came to be called) for many years, but with increased numbers in the congregation the time had come to build in a location more convenient for these parishioners. Thomas Millman responded to the need by offering land for church and cemetery at Irishtown. The 1854 D.C.S. report tells of efforts being made to erect a new church, and in the 1855 CC. & S.S. report Mr. Meek writes:

I am thankful that through the kind help of many Charlottetown friends, with Mr. Codner’s additional help, I am getting on with my new church at Irishtown, which is now boarded in, and covered, and shingled, with some of the windows in, and the floor laying.

In the D.C.S. report written about the same time he stated: “I have several times preached in it.” The church was finally opened in March, 1856, although it was not plastered, and had no pulpit, desk, or Communion Table. It was a plain building, forty by twenty-six feet, without chancel, tower or spire. £135 had been raised from Mr. Codner (a Devonshire merchant who founded the Newfoundland School Society), Charlottetown friends, and parishioners.

The community in which the church was built had been known for some years as Irish‘town because of the families who first settled it,—Browns, Murphys, Forrestals, O’Hallorans, Readys, Flynns, Burkes and Costellos. In spite of the Roman Catholic complexion of the neighbourhood the new church held a strategic position between three groups of Anglican settlers in what later

ST. STEPHEN’S CHURCH BURLINGTON

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