| A group
trying to restore a 170 year old church in eastern Ontario has been
repeatedly turned down for funds but the federal and provincial
governments, even though St. Raphael's is linked to the premier of
Ontario. |
| The Ruins of
St. Raphael's, a national historic site about 35 kilometres northeast of
Cornwall, Ont., is an imposing set of stone walls and arches - all that
remains of the first Catholic church in Upper Canada. |
| The church
was handed to a local conservation group after a 1970 fire gutted the
original building and the Friends of the Ruins of St. Raphael's has been
trying for decades to stabilize the structure. |
| In 1999, the
group raised almost $300,000 through private donations and government
funding to stop erosion and water damage to half of the structure, but
group spokesman Ian McLeod says another $500,000 is needed to properly
preserve the site. |
| "Some of
the stones have to be taken out, others have to be completely repointed:
the old mortar taken out and replaced," he said. |
| "Pieces
could start falling off any day... the east wall is deteriorating very
badly." |
| The church
was the centre for the Catholic Church in Ontario and, in its heyday in
the 1840s, claimed more than 6,000 parishioners, including a local
lawyer named John S. Macdonald, who later became the first premier of
Ontario in 1867. |
|
Macdonald's family home lies next to the land on which the church is
built, land his family donated to allow its construction in the
1830's. |
| "The
church and the rectory were built on his land, which he'd donated to the
church, and he's buried just up the road," said Donald McDougald,
the group's historian. |
| "His
home was right at the foot of the hill at St. Raphael's...It's still
there." |
| The Ontario
Heritage Foundation, a provincial Crown agency, holds an easement, a
legal agreement that essentially gives it control over the historic
site, on the property. |
| "But
they haven't paid any money into it or done any work on it," said
McLeod. |
| He said the
site's local; supporters have applied to "every federal and
provincial agency we could think of" for help in restoring the
ruins to a safe condition, but so far without success. |
|
"Unfortunately, we didn't get anything," he said. |
| "We were
told [by one government agency] that we didn't need the money because we
were a very active group. |
| Mr. McDougald
said the majestic stone church deserves to be saved, even in its ruined
state. |
| "This is
our roots in Glengarry County," he said |
| "And the
people of this county played an important role in the development of the
province of Ontario. |
| "This is
a monument, really, to those who helped build this province." |
