Churches and Cemeteries

Unto the Hills

A Church History by Norma and Stuart Geggie

The Development of a Community

In 1800, Philemon Wright arrived from Woburn, Massachusetts, to form a settlement at the Chaudiere Falls on the Ottawa River, from whence was to spring the busy and productive community of Wrightville (Hull.)

Two factors hastened the development of the area during the first quarter of the century. Forests bordering the lower St. Lawrence were being depleted, and lumber merchants were looking for new sources. Famine in Ireland, caused by the repeated failure of potato crops, resulted in waves of immigrants seeking the opportunity of making a fresh start in a new country.

Settlements spread north from Wrightville with the establishment of a community at Chelsea. The Blackburns, Reids and Kirks continued up river to the site where Mr. Kirk was to operate his ferry at a later date. At the North East corner of the Township of Hull where the Meach Creek joined the Gatineau River, Mr. Patterson made his clearing. John Maxwell and Thomas Copeland settled on land bordering the river to the north of the Meach Creek outlet; Mr. Copeland claimed land on both sides of the river extending back to more open areas. In about 1830, in a two mile radius of what we now know as the village of Wakefield, Joseph Irwin, Foster Moncrieff, Joseph and John Shouldice, William Fairbairn and George Hall established themselves. Thomas Stevenson left the river to make a homestead about three miles east in a beautiful open valley; also Haigh McGarry settled on the east bank of the river several years later. James Pritchard chose an area three miles north, bordering the west bank of the river and extending further west, again in a promising opening between the hills. All of these names appeared in the first census return to be taken in Wakefield Township in 1842, making a total of thirty-seven households, and a population of 248; half of these (the children) were Canadian born. Seven came from Scotland, six, from the United States, fifteen were Naturalized Aliens, and the remainder were natives of Ireland.

The greater part of the Township, ten square miles in area, was to the east of the Gatineau. Settlement followed the course of the river, with about half the population continuing north. These people, 122 in number, were Roman Catholic, and their community at Farrelton had at its centre a Church and school. The homesteaders who settled around the Wakefield, North Wakefield and Farm Point area, were predominantly from Northern Ireland, and belonged to the following denominations:

Church of England	48
Church of Scotland	14
Baptist	9
British Methodist	5
Canadian Methodist Wesleyan	26
Presbyterian (not connected with Scotland)	24

The census return of 1851 for Wakefield Township revealed that the population had more than doubled, and while most were shown to be farmers, also listed were blacksmiths, shoemakers, coopers, a carpenter, a tailor, and a Presbyterian minister. Two places: of worship had been established. One of these was James Maclaren’s two storey ‘frame’ building seating one hundred people (Presbyterian,) and the other, a log house (for Methodists), with the same capacity on Thomas Copeland’s property.

During this time the adjoining township of Masham, bordering Wakefield Township to the west, had undergone similar development. It is reasonable to conclude that the settlement around Rupert was slightly later than that of Wakefield and Alcove (North Wakefield.) As the choice farming sites close to the Gatineau River became occupied, new arrivals moved further west where many streams and lakes and small areas of plateaux gave promise of a good future. Although this eastern strip of Masham Township was settled in the same manner as the Gatineau Valley, that is by a predominantly Irish Protestant population, a French Roman Catholic settlement was growing up around the valley of the Péche River. These people, mainly from Lower Canada, had followed the chain of lakes — Meach, Mousseau, and Philippe — north, to establish a closely-knit farming community in the south-western corner of the Municipality. The south-eastern corner which was adjacent to the Wakefield village settlement, had been occupied at the same time by Thomas Brown, Foster Moncrieff and Joseph Irwin. What was referred to as “the lake settlement” of the Municipality, was at North Masham, and the community developed around Fairbairn (or Reilly's) Lake. The Fairbairns, Reillys, Gibsons, Johnstons, Moncrieffs and O’Haras were farming close to the area of Rupert; the Woods and Pritchards in the Lascelles area; the Moores, Craigs and Mahons further west in the Municipality.

The Maclarens, David and his sons John and James, had come to the area in 1844 from Torbolton. They were well established in Canada, and were in a position to be able to purchase the grist mill near the mouth of the Péche River, which had been built six years previously by William Fairbairn. This Scottish millwright had started farming on land west of the Gatineau just above the rapids at Wakefield.

By 1851 the development of these newly established communities was phenomenal. In Masham Township, a grist mill and a saw mill were functioning, as well as the trades similar to those mentioned in the Wakefield census. The Agricultural Census pointed to an industrious farming community, with individual farms of approximately 100 acres, yielding wheat, barley, peas, potatoes, and carrying small numbers of milk cows, horses, sheep, pigs and a bull or two. By 1861 the population of Masham Township was 1,764; comprised of Church of England 219, Roman Catholic 952, Church of Scotland 9, Free Kirk (Presbyterian) 309, Methodist 26. Almost the entire population of the settlement in North Masham was of Irish descent.

There were many notations of houses of worship in both townships in 1861; in Masham, North Wakefield, and Wakefield, and there were seventeen members of the Church of Scotland, 510 Free Presbyterians, and 374 Methodists living in the immediate area which these Churches served.

What type of people were these, who left a country in famine conditions, to make their way across an ocean, and then to attempt, and succeed to carve a home and eventually a prosperous community from a sometimes inhospitable wilderness? It is apparent that there was no vacuum in the spiritual lives of these men and women who were without benefit of clergy for sixteen years; nor is it likely that it was coincidence that the French Roman Catholics, the Irish Catholics, and the Protestants each made their settlements beside a member of their own faith. Moreover the establishment of these Houses of Worship was not the work of one individual, but was evidence of a community, strong in its endeavour, and united in its people’s desire to serve God and their fellow man.

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The Methodists

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