The settlers of the Inhabitants were either Roman Catholics or Methodists, with a very few Anglican families. The latter eventually joined either the Methodists or the Catholics through marriage or conversion, when those religious denominations built Churches in some of the communities.
It is not known if the first French settlement along the Inhabitants River had a church, which would have been burnt by the British, but the likelihood is high, since they had a Catholic cemetery, which is now the United Church Cemetery in what is now Grantville. A grave containing the bones of a woman with the remnants of a rosary was found in the late 1800’s, while a grave was being dug to inter a deceased Protestant. If there was a church, it must have been close by. Only archeological digging may find substantiating evidence.
Those persons, who settled the area under British government, did not build central houses of worship until the mid-1800s. Worshipping was done in a selected home of one of the communities, when a priest or minister would visit from Guysborough, Isle Madame, or later Creignish. Marriages at first, except for those who traveled long distances to either L’Ardoise, Arichat, or Creignish, were common-law until such time as a visiting priest or minister arrived to bless the unions and establish legal recognition of the same. It was during the visits of the ministers or priests that baptisms were performed on the latest arrivals, or communion was the given and the sacrament of Confirmation was administered to those who were eligible for the same
Those of Scottish, English, or Acadian descent could have built churches, if they had wished to, and had the funds or materials and/or skills to do so, but the Irish Catholics were prohibited from doing so under the British Penal Laws. These laws not only made their very presence in the area illegal, but forbid their building houses of worship. It wasn’t until the final penal law was repealed by the Nova Scotia Legislature in 1835 that those Irish could commence building. This last repeal saw the construction of the first Saint Mary’s Basilica in Halifax, but building elsewhere was at least fifteen years later. When their relatives, the Doyles and other Irish Catholics of Northeast Margaree began the construction of St. Patrick's Church in that community by building first the vestry as a place of worship, the Doyles, Morgan, MacNamaras, Whites, Scanlans of River Inhabitants Basin followed suite. Then in 1855 both communities, which were in communication with one another through exchange visits between relatives, began the building of the main body of each church. The Whiteside St. Patrick’s Church was opened officially for worship in the 1860’s, though services had to be supplied by the priests of neighboring parishes.
This was so until 1906, at which time a social disagreement between branches of a family took place in the church prior to Christmas Eve mass. The priest, who was from the neighboring community of Louisdale, walked in on the incident, which he considered a desecration of the church, causing him to proclaim that there would never be another Christmas Eve mass in the church. The following Christmas Eve saw no mass, and on February 6, 1908, in the early morning, the building was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. Only the altar and a matching candle stanchion were saved. Both items were stored next door in the barn of Michael John White, in expectation of a new church being built.
By 1912, the residents of Whiteside had accumulated enough money to begin the construction of a second St. Patrick’s. Daniel O’Connell Doyle and his third oldest son, Edward Daniel Doyle took on the job of construction. Since the building was being done in opposition to the will of Reverend Father Angus Beaton of Port Hawkesbury, who had become pastor of the missions of Lower River Inhabitants and of Whiteside in 1910, and who had been by passed by the Whiteside men when they went directly to the bishop to get permission, the resulting building was different than the original. Father Beaton reduce the planned dimensions of the new church by one yard (0.91 m) in both length and width, and had them build the church facing River Inhabitants Basin. The first change reduced the building to a size that would exclude it ever from becoming a parish church, making it uncomfortably small for the size of the congregation, if all were in attendance. The second change resulted in a picturesque church facing a beautiful body of water and being against the background of a very high, forested hill. The building was consecrated in 1922, but regular Sunday mass was not held in it until 1936. Until that time, to meet their Sunday obligation, each resident had to walk or ride by horse and wagon, or horse and sleigh, past their own church, for a distance of nearly five miles { 8.3 km ) to be then ferried across the Inhabitants River, first by boat and later by cable ferry, and to then walk an additional three quarter mile { 1.25 km }, a total of 5.75 miles ( 9.58 km } to the St. Francis de Sales Church at Lower River Inhabitants. For those without horses, being forced to travel that distance on foot each Sunday was a heavy sacrifice.
On a sunny Sunday in the summer of 1936, Bishop Morrison of the Diocese of Antigonish was approach by a representative group of men from Whiteside: Daniel O’Connell Doyle, Michael R. Morgan, Joseph Roderick MacDonald, William Daniel. White, Michael John White, Duncan A.White, and Ambrose White. Bishop Morrison was at Port Hawkesbury to administer the sacrament of Confirmation to the eligible youth the Port Hawkesbury Parish of St. Joseph’s and the neighboring missions. On being approached by this delegation with the request to have Sunday mass regularly said at St. Patrick’s, the men often quoted the Scots bishop as saying, “What do you want to do, kill your priest?’ One of the men explained that they were not seeking to kill the pastor, Father Angus Beaton, through exhaustion, but they felt it was more than equally unfair to expect people to walk a considerable distance past their own church building to attend Sunday mass in a neighboring mission. The bishop agreed with their argument, but did not wish to place a greater load of duties upon Father Beaton. The solution was to reinstate St. Francis de sales as a parish. Father Alexander J. MacDonald, Father Beaton’s curate (assistant priest) volunteered to become pastor of the new parish. The bishop agreed, and St. Patrick’s Church finally had Sunday Mass, and continued to do so except for six months from October, 1969, to May of 1970, when there was a closing of the church through an unfortunate misunderstanding. The then bishop, Most Reverent William Power granted the reopening of the Church, and has had weekend mass with very few exceptions.
The Protestants of the area did not have to seek the permission of either a bishop or a minister to build their church, nor did they have to have fund raising. A wealthy Methodist merchant, William Malcolm of Port Malcolm agreed to meet the wishes of his fellow Protestants by paying for the building of a new Methodist Church at Port Malcolm, where his family and his prosperous store and shipping business were located. This church opened in the 1830’s and continued to serve the needs until around the late 1940’s. During that time it changed from being a Methodist Church to being a United Church, because the Methodist was one of the churches in Canada to join with the Congregationalists and some of the Presbyterian Churches to form the United Church of Canada.
The spirit of ecumenicalism was alive and strong along the river and the basin in the 1800’s. This was due in part that there were many marriages between Protestants and Catholics, and many of both faiths were related by blood.
The Roman Catholics from the communities along the eastern side of the Inhabitants River also received financial help from the Port Malcolm merchant, William Malcolm, in the construction of their church, St. Francis de Sales. Mr. Malcolm was married to a Catholic, Bridget Proctor of Lower River Inhabitants. When Joseph (Joe) Hureau of Hureauville approached Mr. Malcolm for a donation towards the construction of a Roman Catholic church, he was informed that Malcolm’s donation would be a dollar for dollar match for whatever money Joe collected from the Roman Catholics. Hureau did his part and Malcolm provided the other fifty per cent of the money.
The present St. Francis de Sales Church is the original church which was built and consecrated as a parish church in 1875. This operated until 1909, having to that date as its last pastor, Reverend Father Maurice Thompkins, who was a first cousin to Reverend Father James Thompkins and to Reverend Father Moses Coady, the two leaders who found the Antigonish movement.
Father Maurice Thompkins was transferred to Guysborough around 1909, and St. Francis de Sales, along with the communities of Evanston, Walkerville and Whiteside who had lost their St. Patrick’s Church to fire in February of 1908, was made missions of St. Joseph’s at Port Hawkesbury. Reverend Father Angus Beaton became their new pastor and ruled his new charges until 1936. In that year, a delegation from Whiteside approached the bishop, after confirmation service at Port Hawkesbury, to get Sunday mass established in their new, fourteen year old St. Patrick’s Church.
The bishop decided he could only grant their wish by reestablishing St. Francis de Sales as a parish. Reverend Father Alexander (Alex) J. MacDonald was appointed as pastor, a position in which he remained until July of 1950. He was then transferred to St. Lawrence’s Parish, Mulgrave and replaced by Reverend Father Michael Stevenson, who in turn was replaced by Reverend Terrence Powers in 1954. Father Powers was replaced by Reverend Joseph Campbell Two years after his transfer from St. Francis de Sales, while working for the St. Francis Xavier Extension Department, Father Campbell left the priesthood to become a layman and a parent. Father Campbell was replaced by Reverend Father Edward Tobin, who also became an educator at the Isle Madame District High School at Arichat.
During his pastorship, Father Tobin directed the renovations of the St. Francis de Sales and the St. Patrick’s churches to bring them in line with the changes demanded under Vatican Council II. During this time, a bridge was also constructed over the Inhabitants River, making travel between Whiteside and Lower River much easier. With this change, Most Reverend William Power, Bishop of the diocese, ordered Father Tobin to see to the closing of the mission church of St. Patrick’s at Whiteside. Except for very few on the parish council, the parishioners of that mission were not consulted about the proposed change, and were astonished on a Sunday morning in October of 1969 to be told there would be no more masses at St. Patrick’s. The change split the communities of Evanston, Walkerville and Whiteside into two camps: those accepting the change and those against. The latter were greater in number, and withdrew their financial support of the St. Francis de Sales Parish. These angry parishioners attended services at Louisdale, West Bay Road or Port Hawkesbury instead.
Father Tobin, whom the bishop allowed to be the scapegoat for the schism, quit the priesthood, finished teaching the school year at IMDH, and moved to teach in Montreal, where he later was laicized and got married. A week after Father Tobin’s resignation, Reverend Father James MacIntyre was appointed pastor to St. Francis de Sales only. Father MacIntyre found his parish to have little financial support, since the majority of his parishioners had withdrawn their financial support over the church closing. However in April of 1970 a delegation of men from the St. Patrick’s faction met with the Bishop at the retreat house in Gardener Mines. At that time the bishop learned of the true feelings and ambitions of the offended people, and granted the reopening of St. Patrick’s Church under the same conditions as before. The St. Francis de Sales Parish once again became whole, with financial support being restored. However, some feelings of distrust lasted for some time on both sides of the issue, and future Parish Councils had to take care to give due attention to both churches.
Since the time of Father MacIntyre, the Parish of St. Francis de Sales has had as its pastors Reverend Father Terrence Lynch, Reverend Father Francis Delhanty, Reverend Father Robert Wicks, Reverend Father Robert MacNeil, Reverend Father Joseph MacLean, Reverend Father Paul Murphy, Reverend Father George MacInnis, Reverend Doctor Donald Campbell (fill in pastor for nine months), Reverend Father Peter MacLeod, and the present pastor, Reverend Father Allan Mac
exerpt from: Lester Morgan, "A Brief History of River Inhabitants," rev Aug 2017.
It is not known if the first French settlement along the Inhabitants River had a church, which would have been burnt by the British, but the likelihood is high, since they had a Catholic cemetery, which is now the United Church Cemetery in what is now Grantville. A grave containing the bones of a woman with the remnants of a rosary was found in the late 1800’s, while a grave was being dug to inter a deceased Protestant. If there was a church, it must have been close by. Only archeological digging may find substantiating evidence.
Those persons, who settled the area under British government, did not build central houses of worship until the mid-1800s. Worshipping was done in a selected home of one of the communities, when a priest or minister would visit from Guysborough, Isle Madame, or later Creignish. Marriages at first, except for those who traveled long distances to either L’Ardoise, Arichat, or Creignish, were common-law until such time as a visiting priest or minister arrived to bless the unions and establish legal recognition of the same. It was during the visits of the ministers or priests that baptisms were performed on the latest arrivals, or communion was the given and the sacrament of Confirmation was administered to those who were eligible for the same
Those of Scottish, English, or Acadian descent could have built churches, if they had wished to, and had the funds or materials and/or skills to do so, but the Irish Catholics were prohibited from doing so under the British Penal Laws. These laws not only made their very presence in the area illegal, but forbid their building houses of worship. It wasn’t until the final penal law was repealed by the Nova Scotia Legislature in 1835 that those Irish could commence building. This last repeal saw the construction of the first Saint Mary’s Basilica in Halifax, but building elsewhere was at least fifteen years later. When their relatives, the Doyles and other Irish Catholics of Northeast Margaree began the construction of St. Patrick's Church in that community by building first the vestry as a place of worship, the Doyles, Morgan, MacNamaras, Whites, Scanlans of River Inhabitants Basin followed suite. Then in 1855 both communities, which were in communication with one another through exchange visits between relatives, began the building of the main body of each church. The Whiteside St. Patrick’s Church was opened officially for worship in the 1860’s, though services had to be supplied by the priests of neighboring parishes.
This was so until 1906, at which time a social disagreement between branches of a family took place in the church prior to Christmas Eve mass. The priest, who was from the neighboring community of Louisdale, walked in on the incident, which he considered a desecration of the church, causing him to proclaim that there would never be another Christmas Eve mass in the church. The following Christmas Eve saw no mass, and on February 6, 1908, in the early morning, the building was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. Only the altar and a matching candle stanchion were saved. Both items were stored next door in the barn of Michael John White, in expectation of a new church being built.
By 1912, the residents of Whiteside had accumulated enough money to begin the construction of a second St. Patrick’s. Daniel O’Connell Doyle and his third oldest son, Edward Daniel Doyle took on the job of construction. Since the building was being done in opposition to the will of Reverend Father Angus Beaton of Port Hawkesbury, who had become pastor of the missions of Lower River Inhabitants and of Whiteside in 1910, and who had been by passed by the Whiteside men when they went directly to the bishop to get permission, the resulting building was different than the original. Father Beaton reduce the planned dimensions of the new church by one yard (0.91 m) in both length and width, and had them build the church facing River Inhabitants Basin. The first change reduced the building to a size that would exclude it ever from becoming a parish church, making it uncomfortably small for the size of the congregation, if all were in attendance. The second change resulted in a picturesque church facing a beautiful body of water and being against the background of a very high, forested hill. The building was consecrated in 1922, but regular Sunday mass was not held in it until 1936. Until that time, to meet their Sunday obligation, each resident had to walk or ride by horse and wagon, or horse and sleigh, past their own church, for a distance of nearly five miles { 8.3 km ) to be then ferried across the Inhabitants River, first by boat and later by cable ferry, and to then walk an additional three quarter mile { 1.25 km }, a total of 5.75 miles ( 9.58 km } to the St. Francis de Sales Church at Lower River Inhabitants. For those without horses, being forced to travel that distance on foot each Sunday was a heavy sacrifice.
On a sunny Sunday in the summer of 1936, Bishop Morrison of the Diocese of Antigonish was approach by a representative group of men from Whiteside: Daniel O’Connell Doyle, Michael R. Morgan, Joseph Roderick MacDonald, William Daniel. White, Michael John White, Duncan A.White, and Ambrose White. Bishop Morrison was at Port Hawkesbury to administer the sacrament of Confirmation to the eligible youth the Port Hawkesbury Parish of St. Joseph’s and the neighboring missions. On being approached by this delegation with the request to have Sunday mass regularly said at St. Patrick’s, the men often quoted the Scots bishop as saying, “What do you want to do, kill your priest?’ One of the men explained that they were not seeking to kill the pastor, Father Angus Beaton, through exhaustion, but they felt it was more than equally unfair to expect people to walk a considerable distance past their own church building to attend Sunday mass in a neighboring mission. The bishop agreed with their argument, but did not wish to place a greater load of duties upon Father Beaton. The solution was to reinstate St. Francis de sales as a parish. Father Alexander J. MacDonald, Father Beaton’s curate (assistant priest) volunteered to become pastor of the new parish. The bishop agreed, and St. Patrick’s Church finally had Sunday Mass, and continued to do so except for six months from October, 1969, to May of 1970, when there was a closing of the church through an unfortunate misunderstanding. The then bishop, Most Reverent William Power granted the reopening of the Church, and has had weekend mass with very few exceptions.
The Protestants of the area did not have to seek the permission of either a bishop or a minister to build their church, nor did they have to have fund raising. A wealthy Methodist merchant, William Malcolm of Port Malcolm agreed to meet the wishes of his fellow Protestants by paying for the building of a new Methodist Church at Port Malcolm, where his family and his prosperous store and shipping business were located. This church opened in the 1830’s and continued to serve the needs until around the late 1940’s. During that time it changed from being a Methodist Church to being a United Church, because the Methodist was one of the churches in Canada to join with the Congregationalists and some of the Presbyterian Churches to form the United Church of Canada.
The spirit of ecumenicalism was alive and strong along the river and the basin in the 1800’s. This was due in part that there were many marriages between Protestants and Catholics, and many of both faiths were related by blood.
The Roman Catholics from the communities along the eastern side of the Inhabitants River also received financial help from the Port Malcolm merchant, William Malcolm, in the construction of their church, St. Francis de Sales. Mr. Malcolm was married to a Catholic, Bridget Proctor of Lower River Inhabitants. When Joseph (Joe) Hureau of Hureauville approached Mr. Malcolm for a donation towards the construction of a Roman Catholic church, he was informed that Malcolm’s donation would be a dollar for dollar match for whatever money Joe collected from the Roman Catholics. Hureau did his part and Malcolm provided the other fifty per cent of the money.
The present St. Francis de Sales Church is the original church which was built and consecrated as a parish church in 1875. This operated until 1909, having to that date as its last pastor, Reverend Father Maurice Thompkins, who was a first cousin to Reverend Father James Thompkins and to Reverend Father Moses Coady, the two leaders who found the Antigonish movement.
Father Maurice Thompkins was transferred to Guysborough around 1909, and St. Francis de Sales, along with the communities of Evanston, Walkerville and Whiteside who had lost their St. Patrick’s Church to fire in February of 1908, was made missions of St. Joseph’s at Port Hawkesbury. Reverend Father Angus Beaton became their new pastor and ruled his new charges until 1936. In that year, a delegation from Whiteside approached the bishop, after confirmation service at Port Hawkesbury, to get Sunday mass established in their new, fourteen year old St. Patrick’s Church.
The bishop decided he could only grant their wish by reestablishing St. Francis de Sales as a parish. Reverend Father Alexander (Alex) J. MacDonald was appointed as pastor, a position in which he remained until July of 1950. He was then transferred to St. Lawrence’s Parish, Mulgrave and replaced by Reverend Father Michael Stevenson, who in turn was replaced by Reverend Terrence Powers in 1954. Father Powers was replaced by Reverend Joseph Campbell Two years after his transfer from St. Francis de Sales, while working for the St. Francis Xavier Extension Department, Father Campbell left the priesthood to become a layman and a parent. Father Campbell was replaced by Reverend Father Edward Tobin, who also became an educator at the Isle Madame District High School at Arichat.
During his pastorship, Father Tobin directed the renovations of the St. Francis de Sales and the St. Patrick’s churches to bring them in line with the changes demanded under Vatican Council II. During this time, a bridge was also constructed over the Inhabitants River, making travel between Whiteside and Lower River much easier. With this change, Most Reverend William Power, Bishop of the diocese, ordered Father Tobin to see to the closing of the mission church of St. Patrick’s at Whiteside. Except for very few on the parish council, the parishioners of that mission were not consulted about the proposed change, and were astonished on a Sunday morning in October of 1969 to be told there would be no more masses at St. Patrick’s. The change split the communities of Evanston, Walkerville and Whiteside into two camps: those accepting the change and those against. The latter were greater in number, and withdrew their financial support of the St. Francis de Sales Parish. These angry parishioners attended services at Louisdale, West Bay Road or Port Hawkesbury instead.
Father Tobin, whom the bishop allowed to be the scapegoat for the schism, quit the priesthood, finished teaching the school year at IMDH, and moved to teach in Montreal, where he later was laicized and got married. A week after Father Tobin’s resignation, Reverend Father James MacIntyre was appointed pastor to St. Francis de Sales only. Father MacIntyre found his parish to have little financial support, since the majority of his parishioners had withdrawn their financial support over the church closing. However in April of 1970 a delegation of men from the St. Patrick’s faction met with the Bishop at the retreat house in Gardener Mines. At that time the bishop learned of the true feelings and ambitions of the offended people, and granted the reopening of St. Patrick’s Church under the same conditions as before. The St. Francis de Sales Parish once again became whole, with financial support being restored. However, some feelings of distrust lasted for some time on both sides of the issue, and future Parish Councils had to take care to give due attention to both churches.
Since the time of Father MacIntyre, the Parish of St. Francis de Sales has had as its pastors Reverend Father Terrence Lynch, Reverend Father Francis Delhanty, Reverend Father Robert Wicks, Reverend Father Robert MacNeil, Reverend Father Joseph MacLean, Reverend Father Paul Murphy, Reverend Father George MacInnis, Reverend Doctor Donald Campbell (fill in pastor for nine months), Reverend Father Peter MacLeod, and the present pastor, Reverend Father Allan Mac
exerpt from: Lester Morgan, "A Brief History of River Inhabitants," rev Aug 2017.
