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The First Church in Saint-Jérôme

Sepia-tone photograph of the first Church in Saint-Jérôme. The church is built of fieldstone, as is the charnel house, visible to the right. Also seen at right are a number of small farm structures. A wooden sidewalk borders the dirt road in the foreground.

Photographer: Unknown
Date: Before 1897
Source: Société d’histoire de la Rivière-du-Nord, Mgr Paul Labelle Fonds
Classification mark: P012,S04,D10,P04

Saint-Jérôme’s first Catholic church was built between 1837 and 1839 on land donated by the local seigneur, Eustache-Nicolas Lambert Dumont, facing the Rivière du Nord (the location is today the western side of Parc Labelle). To the right stood the presbytery and a few outbuildings, including a barn and henhouse; on the left was the Sœurs de Sainte-Anne convent. Curé Labelle welcomed his parishioners to this church from 1868 to 1891. Finding it cramped, the visionary priest dreamed of a larger church or even a cathedral for Saint-Jérôme. The project would not come to fruition in his lifetime, and it was left to Labelle’s successor, Curé Lafortune, to oversee construction of a new parish church. The original house of worship was torn down in 1902.