MIDDLEBORO — Middleborough on the Move has added the 2011 edition to its collector’s series of holiday ornaments depicting historic downtown buildings.

Rev. Richard P Crowley, pastor, writes of the church: “Before 1870 Catholics traveled to Bridgewarter and Taunton for Mass. In 1870 Masses were held monthly in the small hall over the general store of Colonel Peter H. Pierce (now the police station) where the worshipers sat upon boxes and crates and prayed for a Catholic Church in Middleborough. Permission for this was given in 1873, but difficulty in obtaining enough money to build postponed the actual building for seven years.

“On July 12, 1881, Archbishop John J. Williams blessed the cornerstone and dedicated the small, humble but attractive wooden building named the Sacred Heart Church on the site of the current parish rectory.

“The beautiful, red brick English style Gothic church of today was constructed in 1917 — 1918. On June 9, 1918 William Cardinal O’Connell blessed the cornerstone and dedicated the church.