History of the Diocese of Montreal, 1850-1910

nm 10 fa REV J. DOUGLAS BORTHWICK, LL.D. History of the Diocese of Hflontreal 1850-1910 BY ev. J. DOUGLAS BORTHWICK LL.D., F.C.C.S. Author of twenty-four volumes on ike History, Geography and Biography of Canada and General Literature Printed and Published by JOHN LOVELL & SON, LIMITED MONTREAL 1910. CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, MONTREAL. DEDICATION MY LORD It gives me much pleasure to dedicate this important work, "The History of the Diocese of Montreal," to your Lordship. Your election and elevation to the highest office of the Church in this Diocese, is a proof of the estimation in which your Lordship is held by both your Clergy and Laity. May an even greater prosperity attend your oversight of the spiritual and temporal affairs of the Diocese under your guidance, and that it will advance as rapidly in the future as it has done in the past, is my earnest prayer. Praying that your Lordship may long be spared to be our Bishop, I remain Your sincere Presbyter, J. DOUGLAS BORTHWICK, LL.D. PREFACE IN the Jubilee year of the Diocese of Montreal, A.D. 1900, I was requested by several prominent persons, both Clerical and Lay, to write an historical sketch of the Diocese for the past 50 years. What I did write then was printed in one or two of the Montreal newspapers. In this Jubilee Year, 1909, of The Synod of Montreal, which was founded and opened on the /th day of June, 1859, I was again asked to extend and elaborate what I had then written, and thus make it a volume which could be kept as a "Vade Mecum" and Book of Reference for succeeding generations. As there was on the idea then, however, "tapis" some of the Diocesan Authorities issuing such a work, I re frained from attempting anything. However, after some time, being given to understand that no person or Committee intended doing so, I began my work, preparing the incidents of this history. It may have happened that some one of the very early Clergy and Laity has been overlooked in the long list of our Sacred Dead, because it is now almost im possible or very difficult to ascertain their immediate descendants or having ascertained them, to secure the facts required of them, either from their inability to do so or some other cause, but I trust that the number may be few. vi PREFACE. The mantle of Elijah has fallen on the shoulders of their successors younger men, energetic and full of Christian life, now, almost over all the Diocese, supply their places. Nothing struck me more than this, at the last meeting of the Synod in February, 1909, when I scanned the members of the Synod, Clerical and Lay Delegates, I saw so few white haired men present. My eye rested then on a host of young athletic Clergy and Laymen "all eager for the fray" and to them now is left, under the aegis of their own energetic and beloved Bishop, to; "Stand up stand up for Jesus, The trumpet call obey; Forth to the mighty conflict, In this His Glorious Day. In reading over many of the sketches in this volume, I doubt not but many a tear will be shed over the name and remembrance of some saintly old warrior who now ""rests from his labors." No Clergyman is now alive, so far as I know, who was present when Bishop Fulford arrived in Montreal, and only one now alive, who was at the opening of the first Synod of the Diocese in 1859, though a very few are still to the fore in the earlier years of the sixties the author being one of them. I must here record my most grateful thanks to all those who have taken such an interest in the work, but especially to the widows of our oldest Clergy, and who have so helped me in my labors, by sending me copious notes and clippings, relative to their husbands, and their work in the Diocese. It has enabled me to place before the present generation, facts and figures so astounding, as well as interesting, as will make them say : "How our PREFACE. vi father or our grandfather must have worked to build up such and such a parish." No one, but those who have tried it, can have any idea of the immense labor and time which has been spent in the getting up of this work. Hundreds of letters and circulars have been sent over the Diocese, and if any name in the List of Members of the Synod for 1909 is not mentioned, the fault lies with that person himself who has paid no attention to the nature of the application sent through the post. It was the author s first intention to place portraits of all the principal Clergy in the book, but this idea was abandoned because portraits (cuts) of such could not be procured, and the making of such would have added too much to the cost of the work. Those which appear have been loaned to the author and therefore appear. Instead of which he has inserted the Institutions of the Diocese and several of the principal Churches, which will add to the attraction of the work, and also be a dis tinguishing feature. All names in parts 3 and 4 and 5 are alphabetically arranged, so that no difficulty can be found in looking for a particular name in any of these divisions. Thus no index is necessary. Hoping that the undertaking will find an echo of satisfaction in the hearts of the "thousand and one" readers who will peruse it and that it may be a small donation to the Diocese as regards its history, he lays down his pen, with this fervent Hope, " Vox Dei et Vox Populi." J. DOUGLAS BORTHWICK, LL.D. Montreal, 1909. CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION. iii PREFACE. v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi PART I. INTRODUCTION I PART II. Sketches of the Five Bishops of the Diocese of Montreal from 1850 to 1910 10 PART III. Sketches of Bishops who have been connected with the Diocese of Montreal. 58 PART IV. Necrology Sketches of Dead Clergy and Laity from 1850 to the present Day 67 PART V. Sketches of Living Clergy and Laymen 139 PART VI. Diocesan Institutions. 221 FINAL WORD 231 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Rev. J. W. Borthwick. Frontispiece Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal iii Right Rev. Archbishop Bond 31 Right Rev. Bishop Cannichael. 40 Right, Rev. Bishop Farthing. .... 50 W. L. Bond 146 St. Luke s Church, Montreal. 156 George Durnford, Esq. 165 Rev. Canon Ellegood. 166 Rev. Dr. Evans. i6p St. Stephen s Church, Montreal. i/o Interior of Granby Church. 187 Venerable Archdeacon Norton. 193 St. James Church, Stanbridge East. 201 Rev. Canon Renaud. 203 Rev. Elson I. Rexford. 204 Rev. J. Patterson-Smith. 209 . 2ia St. Gearge s Church, Montreal. The Diocesan College. 222 Miss Hedges. 227 228 Dunham Ladies College. HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF MONTREAL (FOUNDED A.D. 1850) ON the occasion of the jubilee year of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal, in 1900, I was requested to write a short sketch of its history, and the years preceding it, for one of the papers. The substance of that paper is printed here, but much extended, so that as complete a history, with Biographies of all the Bishops and many of the most influential Clergy and Laity being added, it will make a volume well worth the possession of every one who has the prosperity of the Diocese of Montreal at heart or wishes to see its development in such a wonderful manner, from its forma tion in 1850 to the present day. Let us go back to the history of The Anglican Church in British North America previous to the formation of our own Diocese "to clear the decks" so to speak, that we may understand what led up to the formation and existence of "The Diocese of Montreal." The first diocese and first English bishop in what is now the Dominion of Canada was that of Nova Scotia and Bishop Inglis its overseer. Nova Scotia was constituted a diocese in A.D. 1787* and it extended over the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, New foundland and parts unknown, now comprehended in 2 HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF MONTREAL. the Provinces of Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Territories and British Columbia. Six years after its formation, in 1793, we find that no less than thirty-two clergymen are recorded as belonging to Nova Scotia, and in this year, when the Diocese of Quebec was formed, and up to 1815, at the close of the American war, there were such names as the following, in what is now the Diocese of Montreal and the Province of Ontario. There are four especially of Montreal, viz., Dr. Mountain, rector of Christ Church, Montreal; the Hon. C. J. Stewart, rector of St. Armand; Charles C. Cotton, rector of Dunham, Missisquoi Bay, and E. Parkin, rector of Chambly. In Upper Canada there were these well-known names : G. O. Stewart, rector of Kingston (Frontenac), and styled "the official of Upper Canada"; John Bethune, rector of Elizabethtown and Augusta, and afterwards rector of Montreal to his death, and father of our own esteemed Chancellor of the diocese, Dr. Strachan Betnune; Dr. John Strachan, rector of York (now Toronto), and afterwards the celebrated Bishop of Toronto; and Dr.

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