Dictionary of Glengarry Biography

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====== Poitras, Joseph-Élie ====== 
 (//fl//. 1896-1899), clergyman. At the request of the French-speaking parishioners of the Parish of St. Finnan’s for a priest of their own language, the first bishop of Alexandria, Fr Alexander Macdonell, obtained the services of Fr Poitras, who was supplied to Alexandria, at Bishop Macdonell’s request, by the archbishop of Montreal in 1896. Three years later, in 1899, Bishop Macdonell had Fr Poitras sent back to Montreal. The historian Robert Choquette has held that Bishop Macdonell secured Fr Poitras’ dismissal because he saw him as involved in the demands of the francophone parishioners for a separate, francophone parish, demands which included an appeal to the Holy See in 1898. Altogether, Fr Poitras was a priest at St. Finnan’s from June 1896 to May 1899. He was succeeded by another francophone priest, Fr Majeau, who in 1904 was also dismissed by the bishop. Fr Poitras was the first French-Canadian priest stationed in Alexandria. The problems of his period of office, and his dismissal, form part of the story leading up to the founding of Sacré-Coeur parish for the francophone population of the Alexandria area.


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<fs small>Choquette 60-63 * //Dictionary of Canadian Biography//, XIII, 627 (in life of Bishop Macdonell) * MacGillivray & Ross 164, 212
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