The first-ever Anglican service in Souris was held in 1894 in the home of William Knight. The following year, St Alban the Martyr was constructed on land donated by the Knight family. The first service took place on August 7, 1895. Three ministers, Rev P Crawford of Duke’s Cathedral in Halifax, Rev James Simpson of St Peter’s Cathedral in Charlottetown as well as the Rev Edward T. Woolard, who would become the long-serving pastor of St Alban, conducted the service. By the early years of the 20th Century, the church was a going concern in the growing port community. On October 4, 1908, there were 100 congregants on hand for evening song. As well, fishermen from Newfoundland and sailors would attend services while staying in the town.
The decline of St Alban the Martyr began in the early 1900s. Although the church had a large congregation, constant problems with the building’s furnace, as well as some small fires, meant having to cancel many services.
“The interior of the church was often cold and smoky,” Ms. Bertelsen said. “In 1915, a fire broke out around the furnace pipe. Three years later, the church windows and doors were boarded up and that’s where the register ends.”
Most of the remaining Anglican families in the town assimilated into the local Roman Catholic and United Churches. A new chapter in the long history of St Alban the Martyr kicked off in 1975 when Canon Robert Tuck, an Anglican priest who had moved to PEI with his family from Nova Scotia, took an interest in starting a mission in Souris. For 57 years, there had been no Anglican church in the town. In the mid-1970s, the Anglicans in the community began having some regular services once again. Concerning his current state, Canon Tuck was unable to be interviewed for this story. His son, Allan Tuck, who lives in Charlottetown, said that in the mid-1970s, the only Anglican congregation in Kings County was Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown.
“My father envisioned having a small church building constructed in Souris near the site of the original St Alban church,” Mr Tuck said. “He had the prefabricated parts of St Alban’s constructed in the basement of Holy Trinity. Those parts were when transported to Souris in 1980 on a flatbed truck.”
From Island Press Limited