The Parish and Its Leaders

Starting with the multi-talented Father Henry Brown, Immaculate Conception parish has been blessed with many fine spiritual leaders. Father Joseph Biemans became pastor right after the dedication of the new church. In 1857 he opened a parish school in a rented store building on Gay Street. The school was forced to close in 1861 due to the rigors imposed by the Civil War. Miraculously the church was not damaged during the war.

The noted priest-poet Abram Joseph Ryan became pastor in 1865 after having served as a chaplain in the Confederate Army. Ranked today as a minor American poet, Father Ryan was renown in his day throughout the South both as a poet of secular and religious poetry and as a preacher. He remained in Knoxville only two years but he left his mark as a healing figure of the Reconstruction Era. Father Ryan reopened the parish school which from that time until its closing in 1969 came to be called St. Mary's School.

Father Michael Finnegan was pastor from 1866 to 1872. During that time he expanded the school program and he bought land for and opened Calvary Cemetery. In 1872 Father Francis Marron became pastor. In order to assess his new parish, Father Marron set out to meet his parishioners, no small task considering that his parish included all of middle and upper East Tennessee. He hoped to convince some of his flock to move closer to Knoxville, not to lessen his burden, but to keep them closer to the Mother Church and the sacraments. Father Marron distinguished himself as a school and parish administrator. He brought in teaching religious sisters to staff the school, thereby ending the era of lay school masters. He undertook the building of the much needed larger church for the expanding congregation. He stayed until 1899.