St-Joseph's Church

Story

St. Joseph's Parish is a Roman Catholic parish church located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is an Anglophone congregation located very near its partner parish, the Francophone Église Sacré-Cœur.HistoryThe parish was founded in 1856 by missionaries from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The church was built on what was believed to be the resting places of many labourers killed in the construction of the Rideau Canal.In 1828, Lieutenant-Colonel John By granted land (most of toda's Sandy Hill) to one of his lieutenants, René Léonard Besserer. Besserer died in March 1823, and his older brother Louis-Théodore Besserer was his heir. Louis Besserer immediately set to work dividing Sandy Hill into lots, however those lots proved difficult to sell due to the sandy and unproductive land, and the lack of churches, schools and business. By 1845, Besserer transferred six of these lots over to the Roman Catholic Church for them to establish a church and a college. On this land was built the first Saint Joseph's Church, and the re-located College of Ottawa.On 29 August 1856 Saint Joseph's Parish was founded. In 1857, Rev. Damase Dandurand, a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Oblate Order, designed St. Joseph's "near the College in St. George's Ward", which was styled in a "Rustico-Tuscan order". The first church was not consecrated until 19 March 1858. The building was a small traditional stone church with few notable architectural features, other than a clock above the door, and the first church bells in Ottawa. It could seat 230 parishioners on its 92 benches. Following the naming of Ottawa as the capital and the subsequent transfer of a few hundred civil servants to Ottawa, many of those civil servants began to attend Saint Joseph's. As a result of this, it was decided that the church was too small, and in 1866 two transepts were added. Those two transepts added 138 new benches, bringing the total number of benches up to 230. The congregation continued to grow. In 1889, the church's French community built their own church. Despite the building of the Église Sacré-Cœur (which is still standing just across Laurier) and the 100 families that left Saint Joseph's, the old church was still too small for the ever-growing congregation, and on 23 April 1890, the Superior General of the Oblates authorised the preparation of plans for a new church. The last mass was held at the original Saint Joseph's in February 1892.