St. Raphael's Ruins, Williamstown, ON

St Raphael's is situated in the former Charlottenburgh Township, now South Glengarry on the seventh concession back from the St Lawrence River. Commenced by Alexander Macdonell, vicar general and future Roman Catholic Bishop of Upper Canada, this large stone church served a congregation of Gaelic- speaking Catholic Highlanders who had settled in the easternmost county of Upper Canada in 1786. For a time St Raphael's function as the administrative centre of the Roman Catholic Church in Upper Canada and today is recognized as the founding church for the Anglophone Catholics of the province.
The church was constructed during a period when the province was still under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec, a state of affairs which continued until 1826, when the dioceses was divided and Macdonell became the first Bishop of Kingston (Upper Canada). Evidence of this transitional period in Church history is preserved by Macdonell's plan for St Raphael's, which resembles the cruciform design developed by Abbe Pierre Conefroy and popular in Lower Canada from 1812 to 1830.