Byron and his two assistants, Charles A. Meridith and James T. McGovern, lived in a rented house at 365 Pleasant Avenue until the completion of the present rectory. On March 29, 1893, Byron, 44, died from a cold caught during the building of the new rectory. Francis H. Wall, another native New Yorker, assumed the pastorship of Holy Rosary in 1894. He encouraged the establishment of Rosary Society, Sacred Heart League, Holy Name Society, St. Vincent de Paul and Young Men's Lyceum.