Featured
- Get link
- Other Apps
What I Didn't Know: The Baptismal Record of Charles F. Cassidy
- Where was Charles' actual birthplace?
- At which church was he baptized?
- Who were his godparents?
Charles' birth and baptism were recorded in this Catholic sacramental register in 1860, bottom line.1 |
Canada West is shown in pink in this 1855 map, while Canada East is indicated in green.4 |
Lincoln County included the townships of Caistor, Clinton, Gainsborough, Grantham, Grimsby, Louth and Niagara.5 |
St. Catharines' first Catholic church was built to meet the spiritual needs of the Irish builders of the first Welland Canal. It was the first Roman Catholic parish church to be built in the Niagara Peninsula, and opened on 12 November 1831.6
Constructed of wood, it sat on the same site as the present cathedral, and was dedicated to St. John's, as the neighborhood Anglicans were using the name St. Catherine for their church in the town of St. Catharines. Sadly, the original wooden church of St. John's was burned down by an arsonist on 23 August 1842.7
The spire of the Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria is seen on the right. To the left is the convent building. |
As the second Welland Canal was being built between 1842-45 there were once again many Irish laborers in the area. Often there were delays in canal construction and so under the guidance of their pastor the Irish workers used their free time to build a new stone church. It opened on 10 June 1845—just 15 years before Charles was born. This church was dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, as the Anglicans—having also lost their first church to fire—had built their own new church dedicated to St. George.8
Right side of the baptismal register, noting Charles' godparents and attending priest on the bottom line.9 |
Charles' godfather Daniel Cassidy appears on line 30, while his godmother Mary A. Saul is listed in the household of Phillip Cassidy on line 35 in this portion of the 1861 Canada census.11 |
2 Wm. H. Smith, Smith's Canadian Gazeteer (Toronto, Canada: Henry Roswell, 1849), 97; digital images, The Internet Archive (https://bit.ly/38yWNjH : accessed 6 July 2020).
3 Encyclopædia Brittanica (https://bit.ly/38zlVXL : accessed 7 July 2020), "Canada West."
4 Northern America: British, Russian and Danish Possessions in North America. New York: Joseph Colton, 1855; digital image, Wikipedia (https://bit.ly/2O5t8pa : accessed 7 July 2020).
5 County of Lincoln, Province of Ontario (no publication info available); digital image, OntarioGenWeb (https://bit.ly/2Z4Ja92 : accessed 7 July 2020).
6 Rev. Edward Jackman, Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria - Diocese of St. Catharines (https://bit.ly/2ZbtReV : accessed 7 July 2020), "History of Our Parish."
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria (St. Catharines, Ontario), "Baptismal Register, 1860-1906," p. 1.
10 1861 Census of Canada, E.D. 4, Grantham, Lincoln, p. 67 (stamped), Charles F. Casedy; digital images, Ancestry (https://bit.ly/2CgRitT : accessed 5 July 2020); citing Library and Archives Canada; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Census Returns For 1861, Roll C-1048-1049.
11 Ibid.
- Get link
- Other Apps
Comments
Post a Comment