Niagara Peninsula
The early history of Good Shepherd parish in Pendleton coincides with the development of Western New York. That section of the Niagara peninsula called Pendleton is twenty-five miles southeast of Fort Niagara and twenty miles northeast of Buffalo. In the early 1830's German immigrants from Bavaria settled and tilled the land. The French from Canada, Lorraine and Alsace (Germanic regions of France) along with Irish and German laborers who had worked on the Erie Canal, settled along its banks.

St. John Neumann (1811-1860)
Many of these Germans, French, and Irish were Roman Catholics. Their spiritual needs could only be served with difficulty because at that time the entire state of New York was a single Roman Catholic Diocese with the Episcopal seat located in New York City, some four hundred and fifty miles to the southeast. In 1836 Bishop John Dubois of the New York Diocese, sent a young priest, John Neumann, to Western New York, via the newly opened Erie Canal.

John Nepomucene Neumann immigrated to the United States from Bohemia in 1836, where he was ordained. By July 4, 1836, Neumann said Mass at St. Mary's Church in Albany, New York, after sailing up the Hudson River. By rail, Neumann went to Schenectady and by barge on the Erie Canal until he reached Buffalo. From 1836 to 1837, he ministered to the spiritual needs of the Germans and other immigrant settlers in Williamsville and the surrounding areas. Accompanied by his backpack and walking stick, he trudged along the roadways giving service to Catholics in North Bush, Lancaster, Sheldon,Pendleton, Transit, Swormville, Batavia, Tonawanda, and Rochester.