Scarborough Album

SAINT JOSEPH'S CHURCH, SCARBOROUGH

The first Saint Joseph's Catholic Church was one of many small rural churches established in Ontario during the 1850's to serve the needs of the growing Irish Catholic population which had left Ireland following the great potato famine of 1847. It was the first Roman Catholic church to be built in Scarborough and the fourth in Metropolitan Toronto.

The first Masses were said in local homes from around 1850. In 1854 Rev. Jean Baptiste Proulx, Pastor of Oshawa, began to erect on this site the first church. St. Joseph's, Highland Creek, was a mission church of St. Gregory's, Oshawa, from 1854 until 1860; of St. Francis de Sales, Pickering, 1860-1914; of Saint Augustine's Seminary, Scarborough, 1914-1929; and became an independent parish in 1929.

This plaque was blessed and dedicated by the Most Rev. Aloysius M. Ambrozic, Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto and a former parishioner on Sunday, October 21, 1979, on the occasion of the 125 anniversary of the founding of the church and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the parish.

AN HISTORICAL PLAQUE OF THE ROMAN
CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF TORONTO