St. James the Greater Church (first) is dedicated.

It is located at the corner of Albany Street and Harvard Street. The congregation of Irish immigrants was established in 1854. David Walsh serves briefly as the first pastor. He is succeeded by John Williams, and in 1866 by James Healey, the son of an Irish immigrant and a former slave and the first African-American Catholic priest in Boston. Healy serves until he is named Bishop of Portland, Maine, in 1875. The church is replaced by a new building (second) in 1875.*