BOB HARVEY, "ONTARIO'S CRADLES OF CHRISTIANITY: NOT FAR FROM OTTAWA IN THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER VALLEY, STONE CHURCHES AND GRAVESTONES THAT DATE BACK 200 YEARS STANDS AS 'TRIBUTE TO THE INCREDIBLE ENDURANCE AND FAITH' OF UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS AND SCOTS," OTTAWA CITIZEN  (JUNE 23, 2002).

Copyright Ottawa Citizen 2002

Outside St. Andrew's United Church in Williamstown, there is a small and poignant sculpture of a man kneeling in prayer beside his saddled horse. The inscription reads simply "Arrival UEL 1782."

It is a reminder of the struggles of the United Empire Loyalists, and the peace they found here in their settlements along the Raisin River, and in their churches, the cradles of many of Ontario's present Christian denominations.

St. Andrews was the province's first Presbyterian church, and within 20 kilometres of it are also the spectacular ruins of St. Raphael's, the administrative centre of Catholicism in Upper Canada, and Ontario's oldest surviving stone church at St. Andrews West.

These churches and some of the homes and graves of early settlers like explorers David Thompson and Simon Fraser can still be revisited in an easy Sunday drive through the back roads north and east of Cornwall. A little further west and north along the St. Lawrence, near Prescott and Morrisburg, other Loyalists would found the province's first Methodist and Lutheran churches. The area is a treasure trove of historical sites.

Scottish Presbyterians founded St. Andrews in 1787, and began construction of the current fieldstone church in 1812. Its bell was donated by another Loyalist: Alexander Mackenzie, the first European to cross North America by land. The church has been part of the United Church of Canada since 1925, and the bell still rings every Sunday for a congregation much diminished from the 800 it once held.

Its first minister, Rev. John Bethune, established churches in Lancaster, Summerstown, Martintown and Cornwall as well, and travelled miles on a typical Sunday to deliver up to five sermons a day. Like so many of the early Loyalist settlers, Rev. Bethune had spent time in an American prison before fleeing to Canada.

He was the father of Presbyterianism in Ontario and also the great-great grandfather of Dr. Norman Bethune, famed for his work in China more than a century later.

The stories of other members of St. Andrews are told on the gravestones in the cemetery behind the church. There are veterans of the War of 1812-1814, and the First World War, and notables like Duncan McMartin, one of the original discoverers of one of Canada's richest gold mines, the Hollinger and Allied mines in Ontario's Porcupine district.

When Rev. Bethune died in 1815, his widow sold their Williamstown house to David Thompson, the explorer who mapped much of Western Canada. Thompson later wrote that the 20 years he spent here while defining and charting the official boundary between the U.S. and Ontario were the happiest years of his life.

The first settlers in Williamstown were Gaelic-speaking Scots, both Catholic and Protestant, who had fled poverty in the Highlands to take up land in the Mohawk Valley of New York State in 1773. When the American Revolution broke out, they fled through the Adirondacks to Montreal with their landlord, Sir John Johnson, and formed the Loyalist Kings Royal Regiment. At the end of the war in 1784, up to 1,000 of these soldiers and their dependents took up land in what are now the townships of Lancaster, Charlottenburgh, Cornwall, Osnabruck and Williamsburg, in the Counties of Glengarry, Stormont and Dundas.

Later waves of emigration brought in more Gaelic-speaking Scots, including an impoverished group of 520 who came from Knoydart, Scotland, in 1786 with their priest, Rev. Alexander Macdonell of Scotus. Most of them were also named Macdonell and they endured a 61- day voyage to the New World before arriving in Quebec City Aug. 31.

The British commander-in-chief, Gen. Henry Hope, was so concerned by what he called their "very destitute and hopeless situation" that he provided them with weekly rations to last them through the winter: 41/2 pounds of potatoes per adult, plus 11/2 pounds of fish, 31/2 pounds of flour and two pounds of beef. And the emigrants were to repay this by 1789.

They left Quebec City on Sept. 3. The men walked while the women and children made their way to Montreal in batteaux, and finally arrived in Glengarry County in October, barely in time to fell trees and put up primitive log cabins before the snow fell. Other waves of Highlanders would later follow them.

These Knoydart Scots were driven from their homes by vastly increased rents, and became the founders of St. Raphael's, one of the province's first Catholic parishes. The parish's second priest, another Rev. Alexander Macdonell, would later become bishop of all of what is now Ontario, and found the province's first Catholic seminary at St. Raphael's.

Bishop Macdonell arrived in Canada in 1804 with the men of the disbanded Glengarry Fencibles, a unique Highland Catholic regiment that he formed during the Napoleonic War as part of the British army, which was officially Protestant. He was appointed bishop in 1807 and became the most important Catholic leader in early Ontario. From the time of his arrival until 1832, he rarely travelled less than 3,200 kilometres a year, by foot, horse or canoe.

Bishop Macdonell also launched the construction in 1815 of a church big enough to serve the 6,000 Catholics between the Quebec border and the St. Lawrence River. The massive stone church served the community until it burned down in 1970.

Joan MacDonald is a volunteer in the Williamstown Museum, and lives with her husband Coleman on a nearby farm that has been in his Loyalist family since 1784. She is also on the board of the Friends of St. Raphael's, which is in charge of preserving the ruins of St. Raphael's. This citizens group was formed after the township of Charlottenburgh considered tearing down the ruins because they were no longer safe, and has since raised $640,000 to stabilize the ruins.

They have sold T-shirts and CDs, sponsored golf tournaments, and applied for government grants, and another $350,000 is still needed. Why do they work so hard to preserve a ruin?

"It is a wonderful historic monument, a tribute to the incredible endurance and faith of the people who came to Canada, and are probably your ancestors and mine," said Mrs. MacDonald.

When she looks out her window in the winter, she thinks of the settlers who survived the harsh winters in small cabins with no central heating. "They had to be people with a strong will and a strong faith to survive that, in hopes of a life with freedom."

Just 23 kilometres from the ruins of St. Raphael's is the oldest surviving stone church in the province, completed in 1801 at St. Andrews West. The parish history notes that it was also the first Scottish Catholic church since 1560 that had been built to look like a church. Until 1793, it was still illegal in Scotland even to attend a Catholic service, and the few Catholic chapels were small, remote and deliberately built to look like anything but a church.

That early church was used as a hospital during the 1812-14 war, and today is a parish hall, dwarfed by the towering "new" church next door, which was completed in 1860.

In the church's graveyard are the graves of more than one notable. Simon Fraser, the explorer who first followed what is now the Fraser River to the Pacific, retired from the Northwest Company in 1818 to open a saw mill and grist mill near the village of St. Andrews West. He died at the age of 86, and his wife, Catherine MacDonell, died within a day of him in 1862. There is some evidence they had become so poor because of a financial crash, injuries, and a fire at the mills, that they starved to death. Fraser's accomplishments are remembered in his gravestone, erected by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1921.

Others buried here include John Sandfield MacDonald, the first premier of Ontario, and Cariboo (John) Cameron, a Glengarry boy who struck it rich in 1862 during the Cariboo gold rush in B.C. He was a distant relative of the present parish priest, Rev. Bernard Cameron; both are descendants of the Loyalist followers of Sir John Johnson.

"Highland blood still runs in the blood of many of the families here," says Father Cameron.

The Scottish settlers of the area came to Canada to escape the poverty brought on by clearance of tenant farmers from the Highlands to make way for sheep. The Catholics among them also wanted to escape the discrimination and persecution they experienced in Scotland.

According to one estimate, there were only 25,000 Catholics left in Scotland in 1780. And many of those ended up in Canada. By 1806, the population of Glengarry, Stormont and Prescott was already estimated at 10,000, and Gaelic was becoming the third most spoken language in Canada.

In Canada, there was little conflict between the Catholic and Protestant Scots of Glengarry County. There were some of each in the Highland clans that were still their main social unit, and Protestants as well as Catholics contributed to the building of the first stone church at St. Andrew's West.

Sources: A History of Glengarry, by Royce MacGillivray and Ewan Ross; The People of Glengarry, by Marianne McLean; Bowering's Guide to Eastern Ontario: The King's Men, by Mary Beacock Fryer.

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History Tour - How to Get There

The history tour begins in St. Andrew's West, on Hwy 138, about 130 kilometres from Ottawa.

- To get there, drive about 100 kilometres east from Ottawa on Hwy 417, then 30 kilometres south towards Cornwall on Hwy 138 to

St. Andrews, about six kilometres before Cornwall. From St. Andrews West Church, cross Hwy 138, and pause here long enough to look at the old stone building on your left. It was built for John Sandfield Macdonald in 1865 as an inn and tavern drive.

- Then drive 23 kilometres northeast along the area's oldest road, Regional Road 18, through Martinstown to St. Raphael's.

- After eyeing the ruins and the cemetery behind it, and perhaps sharing a picnic amid the stones, head back the way you came along #18, and then turn left (south) on Regional Road #20 to Williamstown, a total of just 10 kilometres from St. Raphael's. The Thompson-Bethune House in Williamstown is open to visitors every Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m., and the nearby Norwesters and Loyalist Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The manor house of Sir John Johnson, a national historic site, is also located in Williamstown, but is not open to tourists.

- The fastest way home from Williamstown is to retrace your steps, but there are many alternative routes back to Ottawa.