Caughnawaga Presbytery National Historic Site of Canada

The Caughnawaga Presbytery was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1969 because:

• it is the oldest surviving building at the Caughnawaga mission and parts of it may have been constructed before 1733;
• it is a fine and rare surviving example of the steep-pitch hip-roofed houses common in Quebec in the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Jesuit missionaries founded the Mission of Caughnawaga at the French colony of La Prairie in 1667 to minister to Iroquois Christians. Nonetheless, it was displaced several times before coming to rest in Kahnawake. The Presbytery is one of the main components of the complex, and exemplifies architecture common in the province of Quebec in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The importance of the presbytery is demonstrated in the good quality of craftsmanship, which is evident in the interior and exterior detailing of the structure. The Presbytery consists of two large, one-and-a-half-storey high stone buildings: the original presbytery, with a shingled gable roof, and the West House adjoining the south end of the residence. The semi-circular panel-heads of its doors is unique to early Canadian houses.

The original presbytery, the larger of the two buildings, has on the north elevation a glazed verandah with simple square posts and fretwork brackets at the top. The original presbytery is a simple rectangle of four bays, with a doorway to either end, and two widows between each with a pair of twelve paned casements. A steeply pitched hipped roof, covered in wood shingles, tops it. There are four dormers to the north, two to the east, one to the west, and three to the south. The lone chimneystack, made of brick, lies at the west end. The West House, sometimes referred to as the Officers’ House Mess, is one-and-a-half storeys, and abuts the original presbytery on its southern wall. The steeply pitched roof adorns a gable wall of stone to the north, the side that adjoins the original presbytery.