History - L'Histoire

In 1776-1778 the loyalist Highlanders of New York State moved to Canada.  They were accompanied by Father John McKenna, first Catholic Chaplain for the British forces.  He led them to Johnstown in 1773.

Father Edmund Burke, later Vicar Apostolic to Nova Scotia, was appointed chaplain of the soldiers at Niagara in 1798 and thus was the second chaplain in Canadian annals.

ALEXANDER MACDONNELL (1762-1840), third Catholic Chaplain and apparently the first to serve in a Canadian Regiment  with the Glengarry Fencibles during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.   In the War of 1812-14, he was instrumental in rasing the Glengarry Infantry Fencibles with which he served in fourteen engagements.  

He became the first bishop of Kingston, ON (Upper Canada)