St. Thomas Aquinas Church

St. Thomas Aquinas Church is located in Zanesville, Ohio and is part of the Diocese of Columbus. This is our home on the Internet. Here you will find the latest news and information about St. Thomas Church as well as news and information important to the life of the parish.

St. Thomas is served by the Dominican Friars, officially called the Order of Preachers (Ordo Praedicatorum).We are a Eucharist-centered Roman Catholic parish committed to the Word of God through the Dominican heritage of prayer, preaching, and teaching. As we serve our brothers and sisters - within our Catholic family and beyond - we grow together on our journey with Jesus to the Father.

Parish History

In the Spring of 1819, Father Young passed through Zanesville, then a small village. There he met three Catholic families and celebrated Mass -- the first Mass in Zanesville -- at the Green Tree Tavern, an Inn owned by John S. Dugan. Later that same year Mass was celebrated in the Burnham Hotel in Putnam, then a village distinct from Zanesville. Nineteen people constituted the Catholic community in Zanesville in those early days but soon the number increased. In November 1820, John Dugan purchased a lot with a small brick warehouse (20 x 50 feet) and converted it into a church. That Church, dedicated a few months later, was called Trinity Church or "the brick chapel," the first Catholic Church in this area. Father Young, O.P. came twice each month (from Somerset) to Trinity Church in Zanesville but great feasts such as Easter presented a special problem. Father Young could not leave his larger congregation in Somerset. Consequently Catholics from the Zanesville area would have to make the difficult trip (nearly twenty five miles each way) on horseback or by carriage on poor roads. The situation was eased in 1823 when the first resident pastor, Father Stephen Hyacinth Montgomery, a Dominican Friar was named for Trinity Church in Zanesville.

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