Catholic Parishes in PEI (c. 1885) by Rev. Alfred E. Burke
Please see the Contents page for information on this and other historical sketches of PEI Roman Catholic parishes, as compiled by Father Alfred Burke circa 1885.
The Mission of St. Anne's, Hope River
From the year 1819 to the year 1830, the district which comprises this mission was granually 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 when mass was said in that parish. All other times they would assist at the Holy Sacrifice, at Park Corner, New London, and ultimately, permission was granted to them to have a station in their own settlement, at the house of Mr. Patrick Fleming. 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 its 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.
This primitive church was served by Bishop McDonald, who said Mass there three times a year. It was removed a few years after its completion 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 ten 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 in length by forty in breadth, and was the Gothic style of Architecture. It was just completed exteriorly when it was accidentally consumed by fire in the month of October 1875.
In the following summer, a contract for building the existing church was let to Messrs. Burke and McDonald, who put up a fine frame building, according to the same plan as that of the preceding one, which had been designed by Mr. John Corbett, architect, then of Charlottetown, who himself undertook the completion of the interior of the church.
This sanctuary of St. Anne at Hope River is one of the prettiest among the wooden churches of the diocese, and is beautifully situated upon an eminence overlooking the gulf of St. Lawrence and surrounded by well cultivated farms. The mission was first served by Bishop McDonald, or by a priest sent by him from Rustico. From the death of the Bishop up to the year 1862, it was still attended form Rustico, the missionary being Rev. G. A. Belcourt. From 1862 to 1866, it was attended from St. Malachy's, Kinkora, first by Rev. F. X. de Laugie, then by Rev. P. Doyle, mass being said in the mission every third Sunday. In September 1869, the mission of St. Anne was again attached to St. Augustine's, Rustico, and was attended by Rev. Peter McPhee.
In 1872 the mission was enlarged by the addition of one hundred families, taken from Rustico. It was then given in charge to Rev. A. J. Trudelle, who remained up to the spring of 1881, when the presbytery in which he resided and which had been built by Bishop McDonald in 1844, was burned to the ground. St. Anne's once more relapsed into a dependancy of Rustico, and has since been served by Rev. Peter McPhee, assisted for a time by Rev. Stanislaus Boudreaux, and latterly by Rev. Angus MacDonald.
In the year 1882 the parishioners completed a new parochial house, which is neat and tasteful and an ornament to the mission.
Hope River is the birthplace of the Hon. William Milfrid Sullivan, who has been for the past eight years, Premier and Attorney General of Prince Edward Island. His parents emigrated to this country, from Kerry, Ireland, and settled in the district of Hope River where their descendants are the prosperous owners of a large and valuable property.
In Hope River was also spent the boyhood of Mr. James Jeffery Roche, who in early manhood left Prince Edward Island for the Athens of America where he is now ranked among the distinguished literary men of the day.
First Settlers of the Mission of
St. Anne
Hope River
Patrick Fleming
John Barry
Michael Conghlan
James Bowlan
John Cullitan
W. Sullivan
Timothy Harrington
Jeremiah Harrington
Patrick Canning
William Prendergrast
Clement Cullen
Lawrence Hogan
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