Holding faith dear to their hearts, settlers in the region constructed places of worship, from small cabins to majestic buildings. Before Confederation was in the works, and before Kingston was incorporated as a city, the cornerstone was laid for St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1843.
In the early 1890s, architects of the exquisite church at Johnson and Clergy Streets added the high tower and spires that stretch above the cityscape, making St. Mary’s a beacon, that called to the Catholic faithful. As the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Upper Canada in the early 1800s, Alexander Macdonell oversaw a vast diocese.
For about a decade, the bishop travelled to congregations from Lake Superior in the west to the Quebec border in the east. Macdonell “laid the foundation of his church in Upper Canada, going by canoe, on horseback and sometimes on foot,” writes Margaret Angus in The Old Stones of Kingston: The Buildings Before 1867 (University of Toronto Press, 1966). Granted permission to hold services at St.
George’s Anglican Church, Bishop Macdonell then held mass at St. Joseph’s Cathedral. At the same time, he made plans for a new church.
His successor, Bishop Remi Gaulin, began planning in 1842, starting with the appointment of Father Patrick Dollard to direct the project. The Irish missionary was familiar with Kingston, arriving from Montreal in 1836 to assist Macdonell at St. Joseph’s Cathedral.
As project manager, “Dollard raised the necessary funds by subscription in Kin.