St. John Neumann Parish grew out of two southern Portage County communities: St. Joseph in Randoph and St. Peter of the Field in Rootstown. In the 1830s, a handful German- speaking people from France and Germany came to Randolph, forming a Catholic community. A visiting priest celebrated the first Mass for six pioneer families gathered in a log cabin home in 1830 and organized them into a parish under the patronage of Saint Joseph in 1831. St. Joseph Parish School— believed to be the first English-speaking parochial school west of the Allegheny Mountains—was founded a year later, staffed by lay teachers. Later, various orders of religions women would teach at the school, including the Sisters of Notre Dame.
In 1835, the pioneers in Randolph constructed a combination log chapel and schoolhouse, but parishioners had to rely on visiting missionary priests to celebrate Mass. In the late 1830s a parish cemetery was established near the church. In 1841, Redemptorist Father John Nepomucene Neumann, later archbishop of Philadelphia—who would become the first male canonized American saint—was sent to reorganize the parish. In 1845, a new frame church was completed. St. Joseph welcomed their first resident pastor in 1846. After several fires and reconstructions, the parish built a Romanesque and Gothic brick structure, which was dedicated in 1905 and still serves the parish today. In 1927, it created a replica of the grotto of Lourdes in France. The grotto continues to attract visitors, especially for Marian feast days.
The St. Peter of the Fields community traces its origins to 1866, when property was purchased by 18 German Catholic families who had settled in Rootstown. Soon after, a cemetery was established on those grounds, with the first burial listed in 1867. The following year, a church was built. St. Peter became a mission of St. Joseph in 1868, with priests from St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist Cathedral, Cleveland, and other parishes visiting to offer Mass. Eventually, a rectory was built, and St. Peter welcomed its first resident pastor in 1898.
In 1941, St. Peter Parish was renamed “St. Peter of the Fields” to emphasize its rural character. When economic growth brought more Catholic families to the Rootstown and Brimfield areas in the early 2000s, plans were made for construction of a new and larger parish church, which was completed in 2006. The two communities merged on July 1, 2024, to form St. John Neumann Parish, after decades of collaboration and shared ministries.
Description from The March of the Eucharist, 2nd edition (2025) published by The Catholic Echo
