44 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



missionary, wlio did good service in reconciling the Indians to British 

 rule. At a later time, when the Acadian settlements were populous and 

 prosperous, the Abbt* Sig<)gne, a most scholarl}' priest, made for himself 

 an historic name for the fidelity and ability which he showed for nearly 

 fifl}' years in tlie western ))arts i»f the province. 



For some years after the foundation of Halifax, the Jiritish author- 

 ities passed various statutes which prevented Irish or English speaking 

 Roman Catholics from holding titles to land, building churches, or 

 olttainiiig the ministrations of their own derg}', although there was a large 

 number of Irish, nearly all Roman Catholics, living in Halifax. In 1783 

 these obnoxious regulations, chiefly inspired by the Xew England element 

 that so largely prevailed in the province, were repealed, and in 1784 the 

 frame of the tii*st Roman Catholic church was raised in the capital on 

 the site where now rises stately St. Mary's Cathedral, on Spring Garden 

 road, and in 1785 the Reverend James Jones, the tir.st Irish ]iriest in 

 Nova Scotia, was given charge of the parish. Other useful workers in 

 the infancy of the Irish Catholic Church in the peninsula of Nova 

 Scotia were Fathers Power, Grraee, "Whelan, and J. McDonald. The 

 founder of the Trappist Monastery at Tracadie, Father Vincent, was also 

 a prominent worker in those early days. 



The first priest who came to Nova Scotia in connection with the Scotch 

 migration was the Reverend James McDonald, who arrived in Pictou in 

 1791, and laboured there and in other places. Father Angus Bernard 

 Mc Each ran, afterwards bishop of Prince Edward Island, also ministered 

 at a very early date to the spiritual wants of the Roman Catholics of 

 ea.stern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, especially of the Gulf shore. The 

 first Highland Catholic Church in Nova Scotia was St. Margaret's àt 

 Ari.saig, and was begun and built of logs in one day. Father Alexander 

 McDonald — not the vicar-general of the same name at a much later 

 time — became the first regular pastor of St. Margaret's in 1802, and for 

 over twelve years divided with Father McEachran the labour of minister- 

 ing to the religious necessities of the Scotch and h]nglish speaking Catho- 

 lics of the eastern parts of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. In later j^ears 

 the following priests weie the workers : Fathers Gaulin, con,secrated 

 Bishop of Kingston in 1,SH2 ; Thomas Chisholni, Colin Grant, James 

 Grant, William Dollard, afterwards first bishop of New Brunswick ; 

 William Fraser, later a bishop ; William McLeod, Neil McLeod, after- 

 wards vicar-genoral, whom the |)re.sent writer in his boyhood often met 

 at East Bay, and I must add the present venerable parish priest of Syd- 

 ney, Father (^uinan, loved by Protestant and Catholic alike. 



The first missionary lo labour among the Acadians in Cape Breton 

 from 1798 to 1808 was Fathei- Ciabriel Champion who was driven by the 

 revolution from Avranches, in France. Later workers in the same field 

 in Cape Breton were : Fathers Amable Richard, Antoine Manseau, 



