Napier Decoration Day Service

Please join us for the annual Decoration Day Service at St. Mary’s Anglican Church – Napier, Ontario on June 23, 2024 at 3 pm. 

St. Mary’s Anglican Church Napier – 1418 Melwood Drive, Strathroy, ON  N7G 3H5.

The following history is an excerpt from an old service bulletin and the author is unknown. 

This church has been standing straight, fine and true for over one hundred and eighty years.  It stands as a testament to the faith of those who built it, those who came to regular services, and to those who worked over the years to keep their church alive and active.  But it is a symbol, not primarily of their strength and perseverance, but of the presence of God in their midst.

The first settler in this general area was Captain John Charlton in 1825.  In 1829, Richard, Thomas, and Christopher Moyle and their families and Captain Christopher Beer established residences along the river in the Napier area.  In 1831, Lieutenant Charles Preston and his family came from Cornwall in Upper Canada.  Preston had been granted 100 acres when he commuted his pension for land.  They settled on this property where St. Mary’s Church stands.

The first church services were held in Captain Christopher Beer’s house.  Captain Beer’s rank gave him the privilege of conducting the first church services and first burials in the community.  After the congregation became too large, they moved to the home of Captain Johnson.  When the congregation became too large for his house, a school was built on this property in 1839 and used for church services.  The log school was built on one acre of land donated by Charles Preston for a church and a cemetery.  Preston also gave three acres of land for a rectory. 

In 1841, the residents of the community sent a petition to the Bishop of Toronto requesting permission and assistance to build a church. The petitioners declared themselves to be generally poor and unable to pay for a frame church to be built but the increase in the congregation was such that the school was no longer large enough. Captain Beer had prepared some walnut lumber to use in building a new house.  However, when the news came that a church could be built, he donated this lumber to the church and postponed construction of his own home.  This gift, which represented a considerable sacrifice, was well used; the walnut was worked into pews, wainscotting and the chancel.  It still stands here as a memorial to a man who loved his church and community.

In 1860, the church and cemetery were consecrated by the Right Reverend Benjamin Cronyn, the Bishop of Huron and the church officially received the name “St. Mary”.  In Ireland, the Cronyn’s had attended St. Mary’s Church Kilkenny.  This name linked the new land with the old.

The last regular weekly service was held on January 29, 1920 and annual services were initiated in the early 1930’s.  We must be grateful to the residents of this area and especially to the Toohill family for their loving care of St. Mary’s Church.  It is thanks to them that this oldest church building in Middlesex County still exists.