The Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe

This large red-brick building represents more than two centuries of education and religious life in Saint-Hyacinthe. The institution was founded in 1811 by Father Antoine Girouard, the parish priest of Saint-Hyacinthe, making it one of the early institutions in Quebec to provide the traditional classical course of education.

Girouard had become parish priest here in 1806. Five years later he established the Collège de Saint-Hyacinthe, which eventually became the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe. The school educated generations of young men and became an important intellectual and religious institution for the surrounding region. 

The figure standing in front of the building in my photograph is Antoine Girouard himself. His former students presented the bronze statue to the seminary during the first great reunion of its alumni in June 1878. It was unveiled on June 26 by Archbishop Alexandre-Antonin Taché of Saint-Boniface, who was himself a former student. The monument was intended as an expression of gratitude both to Girouard and to those who continued the educational work he had begun.

The seminary has another connection. Michael J. McGivney, who later founded the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Connecticut, studied here from 1868 to 1870. More than 140 years later, a monument commemorating McGivney and the seminary’s bicentennial was placed on the grounds.

The institution celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2011. The Collège Antoine-Girouard, as the school had later become known, closed in 2013, but the historic complex survived. Today portions of the former seminary are used by École secondaire Casavant, while the site also houses important historical and archival collections.

Antoine Girouard could never have known in 1811 what the small college he founded would become. Yet more than two centuries later, the institution he created remains a significant part of the architectural landscape of Saint-Hyacinthe, while his statue still stands in the garden in front of it.