Residents vow to save Montreal Anglican church from demolition

The future of St. Columba’s Anglican Church in the Montreal neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is threatened by a developer who wants to build seven houses on the property. Two weeks ago, residents signed a register opposing the plan.

If your ancestors attended this church, you may hope the residents win.

Unfortunately, this story is a familiar one in Montreal and likely elsewhere. My Dever ancestors’ Presbyterian church in downtown Montreal was converted into condos and my Young ancestors’ nearby Unitarian church was deliberately set on fire nearly 20 years ago. In the case of the condo project, the exterior has remained pretty much the same.

It is a modern-day challenge. Churches don’t have enough parishioners to survive, and people want the churches to remain.

More details about St. Columba’s and the development project are in the Montreal Gazette article, N.D.G. residents block demolition of former Anglican church.

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4 Responses to Residents vow to save Montreal Anglican church from demolition

  1. Bill Young says:

    I read this post with interest like I do every morning when I open your articles. Today in this post “my YOUNG ancestors” phrase caught my attention. I am related to the JUNG (YOUNG) family that left the Palatine Region in 1710 and moved to the camps along the Hudson River and later to the Mohawk Valley. One of their children was Adam and Catharine (Schremling) Young who lived in the Mohawk Valley at the time of the American Revolution. Adam and his four sons fought for the British with the Butler’s Rangers. I am a descendant of Daniel and Elizabeth (Windecker) Young who was one of Adam’s sons. Unfortunately researching YOUNG descendants is often difficult due to the numerous origins of the surname. I am wondering if you are a descendant of the YOUNG branch I have described? #niagararesearch

    • Gail Dever says:

      Thanks for reading my blog every day and sharing it on social media! You are right about the difficulty in researching a name like Young. (Dever is a lot less diffciult.) My Youngs came from somewhere in Perthshire, Scotland by way of the city of Aberdeen before travelling to Montreal in 1855. It seems they avoided churches, at least the traditional ones, — or their church burned down — because I have only found one baptism record in Scotland.

  2. Bill Young says:

    Thanks for the follow up to my comments. A further question might be, where your Youngs of Scotland some of the Palatines that were allowed off the boats to settle in England in the early 1700s. Later some of these palatines ventured to Canada on a “second” trip.

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