Louis Joseph Arthur Melanson was born at Trois-Rivières, Quebec on March 25, 1879. His family soon moved to New Richmond, near the Bay of Chaleur, across from New Brunswick.
Arthur Melanson studied theology at Rimouski and Montreal, but was refused ordination by the Bishop of Rimouski because of his frail health. After acceptance by the diocese of Chatham, New Brunswick, he was ordained on July 9, 1905.
Louis Joseph Arthur Melanson was born at Trois-Rivières, Quebec on March 25, 1879. His family soon moved to New Richmond, near the Bay of Chaleur, across from New Brunswick.
Arthur Melanson studied theology at Rimouski and Montreal, but was refused ordination by the Bishop of Rimouski because of his frail health. After acceptance by the diocese of Chatham, New Brunswick, he was ordained on July 9, 1905.
While pastor at Campbellton and faced with the lack of teachers for his parish schools, he founded his own congregation of religious women, the Daughters of Mary of the Assumption.
He was appointed Vicar General of Bishop Chiasson in 1930, and named the second Bishop of Gravelbourg on November 21, 1932. Ordained Bishop at Chatham on February 22, 1933, he was installed in Gravelbourg by Archbishop McGuigan on March 9.
However, when in 1936 the new Archdiocese of Moncton, New Brunswick was established, Bishop Arthur Melanson was appointed its first Archbishop.
Bishop Melanson took leave from Gravelbourg on February 9, 1937, to be installed in Moncton on February 22.
