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How It Began
In the spring of 1854, the Right Reverend Armand Francois Marie,
Comte de Charbonnel, second Bishop of Toronto, received the following
letter from Father John Baptist Proulx, in charge of the mission of
Oshawa: "...my Lord. ...since upwards of five years I do say
Mass and hear the confessions in private houses, in the township of
Scarborough, and that sometimes with great inconveniences. There is a
great number of Catholics. They all wish to have a church erected in
the township. A good man has offered one acre of land in a beautiful
section eleven miles from Toronto, eleven miles from Duffin Creek
(Pickering) and twenty-two miles from Oshawa... I hope, my Lord, that
you will grant us the permission of building and permit me to go on
with it as soon as possible..."
Permission was granted Father Proulx by Bishop de Charbonnel, the
property purchased in that year of 1854 and the first steps were
taken by voluntary labour, but the little church did not see
completion until 1856. During the time of the building Father Proulx
was saying Mass in the nearby home of a 'Mr. Walsh'. So began the
story of the present parish of St. Joseph's of Highland Creek.
Historical Background
Queen Victoria was then in the 17th year of her reign; the Crimean
War was just beginning and Toronto, a city of about 40,000
inhabitants, alternated with Quebec as the capital of Canada. The
streets were lit with gas, the sidewalks were of planks and the roads
were being macadamized. Steamers left the Toronto wharf three times a
week for Rochester, calling at Whitby, Oshawa, Darlington, Bond Head,
Port Hope and Cobourg; but the first railroad in Western Ontario, the
Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway, was already in operation, having
opened the first section, from Toronto to Aurora, the year before.
Eighteen-Fifty-Four was a Marian Year. The doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception was to be declared a Matter of Faith on December 8th of
that year and already preparations were being made in the Diocese to
celebrate this solemn event with suitable ceremony. It was at this
period in the history of world and local events that the Catholics of
Scarborough decided that the time had come for them to think of
building a church.
There were in the township, in the neighbourhood of 4,000
inhabitants. John Torrance was Reeve that year; William Clark, Deputy
Reeve, the Councillors were George Stephenson, William H. Norris and
Thomas Kennedy; the Treasurer was William Helliwell and the Clerk,
Stephen Closson.
It was a township of well-ordered farms, presenting a very different
picture from the one seen by the early settlers who followed the road
through the forest from the new capital of York more than fifty years before.
In the last years of the Eighteenth Century, when the first settlers,
David Thomson built his log house on Lot 24 of the First Concession,
there were few Catholics in the section of Upper Canada now in the
Diocese of Toronto - then included in the vast Diocese of Quebec, and
there was no Catholic Church. For almost a quarter of a century, the
clergy who visited the scattered settlers, said Mass and held
devotions in the homes of the faithful.
St. Paul's, the first Catholic Church in the town of York, was
erected in 1822 and the priests who served here also visited the
surrounding townships. These visits would not have been very frequent
for the few priests then in the Diocese had enormous territories to
cover. It is possible, of course, that Scarborough being fairly close
to York, was visited a little more frequently than some of the other
townships, or that the few Catholics in these parts journeyed to St.
Paul's from time to time.
Turning Back The Pages
In 1819, the Reverend Alexander Macdonell, a Scottish priest and a
Vicar General of the Diocese of Quebec, for Upper Canada, was named
Auxiliary to the Bishop of Quebec and Titular Bishop of Rhesaena, and
in 1826 Upper Canada was erected into a separate diocese and Bishop
Macdonell was named first Ordinary with the title of Bishop of
Kingston. As Vicar General and later as Bishop, he made many
missionary tours through the country which is now the Province of Ontario.
The following are some of the priests most likely to have made
missionary visits to Scarborough in the years following the building
of the church at York. They were stationed either at York or
appointed to visit the outside missions.
- Reverend James Crowley, first resident pastor at York, arrived in
September 1824 and remained until March, 1826.
- In May 1827, the Reverend Angus Macdonell, nephew of the Bishop,
was sent as pastor of St. Paul's.
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In August of 1828, Reverend William J. O'Grady came to York, at first
assisting Father Macdonell and then being named pastor and later
Vicar General.
- We learn from a Register of the Baptisms performed by the
Reverend Edward Gordon in the Townships above York, during his
mission of three years and five months, that he performed a baptism
in Scarborough on January 20, 1833, that of James Cavanagh, son of
Francis Cavanagh and Lucinda Jones, sponsors being Daniel Doyle and
Jane Mullin; but most of Father Gordon's missionary labours were, as
he said, in the Townships above York. A list of these places gives
some idea of the distances he had to travel; York town and township,
Toronto township, the Gore of Toronto, Etobicoke, Vaughan, Markham,
Scarborough, Whitchurch, East Gwillimbury, King, Tecumseth, Adjala,
Trafalgar, Streetsville, Holland Landing, Thorah, Brock, Georgina,
Newmarket, Esquesing, Chinguacoucy, Caledon, Mono, Albion, Niagara,
St. Catharines, Lake Simcoe, Deep Cut, Mara, the Narrows (Orillia)
Mulmer, Dundas Street, Yonge Street. What a job a parish priest had
in those days!
- Reverend William P. McDonagh, who came to York in September, 1833
and was stationed at St. Paul's for several years, wrote to Bishop
Macdonell at Kingston in March, 1837: "I have taken the
census of this place as correctly as I could, the total amount
between males and females is, two thousand one hundred and nineteen.
There are upwards of one hundred and fifty in Whitby and Pickering,
whose names we have not got as yet, until some reasonable opportunity
offers for going to those distant Townships."
- Father Thomas Gibney, writing in the following month, remarked on
how busy he and Father McDonagh had been during Lent and reported
that while he had not had time since his arrival to visit the
townships between Toronto and Port Hope, that Father McDonagh had
paid these townships a visit.
- The Reverend Michael R. Mills, sent by the Bishop in the summer
of 1838, to make a missionary tour of the townships around Toronto
and Lake Simcoe, reported as follows, "I send an account of
the number of Catholic inhabitants of the different townships which I
lately visited and I am happy to say that all, except perhaps about
ten, have been to Easter Communion. The above I believe tolerably
correct. I know that I am not above the mark."
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Catholic Inhabitants |
Those old enough to go To Communion. |
Thornhill |
103 |
55 |
Newmarket |
56 |
34 |
Mara and Thorah |
83 |
43 |
Brock |
130 |
60 |
Georgina |
42 |
16 |
West Gwillimbury |
94 |
51 |
Markham |
68 |
38 |
Scarboro |
31 |
22 |
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