(17 Feb. 1828-8 Sept.1907), clergyman. (J.S. O’Connor) Born at Peterborough, Ont. Parents: Timothy and Julia O’Connor, natives of County Cork, Ireland. He was educated at the public and grammar schools in Peterborough, at Regiopolis College, Kingston, and at the seminary of St. Sulpice, Montreal. His ordination to the priesthood was on 17 Dec. 1853. Thereafter, he was a priest for several years at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Kingston. He was parish priest of St. Columban’s, Cornwall, from 1856 to 1866. In his early years there his relations with some of his parishioners were stormy, but he afterwards presided over the building of the second St. Columban’s Church.

     From Nov. 1866 to June 1879, he was parish priest of St. Finnan’s Church, Alexandria. During these years, he added two wings to the convent in Alexandria, and built St. Stephen’s Chapel for use of the Loch Garry area people. A Total Abstinence Society he established in St. Finnan’s Parish “numbered among its members the great majority of the parishioners.” Founded in 1870 or 1871, this temperance society was certainly in operation by late 1871, at which time he was also reported to be planning to establish a circulating library for the society, and some months into the next year it was reported that the members of the society “exceed 500.” (True Witness 8 Dec. 1871 & 31 May 1872)

     In 1868, Roman Catholic parishioners of Alexandria protested against criticisms of “our Parish Priest and Religion,” which “A Catholic” had published in the Cornwall Freeholder. The critic had complained about the “petty tyranny” of the priest. In a letter of 1874 to the Freeholder (printed also True Witness 10 April 1874), Fr O’Connor protested against what he considered to be the anti-Irish bias of an article in the Freeholder. He stated that since coming to Cornwall almost 18 years earlier, he had “always supported” the Freeholder, and “stood by” John Sandfield Macdonald, and he calls himself “an Irish Catholic, (though a Canadian by the accident of birth.” By the time of this incident the Freeholder, formerly the paper of John Sandfield Macdonald, had come to be published by the ex-premier’s son, Henry Sandfield Macdonald.

     His predecessor at St. Finnan’s was Fr Chisholm, and his successor there was Fr Alexander Macdonell, who was later the first bishop of Alexandria. On leaving Alexandria, Fr O’Connor was parish priest at Perth, Ont., where he again succeeded Fr Chisholm, who had died in 1878. While at Perth, Fr O’Connor received the honour of being made a dean of Kingston Diocese. In 1889 he was transferred to Chesterville, Ont., and in 1899 to Marysville, Ont. where he died. For the years in Alexandria, see also Rev. A. Langcake and Rev. Kenneth Mcdonald.

Cochrane, II, 238 (portrait) * Fobert * Macdonald, St. Finnan’s (QF, portrait) * Sinnsearachd 10-11, 59-60 * Flynn: index * Mrs A. McMenamin, “Loch Garry Chapel,” Glengarry News 31 Aug. 1977 (historical note with photog. of chapel, portrait of Fr O’Connor) * transferred Cornwall to Alexandria, Cornwall Freeholder 23 Nov. 1866, Alexandria to Perth, Witness [not True Witness] 2 July 1879 * complains, True Witness 28 June 1872, that letter in True Witness has slandered him * writes from Perth, Glengarrian 11 Feb. 1887, renewing his subscription to Glengarrian