Presbyterianism in Cobourg

Post date: Feb 19, 2017 2:49:51 PM

The article entitled, Presbyterianism In Cobourg from the Cobourg World, dated Friday, December 14, 1894 and is available via the Cobourg library database. The following paragraph is from that article and as you can see it is very informative for those researching marriages in Ontario between 1800 and 1836. It might entice people to vary their research.

“The first systematic effort to send Presbyterian ministers to Upper Canada, was made by the Dutch Reformed Church of the United States. In 1798 the Rev. Robert McDowell was sent by the Presbytery of Albany, as a missionary to this province. His parish extended from Elizabethtown, now Brockville, in the east, to York, now Toronto, in the west. He preached and organized congregations in different places, and in 1800 accepted a call from the congregations of Adolphustown, Earnestown, and Fredricksburgh on the Bay of Quinte, where he laboured until his death in 1841, leaving behind him the memory of a faithful minister of the Gospel. For many years he was the only minister in central Canada, and AS METHODIST MINISTERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO CELEBRATE MARRIAGES, Mr. McDowall, it is said, celebrated 1,100 marriages prior to 1836 for those who were not members of the English Church.”

Link to this article: http://images.ourontario.ca/Cobourg/53383/data?n=9