St. Andrew's United Church
  • Home
  • Welcome to St. Andrew's - See us in action!
  • Sunday School
  • Weddings, Baptisms & Funerals
  • Music
    • Practice Library
  • Renting Our Facilities
  • Support us with a Donation
  • Meetings
  • Pakenham Union Cemetery
    • Pakenham Union Cemetery - General Information
    • Pakenham Union Cemetery - Pricing
    • Pakenham Union Cemetery - Bylaws
  • News Stories / 2023
  • Past News Stories
    • 2022 News
    • 2021 News
    • 2020 News
    • 2019 News
    • 2018 News
    • 2017 News
    • 2016 News
    • 2015 News
  • Learn about our Audio Visual Project
  • Strategic Planning
    • Strategic Planning: Process
    • Strategic Planning: Stage 1 Report
    • Strategic Planning: Focus Groups
    • Strategic Planning: Final Report
  • Every Family Visit
  • Volunteers Making the World Go 'Round
  • Tributes
  • About Us
  • History
  • Obituaries
  • ARCHIVES
Picture

It's All About Connecting and Staying in Touch

Generations since 1820 have come together not only for worship but for fellowship and community. St. Andrew’s has been host and sponsor of pre-school Mission Bands, Playgroups and Sunday School, Youth Groups, Explorers, CGIT, Ladies Aid Societies, Women’s Associations, Women’s Missionary Societies, the United Church Women (UCW) and Study Groups. Decades later the people of our church family still gather at our beautiful building or in our homes to share our faith and stay in touch with the community.

The Congregation

Early area settlers, mainly from Ireland and Scotland, first arrived in the early 1820s. At that time both Methodist and Presbyterian preachers travelled throughout the area holding services for these pioneers in their homes, school houses and even outdoors. By the 1830s a Methodist congregation had been established in Cedar Hill and a Presbyterian congregation in Ramsay. In those days everyone travelled by foot through the backwoods to attend worship in their respective faiths. A Presbyterian church was built in the village in 1838 where visiting ministers led worship. It wasn’t until 1840 when a Kirk Session (the first court of the Presbyterian Church) was formed to procure their own minister for a congregation that became known as St. Andrew’s.

Over the decades several changes in area Presbyterian and Methodist congregations helped to form St. Andrew’s into what it has become today. In 1854, following a dispute between Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, the Pakenham Presbyterians split and formed two separate congregations. It was almost 30 years before the congregations reunited. In 1925, a union between Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists became what is known today as the United Church of Canada. Pakenham’s Methodists and Presbyterians, undoubtedly being visionaries of their time, had actually amalgamated 5 years earlier in 1920. And finally, the Antrim congregation joined St. Andrew’s in 1949, followed by Blakeney in 1968.


The Ministers

Since the very beginning when Rev. Dr. Alexander Mann arrived from Scotland in 1840, St. Andrew’s has been blessed with dedicated ministers. Rev. Mann served the people of St. Andrew’s for 42 years and left a great legacy of records of baptisms and marriages from those early days. These records have been indexed by the Kingston Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society.
Picture
Rev. Dr. Alexander Mann M.A.
The first Minister of St. Andrew's Church.
Rev. Dr. Mann ministered to his Congregation for 42 years from 1840 - 1882.
Picture
Mrs. Rev. Dr. Mann

Photos donated by Mr. J. Gordon Cochrane, Great-great Grandson of Rev. Dr. Mann
By the 1890s, Dalkeith Street was the location of both the Methodist parsonage and the Presbyterian manse. After union in the 1920s the Presbyterian manse was sold and the Methodist parsonage became the home of most succeeding ministers until it too was sold in 2011. Ministers in recent memory included Rev. Harold Davies (1966-1971), Rev. Cecil Dodds (1972 - 1984), Rev. Walter Henry (1984 - 1985), Rev. Tom Lowry (1986 - 1991), Rev. Heather Kinkaid (1991 - 2008) and Rev. Debbie Roi (2008 - 2013). Rev. Camille Lipsett and Rev. Barry Goodwin served as temporary ministers while we awaited the arrival of Rev. Jeff de Jonge in the summer of 2015.
Picture
Front Row - Left to right
Unknown, Alex Tait, James Lindsay, James Connery

Back Row - Left to right
Rev. E. S. Logie (Minister of St. Andrew's at the time of its construction),
Robert Graham, ​Henry Blair

Photo was taken in 1897, shortly after the church was built, and donated by Mrs. Annie M. Steen, Granddaughter of Robert Graham

The Building

Picture
The interior of St. Andrew's Church in 1898 showing some of the 90 electric lights which were a feature of the church.
Photo donated by Edna Ross

The church building went up in 1897, replacing three earlier Presbyterian churches.
The building was based on the Akron Plan which was characterized by a set of wedge-shaped classrooms that radiated from the direction of a central minister's platform. Doors or movable partitions could be closed to separate the classes, or opened to allow the entire body of pupils to participate in school-wide exercises.
​
A clay tile roof was in the original plans in 1897 but was not installed at that time. Following almost a century of roof repairs that tile roof was finally added in 1990. Another major project over the years was the repair and re-leading of the beautiful stained glass windows. An extensive renovation 2009 resulted in the addition of two furnaces and a modern kitchen facility. In 2020 the Dining Hall was renovated, new duct work was installed and an audio visual system, complete with cameras, projector and sound board was installed.

Picture
The final tile / 1990
Picture
One of many stained glass windows
Picture
Kitchen renovation / 2009
Picture
New Audio Visual System

Reminiscences of Ron Turner,
son of Rev. Harold A. Turner BA.BD. who served as
​St. Andrew's minister between 1937 and 1949.

Provided in 2021

It was with great delight that I came across the St. Andrews web site and saw that it is still a thriving entity in the local community. I have not been in the Pakenham area in over thirty years, as I now live near Kingston and am 84 years old.

I would like to share some pictures and information that might be of interest.
I hope you enjoy these glimpses from the past.

Ron Turner 3143 Sydenham Rd, RR 1 Elginburg, ON K0H 1M0 (613-542-5752)

Picture
Picture
Picture
When my dad was the minister in Pakenham, it was a “three point charge”. This meant that dad was the officiating minister of three congregations: Pakenham, Cedar Hill, and Antrim. The Sunday routine involved preaching the 11am service St. Andrew’s in the morning, Cedar Hill at 2pm in the afternoon, and Antrim for the 7pm evening service. This was accomplished by dad hobbling along in his 1934 Chevy coupe, in the war-time years, and moving up to a 1937 Chevrolet sedan in 1945.
​

Picture
The United Church manse in the 1940’s, taken from the steeple of the Catholic Church next door. You can see all the way up to the cemetery. A large woodshed was a part of the building at that time, as wood was a key source of heat. Parishioners such as Webster Maitland brought dad wood logs which he spent hours splitting into fuel for the kitchen stove and furnace where it was augmented with coal.
​

Picture
Picture
In the period after the war, the choir was able to afford gowns for the first time. On the Sunday of their inauguration, dad had with great secrecy purchased a ministerial gown which he wore for the first time to the surprise of the congregation. I still remember people saying, “Oh, look at Mr. Turner!” I have enclosed pictures of dad in his gown at the pulpit. This would have been in 1949, on the eve of our departure to a new appointment in Bowmanville, Ontario. Before the advent of the gowns, dad wore a morning coat as his ministerial garb.
​

Picture
The Turner family just prior to their departure to Bowmanville, Ontario.
Left to right: Norris H. Turner, Rev Harold A Turner, Mrs. Arlie M. Turner (nee Norris), and Ronald (Ron) B Turner.
​

Picture
St. Andrew's in the late 1940s.
Picture
Join us for service Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m.

2585 County Road 29
Pakenham,  Ontario,  Canada

You can reach us by phone: 613-624-5400 or 613-277-5360
and E-mail:  st.andrews.secretary@hotmail.com
Website designed and maintained by: Rhonda Tees