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Churches to pay homage to founder John Bethune
the Royal Highland Emigrants and the loy- alist settlers in the area. In August 1779, he was transferred to Montreal to serve as chaplain to the 1st bat-
Canada. Bethune moved to Williamstown in Glen- garry County where he ministered to the Highland loyalist settlers. He and his wife
army chaplain. The Marriage Act of 1793 allowed only clergy from the Church of England and Justices of the Peace to perform marriages. In March 1796, Bethune and the Presbyte- rians in Grenville County sent a petition to Lieutenant Governor Simcoe complaining about the act. When Simcoe reported the matter to the Home Secretary, he noted that criticisms of the marriage act were only the beginning; he believed that Bethune was a loyal person, and soon, there would be a request for the partition of the land set apart for the “National Clergy.” Simcoe was correct, and in 1811, Bethune was given a second land grant of a town lot in Cornwall. Bethune enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Reverend Alexander McDonnell, but often warned his flock that while they should live in peace with their Roman Cath- olic neighbours, they should not embrace their beliefs. In addition, he was a close friend to John Strachan, an Anglican clergy- man who taught school in Cornwall from 1803 to 1812. Bethune’s sons attended Strachan’s classes, and two of them became Anglican ministers since Bethune could not send them to Scotland for their education. Bethune taught school in Cornwall from 1812 to 1814, and served as a chaplain with the British forces lead by George Richard John Macdonell in the 1813 attack on Og- densburg, N.Y. Although in poor health, he was appointed road commissioner for the Eastern District in June 1815. A few days before his death that same year, he beseeched his Williamstown congregation to find an assistant minister. He feared that without one, the Roman Catholic Church would grow more powerful and lure them away from the Church of Scotland. Bethune is remembered as one of Canada’s most honoured pioneer Church of Scotland min- isters. Bethune’s sons went on to great deeds: John, first Canadian-born Anglican minister, Principal of McGill University and Dean of Montreal; Alexander Neil, Anglican Bishop of Toronto; James Gray, a banker; Donald, founder of a shipping firm and politician; Norman, King’s Auctioneer at Montreal, and Angus, Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, great-grandfather to Dr. Norman Bethune who developed the first mobile blood transfusion while fighting in the Spanish Civil War, 1936 and was one of the heroes of the Chinese revolution. Elder Irwin Bethune of St. John’s, Cornwall, was one of Dr. Bethune’s descendants.
GREG KIELEC greg.kielec@eap.on.ca
Four area churches will come together on Sunday to pay home to their founder Rev. John Bethune in a 225 th Anniversary Communion Service. The service in memory of Bethune, who founded four are Presbyterian churches in 1787, including St. John’s Presbyterian in Cornwall, will be held at 7 p.m. at the Corn- wall church followed by a social hour in the McLellan Room . The three other churches founded by Bet- hune – Salem United Church in Summer- stown, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Lanaster and St. Andrew’s United Church in Williamstown – will join in the celebration. Salem United Church in Summerstown and St. Andrew’s Williamstown were for- merly Presbyterian, before joining Church Union in 1925 when the United Church was established. John Bethune, born in Brebost, on the Isle of Skye, in Scotland in 1751, was the son of Angus Bethune and Christian Campbell of Scalpay, whose father was the man who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape from Scotland following the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Although his father was descended from the lairds of Balfour, John’s early years were spent in poverty, according to information compiled by organizers of the celebration from a government website on Canadian history.. In 1770, the Synod of Glenelg, at the re- quest of the Presbytery of Skye, granted his family £5 to help meet the expenses of John’s education at King’s College from which he graduated with a BA and an MA. He returned to his home in 1772, and was licenced as a Church of Scotland minister. In July 1773, he and members of his ex- tended family immigrated to North Caro- lina, a colony settled by Highlanders dis- placed following the 1745 rebellion. In June of 1775, John was recruited as the chaplain to the 1st battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrants. He fought in the battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in February 1776, where he was captured and imprisoned. He was held in Philadelphia until October when he and other prisoners were released to rejoin their families. From there, he made his way to Halifax in 1778, where he served briefly as chaplain to the 2nd battalion of
talion, performing his regular duties to his regiment, as well as celebrating marriages and baptisms for the military personnel of other regiments. As there was no Presby- terian church in the city, Bethune attended services conducted by the Anglican rector of Montreal. In 1782, he married Véronique Waddens of Montreal. Bethune and his wife were stationed at the garrison on Carleton Island in New York State until the regiment was demobilized. He returned to Montreal in 1786 where he lived on his military pay, but continued to perform marriages and baptisms for army personnel and Presbyterian Scots, Dutch, and German loyalists. On March 12, 1786, Bethune conducted the first Presbyterian service in Montreal in a rented room on Notre Dame Street. He continued to min- ister to his “congregation” until May 1787, when, at the invitation of a group of Scot- tish settlers, he moved west to an area of the country soon to become Upper Canada. Although his Montreal congregation did not last long, it is considered to be the pre- decessor of the St Gabriel Street Church, the mother church of Presbyterianism in
raised six sons, three daughters and an ad- opted daughter. Look for part II of the John Bethune story in August. Residing in Williamstown, Bethune’s abil- ity to preach in Gaelic made him popular with his new parishioners as well as those in neighbouring Lancaster, and Cornwall, where he preached, built congregations, and oversaw the construction of simple log churches. Prior to his death, Bethune saw the log church in Williamstown be replaced by a stone building. Bethune’s living expenses came from his congregations until 1789 when he was giv- en a £50 annual salary by the local govern- ment. Unfortunately, this was discontinued with the formation of the province of Up- per Canada. Presbyterians from the coun- ties of Glengarry and Stormont, angered by this, protested to the government that Bethune was “not a recent adventurer, but a gentleman of approved Loyalty and that his government salary was necessary to keep him above want, and consequently above contempt.”Their protest was successful: the salary was reinstated and he was awarded 2,000 acres of land for his services as an
Pictured clockwise from top left, are Rev. Ruth Draffin of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Cornwall, Rev. Ian McMillan of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Lancast- er, Salem United Church in Summerstown and Rev. Andrea Harrison of St. Andrew’s United Church inWilliamstown. The four congregations will join together in Cornwall on Sunday to pay homage to their founder John Bethune.
Conservation authority maintaining low water advisory amid reports of dry wells
With wells running dry in some rural ar- eas, South Nation Conservation’s Water Response Team is maintaining the Level 2 low water condition advisory. “A Level 2 low water condition means a minor water supply problem has been de- tected,” said Sandra Mancini, SNC’s director
of planning and engineering. The recent weather conditions have de- creased streamflows throughout the wa- tershed to less than 30 per cent of normal levels for this time of year. At a meeting on Sept. 4, South Nation Conservation’s Water Response Team re-
viewed rainfall, streamflow, and water level conditions, and decided to continue the Level 2 status. While the three-month precipitation in- dicators correspond to Level 1 low water thresholds, streamflow indicators suggest a Level 3 low water condition. Rainfall fore-
casts predict normal precipitation over the next three months, but higher seasonal temperatures will continue to impact water levels throughout the watershed. Several dry wells and dry well related inquires have been reported by property owners to SNC.
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