The first officials were James Sines, Clerk; Samual Gray, Charles Botkins and John Miller, Trustees; John Sprague, Treasurer; Matthew Kerns and Andrew Gillespie, Overseers of the Poor; John Davis, William Botkins and Hugh Miller, Fence viewers.

Records indicate that the first Catholic Church was St. Alvis, established at Carthagena in 1836, on land purchased from a colony of freed negro slaves who had settled there.

St. John's Church was established in 1837 and among its' early members were the Reicherts, Kramers, Moellers, Goeckes, Elkings, Hinders and Gasts.

The settlers were among the second influx of pioneers in Marion township. The first arrivals were practically wiped out by the disastrous Asiatic Cholera epidemic of 1832 which almost depopulated the entire area as well as adjoining parts of Darke and what is now Auglaize County.

St. Johns was surveyed September 22, 1838 and the west addition, now Maria Stein, was laid out by Archbiship Purcell in 1851. Carthagena was platted in 1840 by Charles Moore, Rose Garden, now St. Rosa was founded in 1854, while Marysville, (now Casella) was platted in 1860.

In the year 1839 the parishes of St. Rose and St. Victoria (now St. Joseph) were founded. Within ten years, however, the former parish was so extensive thaat it was only with difficulty that the needs of all the faithful could be satisfied. Consequently, two parishes taken from St. Rose, namely Chasella in 1847 and St. Sebastian in 1851. It is with the former that we are now concerned.

Given to the lack of complete records, we must imagine that it was only a mission church. During these ten years many priests attended to the needs of the parish - usually traveling missionaries, some remained for three or four months, residing at the Maria Stein convent, since Cassella had no parsonage at the time.

Some of the earliest priests were Reverend Andrew Herbstritt, Reverend Henry Drees and Reverend Mathias Kruesch. Records of the activities of these "missionary" priests are also to be found very frequently in both church and county records of Auglaize and Shelby counties.

Cassella church records indicate the first baptism to be that of Elizabeth Schmidt, daughter of Paul Schmidt and Catherine Ranly. The first marriage record was Jerobaun Blattaner and Anna Marie Troeseler.

The mission church of Cassella soon became too small to serve the increasing population, so a new church was built in 1858. A rather interesting controversy is recorded in regard to this matter. The people of Cranberry Prairie had separated themselves from St. Henry and desired to form one parish with Cassella, with a church midway between Cassella and Cranberry Prairie. The parishioners living east of Cassella rejected to the greatly increased distance. The matter was settled by a vote resulting in the organization of St. Francis parish at Cranberry Prairie.