Fitzgerald, Father Edward, Columbus, Ohio, to Archbishop John Baptist Purcell, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1864 April 25

Fitzgerald asks for authority to build an addition to the school house. He estimates the cost, as Father John Murray will more fully explain, to be about $4,000 and he has contracted the bricks, nails and lumber which, if Purcell does not approve of the addition, could be sold at a profit. He does not feel that they are able to build a new church, nor that they need one because by saying three masses there is sufficient room for the whole congregation. His estimated cost of a new church in Columbus is $60,000, which he thinks impossible to procure, because the united congregation of St. Patrick's has not contributed $40,000 since its organization, and only those belonging to the new congregation could be depended upon to pay for the church. However, Fitzgerald will, as Purcell directed, purchase a lot if the terms are reasonable. ` P.S. Father B. Hemsteger started today. :: II-5-b A.L.S. 3pp. 12mo.