St. Augustine Church, Philadelphia

In seventeen ninety-six, two Irish Augustinian friars arrived in Philadelphia to build a church for the city's growing German and Irish Catholic population. Fathers Matthew Carr and John Rosseter began construction that year, and when the finished building was completed in eighteen oh one, George Washington had contributed to its construction, as had Commodore John Barry and Constitution signer Thomas Fitzsimons. It was the first Augustinian church in the United States, and the order later founded Villanova University.

Then in May of eighteen forty-four, anti-Catholic rioters burned the original church to the ground. The congregation rebuilt, and the present structure stands today as a direct descendant of that founding vision.