St-James - Colgan (Ontario) Canada
Posted by: 
oiseau_ca
N 44° 01.574 W 079° 50.792
17T E 592437 N 4875433
a bronze plaque located on the front side of St-James Roman Catholic Church in Colgan(Ontario)Canada
Waymark Code: WMM24K
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 07/06/2014
Views: 5
The inscription on the plaque:
SAINT JAMES, COLGAN 1830
In the 1820's many settlers from Ireland began to pioneer in the Colgan area where a church was soon built to meet the pastoral needs of the increasing number of catholics. Bishop Alexander MacDonell of Kingston in 1830 raised the church at Colgan to parish status in union with St. Patrick's Church, Wildfield, which served as the principal residence of the founding pastor, Father Edward John Gordon. During the 1830's the catholic population around Colgan continued to grow so that after mid-1833 it was assigned a resident priest and became a parish in its own right.
St. James Colgan is the 4th parish to be established in the Toronto Archdiocese and is the mother church of all the parishes established in South Simcoe County and far beyond from King City in the south-east to Owen Sound in the north-west. Along with the neighbouring area in Adjala and Tecumseth townships Colgan became one of the largest concentrations of Irish catholics in the rural parts of the archdiocese and a great source of priestly and religious vocations over the years.
This plaque was blessed and dedicated on Sunday, September 14, 1980 by Most Rev. M. Pearse Lacey, D.D. auxillary Bishop of Toronto.
An Historical Plaque of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto
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