CHAPTER II

CHURCHES AND RECTORIES FROM 1843 TO THE PRESENT

The eminent scholar and historian, Reverend Alfred E. Burke, pro— vides us with the following rich record of the Churches and Rectories of St. Ann's Parish until the year 1888:

"From the year 1819 to the year 1830, the district which comprises this mission was gradually settled by Irish emigrants, chiefly from the

counties of Wexford and Kerry. These people encountered all the hardships incidental to settlers in a

new country; among others, that of being a long distance from a church or a resident priest. Rustico was the nearest mission to them and thither they repaired, where Mass was said in that parish. At other times they would assist at the Holy Sacrifice at Park Corner, New London and, ulti- mately, permission was granted to them to have a station in their own set- tlement at the house of Mr. Patrick Flemming.

In the year 1843 the parishioners united to build themselves a church working under the direction of a foreman named Burns.

This structure was of logs and the dimensions were thirty feet square. Soon after its erection, it blew down. The parishioners then gave a contract for the building of a second to Messrs. Joseph Doyle and Tierney agreeing to pay them the sum of forty pounds.

The primitive church was served by Bishop McDonald who said Mass there three times a year. It was removed a few years after its com— pletion to a more central and prominent site, and in 1864 was replaced by a frame building erected by the parishioners themselves who hewed and prepared the timber, put up the frame and boarded and shingled it. This church, although in use for few years, was never completed, it being the wish of the Bishop to have it replaced with a stone edifice for which an adjacent quarry would furnish ample material. This stone, however, the parishioners imagined to be unsuitable for building purposes so that the project of a stone church was given up and in 1875 another wooden one was built. It was seventy-five feet in length by forty feet in breadth, and was in the gothic style of architecture. It was just completed exteriorly when it was accidentally consumed by fire in the month of October

1875.

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