This Protestant church, built in 1856, was originally located near the Chemin des Anglais and was nicknamed “The Methodist Church of Mascouche-Rapids". The building is the work of the seven brothers of the Alexander family: Lancelot, Francis, Richard, William, James, Joseph, and George. One of their descendants, John Alexander, became mayor of the parish's municipal corporation from 1915 to 1917. Originally, it was built two miles from its current location but was moved using sleighs and horses to 1162 Chemin Sainte-Marie.
It was not until 1925 that the church became known as "Mascouche United," which brought together Presbyterian, Congregational, and Methodist churches. The history of the church, like that of many sites in the Mascouche area, reveals some interesting facts. In the beginning, there was a different minister almost every year. The members of the parish took turns going to the Mascouche or Terrebonne train station to pick up a "student minister" every Saturday evening. It was an eight-mile round trip by buggy or sleigh to ensure the minister's presence for the Sunday morning ceremony. This "student minister" was boarded by the family who received him before he returned to Montreal on Sunday evening, by train.
For several years, the parish shared its "student minister" with the United Church in New Glasgow. During the summer, the student spent one week in one parish and the next in the other. He delivered a Sunday morning service before travelling to the new location, where he would deliver an evening at his new hosts' house. Many of today's parishioners still remember the community activities that marked this neighborhood, like the baseball games that pitted the young people of the two parishes against one another, and sometimes involved two or three ministers. The parishioners of Mascouche United are to this day grateful to these men and women who have encouraged them to keep the doors of the church open to all who wish to enter this place of sanctuary.
The existence of this parish is still marked by tradition and is a testament to the devotion and generosity of past peoples. The current organizer, Muriel Alexander, had three aunts (Annie, Hattie, and Lillie Alexander,) as well as several cousins who played the organ at different times in the history of this parish. Muriel has been playing this same instrument in the church for more than thirty years.
The small white church on the hill, as it is called within the parish, remains a place where people gather as much to immerse themselves in the memories of the past as to pay tribute to the Day of the Lord. The name Alexander is omnipresent because the many members of this family have carried on the legacy of generous gestures towards the church and the parish community.
Photo: Hexagone Lanaudière