lookout point
St. Peter Cathedral in Marquette is adorned with beautiful stained-glass windows depicting saints and scenes from the Catholic tradition.
REACHING FOR HEAVEN
Marquette’s St. Peter Cathedral is a Romanesque masterpiece Story and photos by Sonny Longtine
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ew York has St. Patrick’s, London has St. Paul’s, both grand cathedrals of the first order, but the Upper Peninsula has its own impressive house of worship: St. Peter Cathedral. It may not be as large as the others and perhaps not as grand, but to Upper Peninsula Catholics, it is a cherished place of prayer that has basilica stature. St. Peter is in the classic Romanesque Revival style with its solid, rough cut, sandstone walls and a steeply pitched roof. St. Peter is more muscular than lyrical. Deeply recessed windows, framed by rounded arches, reinforce its massiveness. Truncated buttresses dominate the exterior walls and give the cathedral a classy toughness. The facade is typical Romanesque with symmetrical, arched-topped stained glass windows, a cavernous entryway, and square towers. Romanesque churches are solid; they look like they have always been there. The cathedral is located on the corner of Fourth Street and Baraga Avenue in Marquette; it is the fourth
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Marquette Monthly
church to exist on that site. Bishop Frederic Baraga visited Marquette on October 1853, confirmed 30 people and selected the present site as the location for the village’s first Catholic Church. The beginning of St. Peter was inauspicious. The first church in 1856 was a two-story frame building located just behind the present cathedral. In 1864, a larger and more substantial church replaced the old wooden structure. The new Gothic church had a stone foundation and was an imposing church for its time. Built for only $12,000, it was a bargain even then. But it was glacially cold, and worshiping in the church during the winter would have been a nightmare if the furnace was not fired up for three days prior to a church service. Calamity, however, disturbed the peaceful church in 1879 when Bishop Vertin removed Father Kenny as church pastor. This firing angered many of the parishioners, and it was presumed they sought retribution by burning the church down. Vertin then reinstated Kenny as pastor of the church that was now
October 2021
a pile of blackened ruins. Vertin and Kenny, apparently with some spiritual guidance, patched up their discord and a new church era began. The cornerstone for a new sandstone church was laid in 1881 but was not completed until 1890. During construction, the basement of the church served the parishioners. When it was completed, the church nourished the Catholic community for the next 53 years. Then catastrophe struck again in November 1935 when another fire demolished the cathedral. No foul play was evident this time. The sandstone walls were all that was left after the devastating ’35 fire. Father Francis Scheringer and custodian, Rock Beauchamp, masked against the smoke and linked with a rope, fought the flames and smoke to the main altar to bring out the sacred vessels. Seconds after they exited the burning building, the roof caved in and the floor collapsed. Marquette resident Mary Belmore (now deceased) was 17 years old at the time of the fire that started in
