Early Development
A real estate developer named Robert Bell paid $27,100 to buy the Vanderbilt’s property from John and Jeremiah Vanderbilt in 1849. (Vanderbilt Street was the dividing line between the two farms.) Bell began laying out his plan for a village, which he named Windsor Terrace, but in 1851 he sold the land to Edward Belknap. Belknap opened four new streets—Seely, Vanderbilt, Adams (now Reeve Place) and Short (later connected to Middle Street and renamed Prospect Avenue)—and developed 49 building lots which he dubbed Pleasant Cottage sites. Belknap then sold a group of building plots in 1853 to a builder named G. W. Bowen for development as the “Windsor Terrace Land Association.” Still, by 1860, only 30 people were living in this part of the neighborhood. Shortly afterwards, the Wyckoff heirs sold a portion of their farm—most of the land that is now Holy Name parish—to the brewing firm of Howard & Fuller in 1860. Much of this parcel was later sold off to individual speculators. Spurred in part by the construction of Prospect Park in the 1860s, the area continued to grow. In 1872, the estate of Thomas Murphy was settled and his 80-acre farm was subdivided and auctioned off, attracting hundreds of residents and leading the city to open several more streets, including Greenwood Avenue and Sherman Street.
Polulation Growth
Following the Civil War, large numbers of Irish people, many from the counties of Longford and Cavan, began settling in the area, particularly near the top of the hill. They kept small farms, and the spot where Bishop Ford High School stands now was once known as Nanny Goat Hill. In 1888, a volunteer fire company was formed to protect this burgeoning community, and the firehouse on Prospect Avenue, between Fort Hamilton Parkway and Greenwood Avenue, was built in 1895. Its decorative turret, now missing the original architectural details, was originally used to spot fires.
The Founding of Holy Name
At that time, the nearest Catholic church was St. John the Evangelist, on Twenty-first Street near Fifth Avenue. Bishop John Loughlin, the first bishop of Brooklyn, saw that the growing Catholic population of Windsor Terrace needed a parish of their own. He selected Father Thomas S. O’Reilly, an energetic and optimistic assistant at St. Joseph’s on Pacific Street, to establish Holy Name in 1878. Father O’Reilly was born in Mullahoran in County Cavan in 1834. He began his schooling at Mount Mellary, a Trappist Monastery in Ireland. After arriving in this country in 1865, Father O’Reilly studied at the Seminary of Our Lady of Angels (St. John's), Niagara and was ordained in 1871. He returned to Brooklyn to serve in Flatbush and then at St. Anne’s before being sent to St. Joseph’s. Although there was a tremendous amount of work to be done in establishing Holy Name, Father O’Reilly was equal to the task at hand and he wasted no time. There were originally just 100 parishioners, including families named Donavan, Regan, McGovern (the florist), Bannon, Corrigan, Daly, Smith (the undertaker) and Costelo. Still, the only space large enough to hold this congregation was McAnn’s stable, on the corner of Eighteenth Street and Eleventh Avenue, and so it was there that Father O’Reilly said Holy Name's first mass, on March 31st, 1878. The men of the new parish had worked feverishly to prepare the space, and Father O’Reilly had built the seats and altar himself. Father’s enthusiasm was matched by that of the early parishioners: within a month of the inaugural mass, John Collins of 403 Cumberland Street signed over land he owned at Prospect Avenue and Ninth Avenue, one of the highest points in Brooklyn, to become the site of the new church. Father O’Reilly designed Holy Name himself, of Philadelphia brick in a modified Gothic style. Ground was broken for the building on May 1st, and over the next few weeks and months the men of the parish helped dig the foundation and began to build the church red brick by red brick.
An Historical Snapshot
The dedication of the cornerstone of Holy Name Church on August 11th, 1878, was a major event that drew a large crowd, as well as an unknown reporter from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  His report the next day on Bishop Loughlin's arrival provides a wonderful glimpse of life in this neighborhood before modern entertainments:
"…a crowd of three or four thousand persons had gathered. It was doubled as the afternoon wore on, so that all the slopes of the Park hill were crowded, and the platforms covering the foundations was packed….A rush was made for Ninth avenue, when the head of the procession of Irish societies which had been expected for some times, made its appearance at the corner of Ninth street….As the procession reached Prospect avenue it wheeled to the left and countermarched along the sidewalk close by the walls of the church. The members of the societies placed their contributions in the baskets offered as they came along."
The Bishop, wearing his golden mitre and “gorgeous vestments of purple and gold,” arrived next, accompanied by Father O’Reilly and forty priests.
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