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On the right bank of the beautiful Connecticut river, about 70 miles from its mouth, the industrial city of Holyoke rises from a verdant eastern side of a pleasant hill. Wise engineers saw, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the immense advantage they could take of the falls in this area. So, they constructed a great dam which, barring the flow of the waters, re-channeled the current into four circuits and three levels of canals on the sides of the hill and furnished a source of very great power. All along the sides of the canals, immense factories of all kinds were built, mostly silk and cotton, and paper for which Holyoke became known as "Paper City."
These divers industries, and others, again pulled from the province of Quebec a considerable number of French Canadians recognized as excellent workers. Very quickly, these emigrants had need of priests of their language and culture, to serve them and they saw raised the first French language church in Holyoke, in the southern part of the city, the Precious Blood Church, built under the care of Abbott Dufresne, in 1869. This beautiful and old parish revisited the glories of a second spring under the zealous direction of Abbott Eugene Guering, its present Pastor.
Some years later, this church no longer being sufficient for the needs of the Franco-American population, another church was built near the dam on the Connecticut river, the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in 1890, under the direction of Abbott Charles Bruneault, who became the first Pastor there. The prosperity of Holyoke demanding more numerous arms for its industries, the influx of Canadians from Quebec continued and very soon it was necessary to build a third church for them. In 1903, Pastor Charles Bruneault laid the foundations of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the eastern confines of the city, on the corner of Ely and Summer Streets. The new church, which would serve as an auxiliary mission of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, was only used as a basement for the moment. The construction of the superstructure would be postponed until later.
Abbott Joseph Marchand succeeded as the curate at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in 1904. Shortly, he saw that the French-speaking population of Ward One in the city was considerably large enough for an independent new parish, as there were nearly eight hundred families. Abbott J.V. Campeau was named Pastor of the Immaculate Conception and took possession of his curate on October 18, 1905, under the Bishopric of Msgr. T. D. Beaven, D.D., Bishop of Springfield.
The Director of the city during the years 1905-06 put at the disposal of the Committee by His Honor Mr. Edwin V. Seibel, Mayor of Holyoke, gave him permission to prepare the following list of the founding parishioners.
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