capacity. As a pastor I asked myself how he ever got the money to do this. This was during the Civil War where even the building of the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral had to be stopped for lack of money. We know that Fr. Lynch collected funds by visiting the homes of his parishioners and by personally taking up a second collection at Sunday’s masses. I doubt whether this was sufficient. The only answer I could think of was his older brother’s wife who was living in the rectory at the time. She must have contributed substantially to St. Mary’s.
The great crisis that faced Fr. Lynch and his 98% Irish parish was the draft riots in New York City in 1863. Many feared that they would spread to Yonkers where there was a large munitions factory on Vark St., one block away from the church. I will write about Yonkers and the Civil War in the next chapter but suffice to say that it did not reach Yonkers. I believe that Fr. Lynch was a main factor in preventing this. When President Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, Fr. Lynch was dying. As the funeral train bearing Lincoln passed Yonkers, he asked to be carried down to the station to do homage. Three weeks later Fr. Lynch died. He was buried in the family plot in Syracuse. I wish he had been buried in St. Mary’s cemetery. Then we could visit his grave and give homage to the priest who in my opinion was St. Mary’s most important pastor.

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