HISTORY INDEX / Part A: The French & British Colonial Periods, 1615-1815

• The French Missionaries and the Neutral Indians
• The French Military Chaplains
• The British Military Chaplains

THE FRENCH MISSIONARIES AND THE NEUTRAL INDIANS
The first baptised Christian ever to set toot in the Niagara Peninsula was Etienne Brule, the French explorer, trader and adventurer, who on his journey in 1615 from Huronia to what is now New York State, touched upon the shores of Lincoln County while going around the western end of Lake Ontario. Brule returned to the Niagara Peninsula in 1625 and told Fr. Daillon about his travels.

Father Joseph de la Roche Daillon, a Recollect priest (a branch of the Franciscans), lived and taught among the Neutral Indians in what is now the area of Hamilton-Wentworth Region during 1626 and was the first priest to say Mass there. He studied their language and customs and wrote the first account of them. That he narrowly escaped death at the hands of his potential converts persuaded him to leave soon and return to France via Huronia and Quebec.

The next missionary priests to visit the Neutral Indians were the Jesuit Fathers, Jean de Brebeuf and Joseph Chaumonot who came down from Huronia to spend the winter of 1640-41 with the Neutral Indians in their villages. The area which they visited would be what is today the Hamilton-Wentworth Region and that part of the Grand River flowing through Brant County. Unfortunately, suspicions about the black-robed priests, spread amongst the Neutrals by the Huron Indians, made it a very lonely and unfruitful winter for the Jesuits who were glad to return to Huronia the following spring as they record extensively in the Jesuit Relations for 1640-41.

As for the Neutrals, the Iroquois massacred one of their villages in 1647 on their way to Huronia. On their way back from the Huron massacres the Iroquois annihilated the rest of the Neutral Nation between 1649 to 1651, thus leaving no Indians in the Peninsula and hence no need for further missionaries.

THE FRENCH MILITARY CHAPLAINS
The next priests who visited the Peninsula did so as part of the exploration and trading missions of Rene-Robert Cavalier de la Salle who built Fort Conti at the mouth of the Niagara River on what is now the American side in 1679. Thus the Sulpician priests, Fathers Francois Dollier de Casson and Rene de Brehant de Galinee spent the winter of 1669-70 in various parts of the peninsula. Before leaving they raised a cross at what is now Port Dover on Lake Erie in the Region of Haldimand-Norfolk to show that they had taken possession of the area for God and the King of France. The Recollect, Father Louis Hennepin visited much of the Peninsula during 1678-79 and was with the first Europeans who saw Niagara Falls, where he said Mass on December 11, 1678. However, it is doubtful whether one can attribute to him the tradition that he had anything to do with giving the name St. Catharines to the city.

Jacques Rene de Brisay de Denonville, Governor of New France from 1685 to 1689, built Fort Denonville on the same site as Fort Conti, which is today the site of Fort Niagara, U.S.A., opposite Niagara-on-the-Lake. Jesuit priests Father Jean de Lamberville and then Pierre Millet were appointed as chaplains during 1687 and 1688 to care for the spiritual needs of the fort's 100 men left under the direction of Sieur de Troyes. But the fort was soon abandoned under pressure from the Iroquois so that from 1690 to 1720 no priests or men were stationed there.

Louis-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire rebuilt Fort Niagara in 1720 which remained garrisoned by the French until its capture by British troops on July 25, 1759. During these forty years there was always a military chaplain at the fort. Unfortunately the names of most of them have been lost. We do, however, know the names of at least four of them who served as chaplains sometime between 1720 and 1750: Father Durand, Father Charlevois, Father Crespel and Father Piquet.

THE BRITISH MILITARY CHAPLAINS
The next Catholic presence in the Niagara Peninsula was to be that of representatives of the Glengarry Scots who in the last quarter of the eighteenth century removed themselves from their ancestral home in Scotland to the area around Cornwall in eastern Ontario. Under their first chaplains, Fathers John McKenna and Roderick MacDonell, they remained loyal to the British Crown and began to play a prominent role in provincial politics in the 1790's. The first Provincial Parliament, which met in 1792 at Niagara-on-the-Lake, had three Roman Catholics among the fifteen Members of Parliament.

Among these prominent Scottish Catholics three in particular deserve mention. The Honourable John MacDonell, Speaker of the First Parliament of Upper Canada, spent much of his military career at the Forts Niagara and George. His men, mostly Catholics, helped build Fort George. The Honourable Alexander McDonell was Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada and lived at Niagara-on-the-Lake for a time before moving on to York (Toronto). Colonel John MacDonell was Attorney-General of Upper Canada, Aide-de-Camp to General Brock and a Member of the Legislative Assembly. He is probably the most famous Catholic to take part in the War of 1812. He fell with General Brock at the Battle of Queenston Heights where he is buried.

By 1793 the British Government had granted Irish Catholics the right to enter British military forces. This act promptly brought about the presence of a large number of Irish Catholic troops to Fort George, a presence large enough to require permanent chaplains. The first priest to attempt to become chaplain was Father Jean-Antoine le Dru, o.p., a French Dominican, 1793-94, who soon became a persona non grata because of his republican sympathies for which Lt. Gov. Simcoe ordered him out of the province.

The first priest to visit the Catholic soldiers at Fort George regularly was Father Edmund Burke from Ireland. In his capacity as Vicar General of Upper Canada for the Diocese of Quebec, 1794 to 1801, he was the first Catholic cleric to exercise quasi-episcopal powers in Ontario. Though he had to visit Catholic settlements all over the province, he made the military garrison at Fort George his principal residence, as befitted the provincial capital Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) at that time.

In 1801 Father Edmund Burke became Vicar General of Nova Scotia and took up residence in Halifax. During the period up to 1815 the Catholic troops were served by a variety of priests visiting from Glengarry, Kingston, Toronto, Windsor, etc., some Irish, some Scottish, some French. Often Roman Catholic and Anglican services were held on alternate Sundays at Fort George, the soldiers of one denomination often attending the services of the other denomination.

Certainly there was always a high proportion of Catholic officers and regulars amongst the troops at Fort George. Some of these would in turn bring their families with them, thus becoming the first permanent Catholic settlers in the Niagara Peninsula by 1815. A few French Royalists under the leadership of Count Joseph de Puisaye also settled around Niagara-on-the-Lake after the failure of their settlement between Richmond Hill and Aurora, Ontario, in 1802.