. @his 113211121, ‘Ehis 33231: 350115: of 05011”

The Kirk of St. James has stood as a place of Presbyterian worship at the corner of Pownal & Fitzroy since 1831.

This Congregation is the Mother Church of Presbyterianism in this part of Prince Edward Island and it has endeavoured for more than a century now to maintain the noblest traditions of the worship and witness of the Church of Scotland. When the British assumed control of the Ile Saint-Jean (as this Province was called by the French) after the Treaty of Paris of 1763, settlers began to make their way across the Atlantic, and by 1770 we find record of Presbyterians arriving on the Island from the western coastlands of Scotland. It was not until 17 91, however, that they were able to enjoy even the occasional ser- vices of a minister of their own Church with the visits to the Island of the Reverend James MacGregor from Pictou. In the thirty years that followed his pioneer work other ministers came in sufficient numbers to make possible the establishment of a presbytery in 1821. Four years later in 1825, we learn of the founding of a Presbyterian Congregation in Charlottetown.

In the late 1770’s funds were sent out by the Imperial Government in London for the erection of a church in Charlottetown, but these monies had been used to pay the overdue salaries of government of- ficials. During the succeeding decades of the 18th Century services of worship were occasionally conducted by visiting ministers in the Cross Keys Inn, in public buildings, and in private homes in Charlotte- town.

In April, 1800, additional funds arrived from overseas and work began at last on the erection of a place of worship for the use of the Established Church of England and the Established Church of Scotland, alternately. This building stood for thirty- six years in the heart of the town. It was used by the Presbyterians for the first

twenty- -five years of that period, and continued to serve the Church of England Parish for eleven years longer.

The first record we have of the establishment of a separate Presbyterian Church in Charlottetown is that of a public meeting held in the old court-house in June, 1825, when it was unanimously resolved to open a subscription list for the erection of a Church, and to apply to the Established Church of Scotland for the appointment of “a learned and pious clergyman” of their own. At the commencement of the subscription list the Honourable John Stewart, Speaker of the House of Assembly, made an offer of a town lot on behalf of its owner, Alexander Birnie of London, England, and Mr. William Johnson offered an adjoining lot. These offers were gratefully accepted and on the two lots the first Kirk was ultimately erected in 1831, and on the same lots the present Kirk was erected in 1877. The deed for this land,

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