Robert Corrigan (murder victim)

Robert Corrigan, (c. 1816 or 1817 – 19 October 1855) was an Irish-Canadian who was murdered by a group of men in Saint-Sylvestre, Lower Canada. Corrigan converted from the Roman Catholic faith to the Anglican faith which caused him to be disliked by the majority-Catholic community of Saint-Sylvestre. The search for the mob was hindered by the townspeople, but several months after his murder the men suspected to be part of the mob were voluntarily arrested. At the criminal trial, the men were acquitted. The jury's decision in the trial angered Protestants in Upper Canada, who used Corrigan's death to support claims that Catholics held an outsized amount of power in Lower Canada and the Province of Canada.