The Loyalist Churches
of
Sorel
Three Rivers
St. Johns
Chambly
and
surrounding Areas
Compiled by: Jacques Gagné -
Christ Church Anglican in Sorel
Table of Contents
The Loyalist Churches of 6
Sorel - Three Rivers - St. Johns - Chambly 6
and surrounding area 6
The Anglican Churches 6
The Anglican Church in Trois-Rivières 6
Christ Church Anglican in Sorel 6
Saint James Anglican in St. Johns 6
Saint Stephen’s Anglican in Chambly 7
St. Johns Methodist Church 7
Saint Paul’s Anglican Church in Abbotsford 7
Saint Thomas Anglican in Rougemont 8
Hemmingford History 8
Berthier en haut, the first Protestant Church in Lower Canada 8
Lac Maskinongé (Berthier en haut) 8
Lanaudière Heritage Web 8
Loyalist Resources on Ancestry 8
The Churches 9
Abbotsford - County of Rouville 9
Berthier County 10
Berthier en Haut - County of Berthier 10
Berthierville - County of Berthier 10
Brandon Township 11
Carufel - County of Maskinongé 12
Chambly Village - County of Chambly 12
Crabtree - County of Joliette 13
Fort St. Johns - County of St-Jean 13
Grant - County of Joliette 13
Hemmingford - County of Huntingdon 13
Joliette County 17
Kildare - County of Joliette 17
l'Acadie - County of St-Jean 18
Louiseville – County of Maskinongé 18
Maskinongé County 18
Maskinongé - 18
Mount Johnson - County of Iberville 18
New York - County of Maskinongé 19
Nicolet – County of Nicolet 19
Odelltown – County of Champlain 19
Peterborough - County of Maskinongé 19
Radnor Forges - County of Champlain 19
Rawdon - County of Montcalm 20
Richelieu County 20
Rivière du Loup en haut (Louiseville) - County of Maskinongé 20
Rougemont - County of Rouville 20
Rouville - County of Rouville 21
Sherrington - County of Napierville 21
Sorel - County of Richelieu 22
Sorel Seigniory - County of Richelieu 23
St-Gabriel de Brandon – County of Berthier 23
St. Johns - St-Jean-sur-Richelieu - County of St-Jean 23
Ste-Ursule – County of Maskinongé 25
Trois Rivières – County of St-Maurice 25
Warwick County 26
William Henry - County of Richelieu 26
Yamachiche - County of Maskinongé 26
Yamaska Mountain - County of Rouville 27
Yamaska Region - County of Yamaska 27
Repositories 27
The Loyalist Churches
of
Sorel - Three Rivers - St. Johns - Chambly
and surrounding areas
The Anglican Churches
The Anglican Church in Trois-Rivières
The years immediately following the declaration of Independence by the American Colonies saw an influx of refugees from that country into the British provinces in the north. Some of them settled in three communities a few miles southwest of Three Rivers (Trois-Rivières), namely Maskinongé (founded in 1714), Rivière-du-Loup (Louiseville, founded in 1714), and Machiche (Yamachiche, founded in 1702), 24, 20, 15 miles respectively from Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers), and forming at the time, part of the Anglican Parish of Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers). Before the end of the eighteenth century and during the first quarter of the nineteenth, the names of several of these original English families occur in the parish registers of Saint James Anglican of Three Rivers until the year of 1821, when Reverend John Campbell Driscoll was appointed ‘’to the cure of the souls in the Protestant portion of Rivière-du-Loup, together with the charge and inspection of the Protestant inhabitants of the Parishes of Machiche and Nicolet, all in the district of Three Rivers’’ - Source: Arthur Ernest Edgar Legge - QFHS book #HG-154.99 L3 The Anglican Church in Three Rivers 1768-1956 - 191 pages
Christ Church Anglican in Sorel
In 1777, a military chaplain, the Reverend Thomas Scott, had begun holding services in a military barrack at the foot of King Street near the River. Following the American Revolution, the city of Sorel became a haven for many Loyalists driven from their homes in the former British colonies to the south, the largest wave of Loyalist immigration occurring in 1783-84. On July 4, 1784, the Reverend John Doty arrived from England, sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Celebrating Divine Service on the day of his arrival, this date is viewed as the founding of the second oldest Anglican parish in Canada after Saint Paul’s Church, Halifax, in 1749.
Source; http://www.christchurchsorel.ca/en/history.html
Saint James Anglican in St. Johns
St-Jean sur Richelieu
In the years after the American Revolution, there was an influx of some 5000 United Empire Loyalists into the Province of Quebec and a large number of them came to this district. The needs of these new settlers for spiritual direction soon became a priority. At first, passing missionaries and the resident army chaplains ministered to the Protestant population. Then, in 1816, following a suggestion by the Rev. Micajah Townsend of nearby Clarenceville, a subscription list was circulated in St. Johns, Isle aux Noix, Chambly, St. Luc, Montreal and Quebec City, and £1,433 was raised to build a Protestant chapel in St. Johns. The history of this first church in St. Johns is closely linked with the history of the garrison of Port St. Johns. The selected building site was a piece of War Department land adjacent to a brick barrack shown on a plan from 1791. The land immediately behind the site became the official Church cemetery. This area was a burial ground prior to the construction of the Church and very readable tombs bearing dates prior to 1816 still exist. Some are for soldiers who fell in the War of 1812, and the oldest legible stone is from 1798. Source: Phyllis Hamilton, With Heart and Hands and Voices - Histories of Protestant Churches of Brome, Missisquoi, Shefford and surrounding area - QFHS Library - UEL Section - Pointe Claire
Saint Stephen’s Anglican in Chambly
The names of those closely connected with the early days of Fort Chambly read like a roll call of the great and famous in New France and Lower Canada -- Samuel de Champlain; Jacques de Chambly; Lieutenant Colonel de Hertel de Rouville; Sir John Johnson and Sir Guy Carleton of Loyalist fame; Colonel Charles de Salaberry; General Richard Montgomery and John Thomas from the U.S., and Sir John Bourgoyne. The first Protestant clergyman to serve the Chambly area was the Rev. D.C. DeLisle who was stationed in Montreal. From 1771 until his death in 1794, he travelled twice yearly to Chambly to conduct services in French. When the Rev. Brooke Bridges Stevens, a Church of England military chaplain, arrived in Chambly in 1819, he managed to unite the leading civil and military personnel to take steps toward building a Protestant Church in the village - Source; Phyllis Hamilton - With Heart and Hands and Voices - Histories of Protestant Churches of Brome, Missisquoi, Shefford and surrounding area - QFHS Library - UEL Section - Pointe Claire
St. Johns Methodist Church
St-Jean sur Richelieu
In 1804, records show that a Methodist missionary, the Rev. Lathan Clark, tried to start a Methodist circuit in the settlements of the Richelieu Valley, but was unsuccessful. The next record of any religious activity in the Methodist cause in this area is found in the diary of the Rev. Richard Williams in an entry for February 12, 1816. He writes: “About 30 miles from Montreal is the village of St. Johns. It is large and its inhabitants are wicked to a proverb. In this place, I spent one Sabbath day and preached twice in a store house belonging to the government.” As this excerpt indicates, Wesleyan Methodist preachers visited St. Johns occasionally. The earliest recorded ministers to serve the community on a regular basis were the Rev. John Johnson in 1835, the Rev. Edmund Ingalls in 1836, the Rev. R.L. Lusher in 1840, the Rev. William Squire in 1841. The first resident minister at St. Johns Methodist was the Rev. Hugh Montgomery in 1841 - Source: Phyllis Hamilton, With Heart and Hands and Voices - Histories of Protestant Churches of Brome, Missisquoi, Shefford and surrounding area - QFHS Library - UEL Section - Pointe Claire
Saint Paul’s Anglican Church in Abbotsford
Among the first Loyalist settlers in Abbotsford was Joel Fraser, who arrived around 1802. Fraser married a French Canadian, Marie Gravelle and they settled at the north end of the North Road which skirts Yamaska Mountain. In 1824, the Rt. Rev. Jacob Mountain, Bishop of Quebec, appointed the Rev. William Abbott to the parish. Mr. Abbott only stayed six months before trading parishes with his brother, Joseph from St. Andrew’s, Quebec. The name for the village of Abbotsford, which was suggested by Bishop Mountain is a combination of Abbott and Bradford, from the surnames of the Rev. Joseph Abbott and his wife Harriet Anne Bradford. Source: Phyllis Hamilton, With Heart and Hands and Voices - Histories of Protestant Churches of Brome, Missisquoi, Shefford and surrounding area - QFHS Library - UEL Section - Pointe Claire
Saint Thomas Anglican in Rougemont
During the American War of Independence, the Yamaska River, was of strategic importance as it provided an invasion route from the south. English settlers began to arrive in greater numbers in the early 1800s, many of them United Empire Loyalists such as Dennis Downing, Peter Truax, and the Batchelder family. The Batchelders were largely responsible for encouraging the building of a Church in the small village of Rougemont. As in other areas, the first religious services were held in homes when a travelling missionary visited from time to time, This continued for about 20 years, until the Rev. C.F. Thorndike of Chambly Canton, acting as missionary for Rougemont, organized the first regular religious services in 1840 - Source: Phyllis Hamilton - With Heart and Hands and Voices - Histories of Protestant Churches of Brome, Missisquoi, Shefford and surrounding area - QFHS Library - UEL Section -
Pointe Claire
Hemmingford History
http:www.hemmingford.ca/canton/
Berthier en haut, the first Protestant Church in Lower Canada
http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/ M1168?Lang=1&accessnumber=M1168
Lac Maskinongé (Berthier en haut)
Saint-Gabriel de Brandon
Les rapports entre catholiques et protestants au Bas-Canada
au milieu du 19ème siècle
Le cas du Lac Maskinongé (Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon)
Source: Estelle Brisson - QFHS REF #HG-157.9 B7 - 275 pages
(Quebec Family History Society)
Pointe-Claire
Lanaudière Heritage Web
http://quebecheritageweb.com/attraction/lanaudiere-heritage-trail
Loyalist Resources on Ancestry
genealogycanada.blogspot.ca/2014/08/loyalist-resources-on-ancestry.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+GenealogyCanada+(Genealogy+Canada)
The Churches
Abbotsford - County of Rouville
A Loyalist region - Also referred to as Yamaska Mountain and first settled about 1803 and located northwest of Granby and southwest of Roxton Pond. - Abbotsford has since been renamed St-Paul-d’Abbotsford
1822 – Saint Paul's Anglican Church – First opened and ministered by Rev. William Abbott in 1824 and by Rev. Joseph Abbott, his own brother a year later - By 1832, the parish at the time was responsible for missions in Farnham, Granby, Milton, Rougemont, St. Hyacinthe - Anglican Archives Montreal Diocese, Montréal; parish registers (1830-1889 and perhaps also up to the mid 1990's) contact Archives, Barbara McPherson, assistant archivist - archivist@montreal. anglican.ca - BAnQ films (1824-1899) & (1824-1884) & (1884-1940) - Drouin-Pépin (1824-1940) - QFHS (1824-1940) - Ancestry.ca (1824-1940) - Please note, early church registers of the Anglican and Congregationalist churches of Abbotsford were intermingled into one microfilm, namely #411 (1824-1884) - The civil registers which appears on Ancestry.ca and Drouin-Pépin most likely are also intermingled between these two churches.
1835 – Congregationalist Society - United Church Archives ETRC, Lennoxville: parish registers under #UC-029 (1835-1836 & 1865-1879) contact Archives, Jody Robinson, archivist - BAnQ films (1837-1842) & (1843-1855) & (1824-1884) - Drouin-Pépin (1824-1884) - QFHS (1824-1884) - Ancestry.ca (1824-1884) - The Congregational Church and the Anglican Church church registers of Abbotsford were intermingled into one film, namely #411 (1824-1884)
1835 - Wesleyan Methodist Missionaries - Opened in 1835, burned in 1840 - For a period of time, it appears that the Methodist congregation used the Congregational church as a house of worship - United Church Archives ETRC Lennoxville, fonds under #UC-029 civil registers (1835-1836 & 1865-1879), contact Archives, Jody Robinson, archivist
1840 - Methodist - Congregational - Anglican Cemetery - verify the QFHS cemetery binders.
1855 - Granby & Eastern Townships Newspaper Extracts - BAnQ book #3185 marriage, birth, death extracts (1855-1910)
1885 - United Congregational & Methodist Church - United Church Archives ETRC Lennoxville, parish registers (1865-1879), contact Archives, Jody Robinson, archivist - BAnQ film (1884-1940) - Drouin-Pépin (1884-1940) - QFHS (1884-1940) - Ancestry.ca (1884-1940) 1930 - United Church - United Church Archives ETRC Lennoxville under fonds #UC-029, content not reported, contact Archives, Jody Robinson, archivist - BanQ film (1930-1940) - Drouin-Pépin (1930-1940) - QFHS (1930-1940) - Ancestry.ca (1930-1940)
Berthier County
An old county under the French Regime located between Maskinongé and Joliette counties on the northern shores of the St. Lawrence river - Governor Frederick Haldimand had selected the region of Berthier and nearby Maskinongé as a staging region for incoming Loyalists to Lower Canada - Hamlets such as Machiche (Yamachiche), Louiseville, Brandon (Berthier-en-haut), Berthier, Maskinongé were settled in part by Loyalists - In 1786, the Prebyterian Church had sent missionaries to the region
Berthier en Haut - County of Berthier
A Loyalist region - Also referred to in the eighteenth century as Brandon and much later as Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon - see Brandon Township - see; Berthier en haut, the first Protestant Church in Lower Canada http://www.mccordmuseum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/M1168?Lang=1&accessnumber=M1168
1823 - Lac Maskinongé Anglican Missionnaires - BAnQ films under Berthier-en-Haut Anglican (1823-1828 & 1830-1834 & 1855-1856 & 1858-1899) & under Louiseville Protestants (1821-1845 & 1846-1854) - BAnQ book of indexes of marriages #1601 (1823-1932) - Drouin-Pépin (1821-1845 & 1846-1854 Louiseville Protestants) - QFHS (1821-1845 & 1846-1854 Louiseville Protestants) - Ancestry.ca (1821-1845 & 1846-1854 Louiseville Protestants)
Berthierville - County of Berthier
A town also referred to in Protestant Church registers as Berthier, a town located on the St. Lawrence river in the region of Louiseville - QFHS books #HG-157.9 K5 & HG-157.9 B3 - see; http://www.ville.berthierville.qc.ca/index.jsp?p=87 - see also; Lanaudière Heritage Web - http;//quebecheritageweb.com/attraction/Lanaudière-heritage-trail