Place de l'Église

Place de l'Église in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli includes several notable buildings that reflect the parish and community's evolution. The old rectory built in 1779 had become obsolete and beyond repair, so architect Joseph-Ferdinand Peachy designed a new American-style rectory measuring 46 feet long and 34 feet deep, built on the same site in 1872; among the priests who lived there longest were Lachance, Fleury, Morneau, and Bernier, and its interior was renovated in 1966. At 4 place de l'Église, a house built around 1885 as a cheese factory later became associated in turn with a horse trader from Beaverville, Illinois, a senator from Saint-Césaire, a chaplain, a pilot, a hatwoman, the La Paix food cooperative, a canon, and a doctor and his wife, showing the lasting interest surrounding this old house. The Saint-Jean-Port-Joli convent, built in 1903 from plans by architect Charles Bernier, first housed French Sisters of the Congregation of St. Joseph de Saint-Vallier, who taught about a hundred boys and girls under 14 in separate classes; the convent was demolished in 1972 after the new École Saint-Jean was built nearby in 1960, and the congregation's first settlement in Canada ended when the last sister left Saint-Jean-Port-Joli in 2007. The Parish Center was built in 1948-1949 as a recreation center with a theater also used for films, bowling lanes, a library, and rooms for parish organizations such as the Circle of Farmers; later the bowling lanes gave way to a larger library, the theater was renovated for greater versatility, and the building now also houses the municipality's offices and council room.

Quebec · Canada