CHIASSON, PATRICE ALEXANDRE (1867-1942)

CHIASSON, PATRICE ALEXANDRE, Catholic priest and third and last bishop of Chatham, 1920-38; b. Grand Etang, Cape Breton, N.S., 26 Nov 1867, s/o Olivier Chiasson and Angèle Haché (dit Gallant); ordained 1898; d. Campbellton, 31 Jan 1942.

Patrice A. Chiasson grew up at Rogersville, where his parents moved when he was a child. He was educated locally and received a Nova Scotia teachers' license in 1885. After teaching for a time, he attended the Provincial Normal School in Fredericton. He continued his studies at Collège Sainte-Anne at Church Point, N.S., graduating in 1894. He then trained for the priesthood with the Eudist order in France. He came back to Canada in 1898 and served for a total of nineteen years as a member of faculty and superior of Collège Sainte-Anne.

In 1920, Chiasson was installed as successor to Bishop Thomas F. Barry of Chatham. During his term the interior of St Michael's Cathedral, which had been under construction since 1904, was finished. However, due to the growth in size and influence of the Acadian population of northern New Brunswick, the Episcopal See was moved in 1938 to Bathurst, and the big cathedral at Chatham, "one of Canada's finest gothic structures," was reduced to the status of a parish church.

Chiasson was bishop of Bathurst from 1938 until his death in 1942 in hospital at Campbellton, at age seventy-four.