St. Michael the Archangel Parish, Cobourg, ON

Cobourg has the distinction of being the oldest parish in the Deanery of Durham and Northumberland although a church was built at Port Hope in 1825. Under the direction of Bishop Alexander Kernan Macdonell who became the first Bishop of Kingston and Upper Canada in 1826, missionary priests in the persons of Rev. Alexander Kernan, Rev. William Dolan and Rev. Michael Timlin celebrate Mass along the shores of Lake Ontario. In 1837 Father A. Kernan, a native of Galway, Ireland, was appointed to establish a parish with headquarters at Cobourg, his parish extending from Trenton to Oshawa. Calling together the Catholics of the vicinity, he proposed the building of a church to which the meeting unanimously agreed.