Local Catholics attend Mass in Kennebunk these days, but in 1902, Martha Walker, great grandmother of President George H. W. Bush and great, great, grandmother of President George W. Bush, was the driving force to build a Kennebunkport Catholic Church.

You may recall the Irish fisherman Thomas Casey who, as one the few Catholics in Kennebunkport after the Civil War, hosted Sunday Mass in his home just outside Arundel Square. When Martha Walker and her husband David Davis Walker started summering at Cape Arundel in the 1880s, they supported the building of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, but Martha continued to advocate for a Catholic Church to be built in Kennebunkport.

In the 1890s, while a suitable location was sought, St. Monica’s temporary Catholic Chapel was set up in the old Congregational Vestry at the corner of South and Maine Streets.

Finally, in 1902, while the Walkers were starting to build their homes at Walker’s Point, Henry Paston Clark, the architect who had designed St. Ann’s in 1887, designed a seasonal church to stand across the street from the temporary St. Monica’s in the old Congregational Vestry.

The new mission-style church building was dedicated in August of 1903, it was named St. Martha’s, not only for St. Martha of the New Testament, but to pay tribute to Mrs. Walker, who had been so instrumental in its construction. In addition to hiring the architect, she had donated “one of the handsomest stained-glass windows” and was elected honorary President of the Altar Society established to raise funds for the new church.

Mrs. Julian Talbot, who owned the cottage that is now The Tamaracks, bought St. Monica’s for a library. Cora Howland eventually purchased it from her, and had it moved to Maine Street across the triangle from the beginning of South Main, where it stands today as a private home.

The Catholic Diocese of Maine closed the South Street Catholic Church in 1964 when they bought the old Arundel Opera Theatre. Developer Milligan opened The Mission Gallery in the original St. Martha’s in 1967. It was converted into condominiums in the 1980s.