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From "a region in the valley and shadow of death"1 to National Capital Religion and the Construction of Place During the Early Years of Ottawa Vicki Bennett Introduction Religious tradition of one sort or another has almost certainly been practiced in the Ottawa area since the arrivalof the first humans. However, they left few,if any, imprints on the landscape, and the first places ofworship inthe National Capital Region are impossible to identify. This paper will introduce a sampling of some of the very diverse priorities, challenges and discussions that surrounded the question of church-building during the nineteenth century in the National Capital Region. Settlement From the opening decades of the nineteenth century, the Ottawa region was settled by a variety of people of diverse linguistic, political, cultural and religious traditions. During the early decades, permanent settlers, including "late Loyalists,"began to trudge northwardinto the Ottawa area. Some were members of the Church of England, known also today as "Anglicans". Many Anglican Loyalists identified themselves as"Episcopalians,"aterm more acceptable inthe former American colonies than "Church of England." Others were Presbyterians,2 Methodists, Baptists or Congregationalists. This last group included Rev. Ezar Meech to whom the lake and would-be constitutional accord owe their name.3 From the 1820s and 1830s onwards, Roman Catholics began to appear in greater numbers, although they came from Quebec, not the former American colonies.4 The Ottawa area was seen by French Canadian religious leaders as a more desirable alternative for resettlement by young French families than emigration to the United States, where they risked losing not only their culture, but their language, and,with it, their faith. Early Irish settlers of various religious persuasions had found their way to Central Canada by the mid-1820s and their numbers increased steadily duringthe Irish famine years.5 These first immigrationswere to lay the foundation for much of the religious composition of the National Capital Region for the rest of the nineteenth century.Toaccommodate their needs and to solicit confessionalcommitment, small numbers of ministers, priests and preachers of various religious persuasions struggled to cover the enormous distances of their missions.6 Many of the new settlers from the British Isles were Wesleyan Methodists. While their religious affiliation may not have been the British Government's first choice, they were tacitly considered to be more desirable than Episcopal Methodists. The differences were essentially political, as both Wesleyan and Episcopal Methodists traced their origins to the teachings of John 85 Construire une capitale - Ottawa - Making a Capital and Charles Wesley. However, during the early decades of the nineteenth century, Wesleyan Methodists turned to England for spiritual guidance while Episcopal Methodists usually looked south of the border. As a consequence of their continued affiliation with coreligionists in the newly united American states, Episcopal Methodists were regularly considered to be of dubious political loyalty. This conviction was particularly strong among those who had lived through the War of 1812 and the resettled veterans of the Napoleonic Wars who remembered American support for France. This anti-Americanism was effectively exploited by some members of rival religious groups (notably by the Church of England) asjustification for anti-Methodist sentiment. While many early settlers may have thought church-building to be a worthy undertaking, gathering the necessary resources was not easy. This was especially true during the first half of the century as the realities of pioneer life occasionally demanded co-operation between people who, for reasons of denominational mistrust or prejudice, might in other circumstances have chosen to have little to do with each other. Since the desire to worship as a community was strong, settlers occasionally pooled their finite resources to build a modest house of prayer. Known as "Union Chapels," these were once widely used in the National Capital Region. Most have disappeared leaving only the faintest archival traces. A notable exception, in that a good photograph and other archival documentation have survived, is a stone chapel that was built through the collective efforts of local Methodists, Anglicans and Presbyterians in Bells Corners. Despite their efforts, a visiting English journalist spitefully denounced the chapel. We believe that it is only in this Continent that such anomalous structures have existence. A union church, for such readers as may never have had an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with these excesses on modern Christianity, is a building subscribed for and raised by different denominations. Each party being too poor, or...too stingy...to contribute sufficient funds for a place of...

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