Description
Now known as St. Paul’s Basilica, St. Paul’s Parish Church was established in 1822, on ten acres of land on Queen Street at Power Street. Toronto Roman Catholics had outgrown a small wooden chapel built in about 1807. The first St. Paul’s, of red brick and in the Gothic style, was completed in 1824. At the time, it was the only Catholic parish church between Kingston and Windsor. The burial records reflect this broad coverage. The present church, in Italian Romanesque style, was built in the late 1880s.
This book includes an indexed transcription of the sacramental register 1842–1850, and the official burial register for St. Paul’s Cemetery 1849–1857. Images of the original registers are available though FamilySearch.org for verification. (Records for the first 20 years of St. Paul’s seem not to have survived.) Also included are histories of St. Paul’s and early Roman Catholics in Toronto, a transcription of the memorials in the Basilica, an appendix of burials in the Cathedral crypt and elsewhere, and many illustrations and maps. The index can also be consulted in The Ontario Name Index.
An essential reference for researchers with early Catholics in Ontario.
NOTE: This transcription is also available to current Toronto Branch members, free of charge, on our Members Only pages.
