We are now offering Genealogy Research Services for Daviess County- for more information see our website Services page.
In 2006 I got word that the diocese planned to destroy the building. I started to work on saving it and have arranged to have the diocese, through the St. Peter’s Council, which now administers the Church property, to sell the building to the Daviess County Historical Society. We are currently working with the diocese to lease the ground underneath the building in a 99-year lease. The DCHS did not want to own this building, but pursued this course of action to give time to work on restoring it. To that end a group of Corning people have formed a 501c3 called The Corning Heritage Center, Inc. to achieve the goal of restoring the rectory building and using it in some form as a cultural and heritage center.
We ask each family with heritage from the Corning Church and area to donate $10 toward this project. We are now scattered throughout the country and the world. So the need now is to spread the word through each family, whether it is Fegan or Delany or Colvin or Wilson or Nolley or Craney or Hedrick or Toy… the names are legion. Our resources are tremendous when we think of the number of persons whose ancestors once worked the coal mine and farmed the land in the Corning area. As the coal mine continues to erase all vestiges of our heritage to the north and south of Corning it is more important than ever to hold on to a representation of the hard work and dedication that the many families went through to keep the parish going through all those years. We are determined to make the Corning Rectory into an asset for the Daviess County community as the Old Union people have done to the south of Corning. We can do it.