Fr. Charles Slevin was appointed pastor on May 5, 1865. Born in 1826 in Fintona, Co. Tyrone, Ireland he was ordained a priest at St. Johns’ college at Fordham in 1857. He served at St. Bridget’s Parish in Manhattan and then in Dover Plains. Dover Plains was a difficult assignment because he had to serve the needs of Catholics spread over a large area. He contracted some sort of disease that stayed with him all his life. The life span of priests at the time was only thirty-seven years.
Unfortunately, the most information you read about pastors is what they built. In his first few years he was very active. In 1866 he installed a white marble altar and tabernacle in the church. The next year he had five frescos painted on the walls behind the main alter by the Italian artist, Francisco Augero. He rebuilt the organ gallery and installed a new organ. He also had a paid choir. In 1868 and 1869 he built a new kitchen in the rectory and he doubled the size of the rectory. The additional rooms in the rectory enabled him to attract a succession of assistant priests, most notably Alfred Lings in 1867 and Andrew O’Reilly in 1874. Lings left in 1871 to found the second Catholic parish in Yonkers, St. Joseph. O’Reilly stayed until 1903, still an assistant, not a pastor.
Fr. Selvin’s health deteriorated and he had to leave the parish at various times to recuperate. Although canonically still the pastor, he had been replaced by Fr. Charles Corley in June of 1877. He died on July 18, 1878. In his last years he made the controversial decision to close the Boy’s School in November of 1877. The official reason was the lack of money to pay the Brother’s salary. It was reopened in November of 1876. One can only speculate that if the real reason was financial two events were major contributing factors. First, the creation of a second parish in Yonkers had to have lessened the Sunday collections. Secondly, in 1873, there was fierce financial recession in the nation. Millions of dollars were lost. It affected not only the rich but the ordinary worker.
During Fr. Slevin’s pastorate, in 1868, the Sisters of Charity opened up the Academy of St. Aloysius on the four acre Vark Estate next to church and rectory. It was a boarding school for boys from the growing Catholic middle class. The former home of the Vark Family was greatly expanded. It also became the residence of the Sisters who taught at St. Mary’s school. This is the present site of St. Joseph’s Hospital and the Convent of Mary the Queen.

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