In 1839, on 1 ½ acres kindly donated by Nickolas Marchal, he and his sons built a log church 32 ft. by 40 ft. and 18 ft. high to be called St. Valbert Parish. It was the first Catholic church in this area and directly served an area 8 miles by 10 miles. For St. Valbert, Rev. Louis Navarron was recruited in Clermont, France, by Archbishop John Purcell of Cincinnati and served as the bishop’s delegate from 1838 to 1848. A zealous missionary, both fearless and eager, he served a territory from Greenville to Lima, Ohio. In 1864, to be more centrally located, the parish purchased the Baptist Church in Jacksonville, later to be named Versailles because the predominant nationality of the area was French. At that time, the parish was also renamed St. Denis in honor of the patron saint of all of France. The site was retained because it was already a Catholic cemetery for St. Denis, and the name remained unchanged for posterity reasons. In 2012, this was given by a giving parishioner to preserve the heritage of the general area.