In 1891, it was determined that an out-mission of St. Peter’s Church in Haverstraw should be formed in the area around Rockland Lake to serve the needs of the Irish, Bohemian, and Italian Catholic immigrants who worked in the in the ice and quarry industries. This out-mission would become St. Paul’s Church - which in turn became the mother of joined mission churches. Property was donated by Mr. John McGuiness on Lake Road between Friend And Allen Streets, and the ground for the church was broken on October 19, 1891. Brickmakers in Haverstraw promised to donate brick for the church. November of 1891 saw the foundation of the first Altar Society, and the first choir was formed in December. Until the church was built, the Doherty Building in Congers was rented for all church liturgies and functions. Actual contruction did not begin until November, 1892 and the first Mass was celebrated in the new  church on Easter Sunday, 1894. The first pastor of St. Paul’s appointed in 1896 was the Reverend Michael J. Mulhern. He opened the first out-mission in Bardonia in 1897. Upon his resignation due to illness in 1898, Fr. Mulhern was succeded by Rev. P.J. Martin and then by the Rev. John Nageleisen. In 1899, Fr. Nageleisen purchased the Old Post Office Building from the County for $485, which he began to refurbush as the parish rectory.

Fr. Nageleisen then turned his attention to the Bardonia and New City missions. He oversaw the opening of the Church of St. Anthony in June of 1899. St. Augustine’s in New City became an out-mission of St. Anthony’s in 1904. Prior to the establishment of St. Paul’s parish, St. Michael’s Church in Rockland Lake had been an out-mission of Spring Valley and later of St. Peter’s, Haverstraw. Fr. Nageleisen was instructed by the Archbishop of New York - Michael A. Corrigan - to oversee the building of the first Church and School of St. Michael in Rockland Lake in 1901. St. Michael’s School opened in 1907 with 114 children taught by the Sisters of St. Agnes from Wisconsin. The siters lived in a convent at Rockland Lake known as “ The Star of the Sea Convent.” Rockland Lake is also the site of Gethsemane cemetery, the land having been purchased by Fr. Nageleisen in 1905.

Fr. Nageleisen was succeeded by Fr. Michael J. Neufeld in March, 1908. Rockland Lake then became a separate parish and its first pastor was the Rev. K. Zakrasser. St. Michael’s Church was destroyed by fire in 1914, and a new St. Michael’s Church arose under the pastorate of Rev. Michael J. Donnelly in 1915. By the 1920's, however, the quarry and ice industries in Rockland lake were closing down, and this proved to be the death- knell to both Church and Town - St. Michael’s again became a mission of St. Paul’s where Fr. John Grogan had been Pastor after the Reverends John B. Reck & James McIntyre. Fr. Grogan also oversaw the establishment of yet another out-mission in Valley Cottage named for St. Therese in 1927. ( Ultimately, however, the Churches of St. Michael & St. Therese were to closed in 1965. Fr. Grogan was succedded at St. Paul’s in 1930 by the Rev. Daniel J. Fant and then by the Rev. John J. Farrelly. Subsequent Pastors were Fathers William Burke (‘33-’36), Lafayette Yarwood (‘36-’37), John McClain (‘37-’49), Eugene Murtha (‘49-’53), William Kennedy (‘53-’56), Joseph Moody(‘56-’59), Harold Engel(‘59-’77), Raymond Powers(‘77-’90 ), Thomas E. Gilleece (‘90-2001), and our present pastor, Arthur Mastrolia.