Rising, 1870–1892 — cornerstone, first Mass, consecration, steeple

Spring 1870 – 1892 · the building course

The start: Foundations were begun in the spring of 1870. The cornerstone was laid on 31 May 1871 — the tour's word is "blessed" — with six bishops present, among them Archbishop John Purcell of Cincinnati, on the Basilica's history page's account. The church rose unfinished around its own worship: the first Mass was celebrated on 15 August 1875, in a building still being completed, and that same year Derrick and Felgemaker of Erie installed an organ of two thousand pipes in the unfinished church — the organ line is told whole in its own entry below. In 1876 the church's high altar, a Gothic Revival work by Froc-Robert and Sons of Paris, was displayed at the Philadelphia Exposition, where the tour records it won a first premium for design; its tabernacle tower, the tour adds, was inspired by Revelation 21:9–14, the vision of the new Jerusalem. Sorin built the church with pilgrims in mind — the Notre Dame history in this record carries that the church was raised for pilgrims "from all parts of the country" — and the building's form was fixed from the start: a Latin cross, 275 feet long and 114 feet wide, as the Basilica's own tour and history agree.

The Lady Chapel and the consecration: The church's north end had been bricked off when the main body was completed in 1875; the Lady Chapel was added at that end in 1886–87 — the tour dates the addition to 1886, added "to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fr. Sorin's ordination in 1888," and the Basilica's history page dates it to 1887, the two printed together as the addition's span, as the Notre Dame history carries it. On 15 August 1888 the church was consecrated by Bishop Joseph Dwenger of Fort Wayne, in the midst of the golden jubilee of Sorin's ordination — Sorin's fiftieth year as a priest, the celebration the Lady Chapel had been built toward.

The steeple, and the measure of the whole: The steeple was completed in 1892, four years after the consecration: a tower 218 feet high, and the cross at its top the highest point on the campus at 230 feet, in the Notre Dame history's figures. The tower carries the bells told in the next entry. One later moment belongs to the spire's biography at pointer size: in April 1899 a 150-foot transmitting wire hung from the spire carried Jerome J. Green's wireless signal to Saint Mary's — the Technology history in this record tells it whole and prints the priority claim in its hedged form, and it stands here only as the spire's documented errand.

Sources

1. University of Notre Dame — the Basilica's history page (basilica.nd.edu): foundations spring 1870; the cornerstone of 31 May 1871 with six bishops including Archbishop Purcell; first Mass 15 August 1875; the Lady Chapel added 1887; consecration 15 August 1888 by Bishop Dwenger amid Sorin's golden jubilee; the steeple completed 1892.
2. University of Notre Dame, Campus Ministry — Self-Guided Tour of the Basilica: the cornerstone blessed in 1871; the church 275 by 114 feet in the form of a Latin cross; the Lady Chapel added 1886 for Sorin's ordination jubilee; the Froc-Robert altar at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876 and its first premium; the tabernacle tower and Revelation 21.
3. The Notre Dame history in this record — the Lady Chapel at 1886–87; the tower at 218 feet and the cross at 230; the church raised for pilgrims; the 1892 steeple.
4. National Register of Historic Places — nomination 78000053 (National Park Service): the district listed 23 May 1978; Sacred Heart Church as building 29.
5. The Technology history in this record — Green's 1899 transmission from the spire, in its hedged form.