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. Paul, Sturgeon
The first settlers of this mission, arrived at Gaspereaux in 1803, but for nearly fifty years there was no church nearer than that built by the MacDonalds on Panmure Island, to which the faithful were wont to repair. Rev. Francis MacDonald when residing at Old Launching used to hold a mission at Sturgeon twice a year. The foundation of the church at St. Pauls was laid in 1851. The church is forty six feet long by thirty five broad, the builder was Peter Stewart. There has never been a resident priest at Sturgeon, it having been attended from Georgetown up to 1884 when it was annexed to Montague Bridge, now in the pastoral care of Rev. William Phelan. The settlers of Sturgeon are Irish, Scotch and English, they found it a wild and uncultivated land, but by diligence and perserverance much has been done towards the agricultural development of the soil.
That the early settlers shared in the religious privations of olden times is shown by the fact, that in 1825 when one of them fell ill, Bishop McEachern, being off the Island, the sick man's friends took a boat and went to Arisaig to fetch Father Colin Grant with whom they returned in triumph, after an absence of two days. The church of St. Paul has become inadequate to the wants of the the Parish and will shortly be replaced by a new one towards the building of which the parishioners have already over 4,000 deposited in the bank.
The settlement of Lower Montague, on the southern bank of the Montague River, is included in the parish of Sturgeon, as is also Panmure Island. Lower Montague terminates in St. Andrew's Point, on which is the residence of Hon. Joseph Wightman, the oldest house on Prince Edward Island.
When about the year 1805 the family of Andrew McDonald, Esq of Eileen Shona, Invernesshire, and afterwards of Panmure Island, came out to the land which their father had purchased in the eastern portion of Prince Edward Island, they found, upon this point of land, which guards the southern entrance to Georgetown Harbour, a large and venerable house. It was going to ruin. Indians used it as a shelter, and sheep herded in its cellars, but it bore signs of past importance, it was built and planned on a luxurious scale and the roof was covered with lead, a sure sign of the nationality of its builders. There can be little doubt that it was a French mansion of considerable importance in the days of the old regime.
Mr. McDonald repaired it, and lived in it for some time. It then passed in to the hands of the Wightman family who still reside there.
Below the point on which this house is built, a few hundred yards from the shore was at one time a pretty little Island, which was in the last century a French burial ground. The early Scotch Catholics of these parts preferred to bury their dead on Panmure Island but the Protestants availed themselves of the more ancient cemetery, having perhaps, a vague idea that they would profit by the blessing breathed over its precients by the holy men of old.
Up to the last fifty years burials were common on the little Island, then time and tide began to encroach on its shores, bit by bit it crumbled away, boys going there to play would find skulls, arms, and legs lying about in most unseemly fashion on the shore. The bank receded little by little, until at length it was decided to exhume the bones of the dead, which were all removed to a small enclosure on St. Andrew's Point, exactly opposite to the Island, where they were re-interred.
This new site was used as a place of burial for many years, but finally fell into disuse, now it is a tangled thicket, without fence or boundary. A few handsome headstones denote the lst resting place of those who have more recently joined the sleepers in this city of the dead, but for the most part the graves are unmarked except by a broken bit of Island sandstone, and uncared for save by nature who has thrown a soft green covering of moss above those forlorn tombs, which in spring time, she sprinkles with purple violets, pink bells, and pure white stars of "Bethelehem."
Beyond the cliff the blue waters of St. Mary's Bay sweep over the site of the sunken Island, a few stones and a small pile of clay rise above the waves and mark the spot where, long before the creed of Calvin was known in the land, brave sons of France were laid to rest with the loving care of that church whose priests daily make intercession for the living and the dead.
First Catholic Settlers of the Mission of
St. Paul
Sturgeon
Alexander McKenzie
Samuel McKenzie
Peter McCullock
John Steele
Angus Steele
Duncan Gillis
Mrs. McMillan
Angus McDonald
John Jameson
Bernard Kerney
Philip Murphy
Welcome | Genealogy | Books | Services | Photography | Poetry | Links | Contact