Of the five mainstream Christian churches seeking to establish themselves in Upper Canada, the Roman Catholic Church held an enormous advantage, as its hierarchy was already in place in Lower Canada. During Lt.-Gov. John Graves Simcoe’s time in Upper Canada, three missionaries from the Quebec area came to the western end of Lake Ontario but appear to have done little but assess the number of Catholic settlers of the area.
The Bishop of Quebec and the church authorities showed greater interest in the continuing arrival and settlement of the large numbers of Catholic immigrants to the eastern townships of Upper Canada and although Alexander MacDonnell was appointed Vicar-General of the western province in 1807 and Bishop of the first Roman Catholic diocese in Upper Canada in 1827, the denomination was without permanent representation west of Kingston for many years.
According to an edition the The Catholic Register, published in 1956 to celebrate the centennial of the Hamilton Diocese, in 1819, the Roman Catholic Church was invited to establish a Catholic cathedral and a bishop’s residence in a proposed city to be called Romulus, to the west of Hamilton, in the northern part of Beverly Township. Henry Lamb, a Highland Scot and Loyalist who had settled in the area, offered Bishop Laval of Quebec, who still held ecclesiastical jurisdiction over both Lower and Upper Canada, a vast site in the township. Lamb’s dream of establishing a great settlement was never realized when his efforts of attracting settlers to colonize the Flamborough wilderness failed completely – and likewise the early interest in bringing the Catholic Church to the Head-of-the-Lake.
As the first bishop of the province, Alexander MacDonnell visited Niagara, Hamilton and Guelph during the last five weeks of 1827 to see at first hand the problems being encountered when ministering to a very scattered Catholic population. In his report on the time during the “coldest part of the year,” he noted that he had some success among the newly settled townships of the province and especially with members of the First Nations.
His report also contained comments upon the frustrations and the enormous difficulties the Catholic Church faced in coming so late to minister to its adherents: “… rescued 114 from the fangs of the Methodists who are making dreadful havoc among them. The mitre pinches most cruelly and the thorns and prickles of it get longer every day.”
MacDonnell’s concerns about the influence of the Methodists was nothing compared to the outrage expressed by the Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. The cry of “No Popery “was to be forthcoming whenever the chance arose, for many of these early settlers retained stories of ancestors who had left England because of the Catholic Church.”
Sylvia Wray is the former archivist with the Flamborough Archives. She can be reached through the Archives at archives@flamboroughhistory.com.
This article was originally published in the Flamborough Review, 19 May 2016.
