Father Richard Bulger was educated at Kilkenny College, Ireland, and was ordained a priest in 1815 by Bishop Connolly. He was for some time the assistant pastor of the Cathedral in New York but spent most of his nine years of priesthood in administering spiritual consolation to the Catholics in Paterson and vicinity and continuing the work in which Fathers Larrissy and Langton had preceded him. It was he who in 1820 erected the first building used exclusively for divine service by Catholics in Paterson and he was the first parish priest in this city. Previous to this time he followed in the footsteps of his predecessors in journeying from place to place, preaching the Word of God by the way and saying mass and administering the rites of the Church whenever opportunity afforded. In 1821 Mr. Roswell L. Colt in behalf of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures offered to all the various denominations in Paterson ground on which to erect houses of worship. This generous offer was accepted by the Catholics and in this way they came into possession of a piece of property situated on the southwest corner of Congress (now Market) and Mill streets. The deed was given to the Catholics "for the purpose of erecting, maintaining and keeping a building or house for the public worship of God," a clause in the deed providing for reversion of the property to the donor as soon as the property was used for any other purpose than that of divine worship. There were at that time only twelve Catholic families in Paterson, but the prejudice against the Catholic Church which characterized its earlier history in this country had subsided, and the Catholics received aid from persons of other denominations. This, added to their own generous gifts of money and labor, produced a building 25×30 feet in size and one story high. The room was furnished with a plain altar and a number of wooden benches without backs, which served as pews, and the attendance on Sundays did not exceed 50, unless there was an influx of Catholics from some village not supplied with a church. Mass was celebrated every Sunday morning and vespers in the afternoon. The church was named after St. John, the Baptist, and the building still stands where it was erected in 1821, although it has been considerably altered. Father Bulger was taken sick in 1824, while assistant pastor at the Cathedral in New York, where he died in November of that year. He was buried in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral.