Rev. E.F. Wilson travelled to Lake Nipigon in 1878 to meet with the people of Chief Manitoshens and to begin planning the establishment of the Neepigon Mission and the First St. Mary's Anglican Church. St Mary the Virgin Anglican Church (Nipigon, Ont.) was constructed in 1888 under the oversight of Rev. Robert Renison, the first resident missionary. The first Neepigon Mission Church was located on Lake Nipigon at McIntyre Bay. Local residents initially raised $250 for the construction; additional help was given by visitors and tourists to the area, allowing the debt to be paid off in two years (although the painting of the church was incomplete). Despite the Bishop of Algoma being unable to visit until June of 1890, the church was consecrated January 1890.
St. Mary's is the mother church of the current Anglican Parish of Nipigon Bay; the church is located on the same area of land that was used by resident missionaries who originally arrived in 1872. When built, this church was equipped with a bell and an organ. However, the bell tower was later struck by lightening, and the bell is now mounted to a pedestal outside of the church.
Incumbents of St. Mary's Anglican Church (Nipigon, Ont.) include Robert Renison (1880-1894), Benjamin Philip Fuller (1902-1909), Leslie Adler Todd (1911-1912), Percy Frank Bull (1912-?), William Coombe Dunn (1918-1923), Stephen Turner (1923-1927), Alfred Joseph Bull (1927-1928), Frederick Elmer Jewell (1929-1930), E. H. Burridge [layman studying for Holy Orders (1931), D. D. MacQueen (1932), Albert Ernest Cardling (1933-1938), Napoleon Henry (1937), Tom Cann (1938-1943), Arthur Preston Scott (1944), Alfred Joseph Bull (1944-1946), Charles Frederick Large (1946-1951), Kenneth George Rutter (1951-1952), William Draper (1952-1954), Hector George Collingwood Bousefield (1954-1957), Alfred Gustav Reimers (1957-1961), Graham Kenneth Gibbs (1961-1966), Reginald John Seymour Inshaw (1967-1974), George Quibell (1974-1977), Timothy Delaney (1978-1981), Michael Scott McCarthy (1981-1984), Guy S. Snell (1984-1988), Lawrence Harold Winslow (1988-1991), Elliott A. Sheppard (1992-).
Sources:
- St. Mary's Anglican Church web site, http://stmarysanglicanchurchnipigon.com/HistStMarys.htm [accessed July 19, 2013].
- "Anglican Parish of Nipigon Historical Highlights", Diocesan History of St. Mary's in Nipigon, 1990-1992, Diocesan Heritage Centre History Files Collection, File 2013-078/007(005), Algoma University Archives.
