In 1785, Basil Hayden, Sr., led 25 Maryland Catholic families to settle near here on Pottinger's Creek. In 1787, Father Whelan said the first Mass in Kentucky here. In 1792, the first Catholic church west of the Alleghenies was built here. In 1805, the first monks, the Trappist Fathers (Cistercians), came here. The present church was erected in 1823 under the direction of the famous Belgian missionary Charles Nerinckx.