For this blog site, I have photographed a number of churches that have been designated heritage or that have historical plaques associated with them. With all the others that I have photographed the church that stands in place is almost always the second or in some cases the third church structure built on the site, where first a log structure had been built as the first church and it has been demolished either to make way for the new one or because the new one made the log structure no longer necessary. This is the first church structure I have photographed and it may be the only one remaining in Ontario that is the first log structure built as a church. It was originally known as Indian Lands Congregational Church.
This log structure, completed in 1837, is the oldest remaining chapel in Ontario built by Congregationalists. Its first minister, the Reverend William McKillican (1776-1849), emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1816, and settled in Glengarry the following year. Here, in 1823, he established one of the earliest congregations of his denomination in Upper Canada and ministered throughout the surrounding region. He was succeeded by his son, John (1824-1911), who first preached in this chapel in 1850, and was ordained her the following year. During the next sixty years local attendance diminished, and by about 1912 the building fell into disuse. In 1920 it was sold to the nearby Gordon Presbyterian Church
The plaque in these pictures commemorates Sir Edward Robert Peacock and is detailed in another post on this blog site.
