Catholic priests probably visited the Niagara area from 1783 onwards, largely because the British Army units included many Catholic Irish and Highland Scots, but there were no parishes.

   The entire area was within the Bishopric of Quebec, even after the establishment of Upper Canada in 1791. On December 30, 1820 the Rev. Alexander MacDonnell of Kingston was appointed by Quebec to be Vicar Apostolic for all of Upper Canada. He designated a Fr. Connor to service Niagara and the Head of the Lake. Fr. Connor is said to have visited Dundas occasionally and to have said Mass and performed marriages and baptisms in private homes.

Early sketch of Dundas, Ontario with St. Augustine’s prominent steeple in the background left of centre. - author unknown

In 1826 Kingston was established as the first bishopric in Upper Canada, with Rev. MacDonnell as Bishop. In the following winter he made a long reconnaissance of his diocese, as far as present Windsor and the Lake Huron shore. To help organize his vast diocese he set up a mission parish in Dundas, with Father James Campion, who was then the military chaplain at Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake), as Apostolic Missionary.

   Father Campion built a small wooden (log?) chapel, probably towards the Hatt Street end of Memorial Square. His parish, if we may call it that, was immense, when one considers that he had to move around by horseback or horse-and-wagon. The records for his first year indicated 9 baptisms in Dundas, 4 in Guelph, and 21 in the Scottish Thomas Talbot Tract along the Talbot Road (now highway 3), including 8 in St. Thomas and 7 in Port Talbot. In the next year, 1828, he covered the same areas and Niagara, and had 21 baptisms in Guelph alone.In 1827, the same year that Father Campion built the chapel in Dundas, the parish of the Church of Our Lady was established in Guelph. For some ten years the priest in Dundas referred to himself as the pastor of the parish churches of Dundas and Guelph. In those earliest years Guelph appears to have been the larger of the two towns. The pastor shuttled back and forth between the two, as well as making the necessary extended trips. Father Campion remained the roving chaplain until the middle of 1830 when he handed over the exhausting task to Fr. John Cullen.

In 1831 the Dundas pastor was still servicing Dundas, Guelph and Waterloo, London and St. Thomas, and Niagara as far as Chippawa and Gravelly Bay (Port Colborne). However, after 1831 the London area drops out of the records; presumably a chaplain was appointed there.

One year later Niagara dropped out, presumably with its own chaplain-pastor. Father Cullen lasted only two years, but is claimed to have been the first priest to have resided in Dundas.

This is hard to believe because, given their incessant travelling, the priests must have had some sort of residence in the places they visited frequently. Also in 1831 a cemetery was opened above the north end of Market Street; it was closed in 1896.

She is reported to have attended the official opening of this church, riding in a lumber wagon. A regular wagon service was set up at Queen Street in Hamilton to carry worshipers to the new St. Augustine's in Dundas. Lady MacNab is said to have attended faithfully.

The only drawing of the church seems to be a lithograph of the town in 1848, which shows a church oriented north-south, with a square-topped "steeple" at its north (King Street) end, and with four tall, narrow windows along the side of the nave.             

Descriptions of the time inform us that it was constructed of wood, as was the notable steeple (which resembled closely the tower of the present church). Later it was crowded by the new Elgin Hotel, as the lithograph shows.

Like his predecessors and successors Father Cassidy was Irish. One of the more interesting aspects of the records is the attempts made by the priests to record names. They obviously wrote them phonetically, so that even for the Irish names there were frequent variations in spelling. At times the last name of an infant was spelled differently than that of its father. But that was minor compared to what happened to French or worse yet, German names. Anyone wishing to trace genealogies should beware! Once in Waterloo the Rev. Cassidy just listed the parents as "German parents" and the sponsors as "German sponsors.

In early 1838 the partnership with Guelph was ended as Rev. Thomas Gilbey became the pastor for Guelph and Waterloo.

By now Hamilton was growing more rapidly than Dundas; Fr. Cassidy was listing his parish as Dundas and Hamilton. He occasionally said Mass on King William Street in Hamilton.  In 1838 there were 17 baptisms in Dundas, but 51 in Hamilton. At the end of that year the two were separated and Hamilton gained its own parish, St. Mary's.  Dundas was now for a short time responsible for the Grand River Valley, notably Brantford, Indiana, and Cayuga, all busy places on the new Grand River Canal.

There were four significant events in the 1840's.  In 1841 Toronto was established as a new diocese and Dundas was within its territory; the bishop was now close by.

In May 1846 Lady MacNab died, thus removing a major friend.

The most important event though was the arrival Rev. John O'Reilly, who I am tempted to call O'Reilly the Great, in 1847; he served as pastor for a crucial 37 years until 1884.

Also in 1840 a new parish was established in Brantford to service the Grand River Valley.

To "compensate" for the loss of the Valley, Dundas had been given the responsibility of meeting the spiritual needs of the Trafalgar - Streetsville - Georgetown - Milton - Oakville area; this lasted into the mid 1850s.

Soon after he arrived Father O'Reilly purchased the present site of the church, and began formulating plans for the building of a new, much larger St. Augustine's.

However priority had to be given to the erection of a school for the Catholic children. This, the first separate school in the Hamilton Diocese, was completed on the new site in 1857.

The new Hamilton Diocese was established in 1856 and it is likely that the new Bishop Farrell had advised Father O'Reilly that since he already had a functioning church, the school should be built first.  (That original stone school building now forms the oldest part of the rectory; within a few years the school was moved to its present location.)

The original School completed in 1857 forms part of the modern Rectory today

At first the church lacked the imposing bell tower, but this was added soon, and the bell, built in West Troy, N.Y., and dedicated to Michael the Archangel, was blessed and installed in 1876.

The stained glass windows were added over a period of at least 50 years. One of the earliest honoured Fr. O'Reilly and was probably installed soon after 1884. Most of the windows are undated but we know that the Gethsemane Window was installed (to the memory of Mrs. Knapman) in 1911.

The beautiful Stations of the Cross were painted by "Provenance" in Paris, France sometime around 1870.

Steam heat was mentioned early, and was improved around 1917. Reputedly the boiler was taken from an old lake steamboat. This heating system remained operative, despite a number of major problems, until 1996.

Electricity had been added by 1917 as well.

There have been many renovations and repaintings:

1883, when the pews were installed, 1911, 1917, 1946, 1963, 1978, when the Parish Centre was added (by Fr. Murphy), 1983, when the organ was rebuilt,

The roof was replaced in 1988 by Fr. Synnott.  The Stations of the Cross were cleaned and restored in 1993- 94.

The original altar piece (reredo) was in Gothic style with three points, the two exterior of which are said to have borne statues of evangelists. Much to the chagrin of many parishioners, this altar piece was removed in 1945 by Father Gehl, who had a broad gold and red curtain hanging from a horizontal baldacchino, installed in its place.

Father Gehl also introduced a "Rood": a beam extended across the entrance to the sanctuary, at the bottom of the Gothic arch. Rising above the beam were the large crucifix and the figures of Mary and John.  The Rood was removed by Msgr. Kehoe around 1960, and the gold curtain replaced by a red curtain hanging from a large 5-sided baldacchino.

Perhaps the most dramatic alterations occurred as a consequence of the Second Vatican Council with a replacement of the altar and a reorientation of the sanctuary. The backdrop became a narrow blue curtain, topped by a circular, pointed tent-like baldacchino. There had also been at least two side altars to be used during those years before Vatican II when the parish had 3 or more priests, and concelebration was almost unknown. These also have been removed.

When I look at this church I marvel that a small congregation, most of them poor labourers, could have erected such a fine, large example of Gothic Revival. Granted the costs were kept down by not having a basement. Further, old-timers mention that there was a large debt. But still, how did they pay for it? and have it erected in less than a year?  It is obvious that they built well.

Probably the most famous parishioner was the late Bishop Joseph Francis Ryan who was baptized in St. Augustine's.

PASTORS

Rev. James Campion 1827-29

Rev. John Cullen 1829-32

Rev. John Cassidy 1832-38

Rev. John Fox 1839-40

Rev. M.R. Mills 1840-42

Rev. James O'Flynn 1842-45

Rev. Patrick O'Dwyer 1846-47

V.Rev. John O'Reilly 1847-84

Rev. John Keough 1885-89

Rt. Rev. Edward Heenan 1889-1908

Rt. Rev. E. Laussie 1908-09

Rev. J.J. Feeney 1909-21

Rt. Rev. J.P. Kelly 1921-30

Rt. Rev. William C. Gehl 1930-49

Rt. Rev. F.J. McHugh 1949-55

Rt. Rev. Francis P. Kehoe 1955-76

Rev. John J. Murphy 1976-88

Rev. Ronald J. Synnott 1988-96

Rev. James A. Curtin 1996-

Copyright by St. Augustine’s Parish, Dundas Ontario, November 9,1997 and updated August 1, 2001

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