St. Patrick Church / St. Patrick Calvary Cemetery
St. Patrick was the first church to serve Brighton area Catholics, many of whom were immigrants from Ireland. A simple log structure at the corner of McCabe and Silver Lake Roads built in 1838 was used by the congregation until 1864, when the cornerstone was laid for a stone Gothic Revival church at the present location. Tragedy struck on May 8, 1918, in the form of a tornado that tore off the steeple and damaged the roof. This church, along with a rectory and convent, was built in 1961. In 1991, the church was enlarged and rededicated. St. Patrick has run a school since 1942, originally run from an unused Brighton Public School building. The parish broke ground for a new school in 1951, and in 2006 it opened another campus on Orndorf Road.The early parishioners of St. Patrick were interred in a cemetery adjacent to its first church building on the corner of McCabe and Silver Lake Roads in Green Oak Township. Referred to as the Old Irish Cemetery, this now inactive cemetery holds some of Livingston County’s oldest grave markers. The congregation outgrew both its original church and its cemetery. The land for Calvary Cemetery was deeded to the Bishop of Detroit in 1886. The cemetery was platted in the spring of 1897, and Detroit Diocese Bishop John Samuel Foley dedicated it that same year. The northwestern part of the ten-acre plot contains many of the cemetery’s oldest graves, including Civil War veterans.
Plaque via Michigan History Center