Note 188 — Chapter IV · THE TREATY OF 1783 AND THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS

Before the War of American Independence, the Mohawks had a church built for them in their own country in the present state of New York by the British Government, to which Queen Anne in 1712 presented silver Communion plate and a Bible. The plate was inscribed with the Royal Arms, in 1712, of ‘Her Majesty Anne by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland and Her Plantations in North America, Queen, to Her Indian Chapel of the Mohawks 1712’; and the Bible was inscribed, ‘To Her Majesty’s Church of the Mohawks 1712.’ After the War of Independence, two churches were built in Canada for the Mohawks who had emigrated to remain under British rule, one begun in 1785 on the Grand River at the present town of Brantford, and one on the bay of Quinté. The Communion plate and Bible, which had been buried by the Indians for safety during the war, were divided, four pieces of the plate and the Bible being brought to the Brantford Church, and three to the church on the bay of Quinté. The Brantford Church was the first Protestant church in Canada, and a bell, said to be the first bell to call to prayer in Ontario, and a Royal Coat of Arms were sent out to it by the British Government in 1786. This church, known as ‘St. Paul’s Church of the Mohawks’, and in common parlance as the old Mohawk Church, was in 1904, on a petition to the King, given by His Majesty the title of ‘His Majesty’s Chapel of the Mohawks’, in order to revive the old name of Queen Anne’s reign.