Reverend John Urquhart

From http://lieuxpatrimoniaux.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=7435

A permanent congregation with a resident minister was established in 1800 by the Rev. John Urquhart who was also from the Pictou Presbytery. In 1808, the Princetown congregation was served by the Rev. John Keir who had arrived from Scotland. During his term, the log church was hauled to the present site and refurbished.

From http://gw3.geneanet.org/monartque?lang=fr&p=john&n=urquhart

NOTE: Urquhart is a place name and is found in the County of Cromarty-Rosshire and in areas of Elgin County and Aberdeen in the Highlands (of Scotland) The principal seat of the clan Urquhart was in Glen Urquhart and the Fortress by Loch Ness. Later the clan seat was in Cromarty. The ancestors of Ochonochar came from Greece by way of Ireland. Castle Urquhart was given to Ochonochar in 1160 by the King of Scotland. The Bear Stone in Glen Urquhat commemorates the slaying of a large Ursus bear in the Parish of Logie-Almond in Perth where there is a similar monument. This bear was killed by Ochonaichur in the 13th century, or earlier, and the second son of Ochanaichur was called Urquhart and is the ancestor of the clan Urquhart in Cromerty. The Clan Urquhart (Urchurdan) held the title of Hereditary Sherriff in the Roshire District from at least the 14th Century. The first official record of the Lord Lyon's Office is George Urquhart, born in 1215, and his son James. Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty was a scholar , a genealogist and a warrior under King Charles I who confered Knighthood upon him. Sir Thomas wrote "A True Pedigree and Lineal Descent of the Most Ancient and Honorable Family of Urquhart" since creation to 1652. In this work Sir Thomas describes himself as the 153rd generation in the line of descent from Adam. This is a difficult thing to prove as some of the men between Adam and Noah are given as having lived 200 years. This family history was brought up to date in 1774 by Harriett Taylor. Castle Urquhart does not always seem to have been occupied by Urquharts, and at present this Clan has virtually died out. There also were Urquharts in Duffus and in Elginshire. William Urquhart is given as Hereditary Sherriff in the time of Robert the Bruce. This Elginshire branch descended from Galberouch in the time of Alexander II. William Urquhart in Craigston, Aberdeenshire sold the Cromarty lands to Patrick, Lord Elibank in 1761. The Reverend John Urquhart's ancestors are said to have come from Dingwall near Cromarty. Some searching was done in Scotland, but no record of the Rev. John's baptism, his ordination or his marriage to Jane-- with birth of a daughter was found. A John Urquhart graduated from King's College Aberdeen in 1769 with an M.A. degree, but this was a very common name and at the present we are not certain that this John Urquhart of Cromarty is the Reverend John of Maine, Prince Edward Island and Moorefields, New Brunswick.

The Reverand John Urquhart appears in the history of Warren, Maine in June 1775. He was preaching under the Presbyterian Synod of Salem, Massaschusets. He remained in Warren for nearly ten years, serving the towns in the St. Georges area, the seems to have been in Topsham, Maine and in 1785 he was hired to preach at Union River, later called Ellsworth, in Hancock County, Maine. He is found there in the 1790 Census as John Orcutt (this was his own pronunciation of his name) and in an account book in 1794. It appears as if he remained here until the late 1790's, even though the Synod was abolished in about 1790. In 1800-1801 he preached in Prince Edward Island making his headquarters at Princeton and servingLondon, Bedeque and the west side of Richmond Bay. In 1802 he came to Moorefields, New Brunswick and soon built a Church there. The Church was burned in the Great Fire of 1825, but the Cemetery is still there. A memorial monument was later erected to mark the Urquhart plot and the Stone lists Reverend John Urquhart and "Wife". The Reverend John is said to have died in a canoe accident, or as a result of this accident. He is buried in Moorefields cemetery An interesting bit of tradition comes to us regarding the Canoe Funerals on the Mirimachi river from Mrs John Connolly (the former Vad McLeod of Chatham). Her grandfather remembered his grandmother telling of these early funerals. In the lead canoe stood a bag-piper, the second canoe held the coffin and the mourners followed in other canoes. The mournful echo of the pipes could be heard up and down ther river and out into the valleys as the procession went up river to Moorefields. In the History of Warren, Maine a section of Genealogy gives Mary, daughter of Captain John McIntyre married Rev John Urquhart and removed to New Brunswick. In the will of Capt John a daughter is listed as Mary Orcutt. In Crown Land Grant Office, Fredericton there are three grants to Rev John Urquhart as follows: 1805, 1810 and 1814, Northumberland County. The grant in 1814 included his son Lewis Urquhart.

Volume 13 page 170 #99, Mary Urquhart, reclict of Rev. John Urquhart sell Lot 19 Newcastle to James Donaldson, 1818. Lot left her in will of her late husband John Urquhart. Also lot 19 is on North side of Mirimachi river.

Volume 12 page 2-7 #2 Will of Reverend John Urquhart, written 17 May 1814, regestered 11 Oct 1815. Parish of Newcastle, proven 1 Sep 1814

From Markham Scrapbooks New Brunswick Museum Extracts from the Journal of General Sir Martin Hunter, Colonel Commanding the 104th N. B. Regiment

Government House, F'ton, Sept. 26th (1809)Rev. John Urquhart, Scottish clergyman, was first Presbyterian pastor at Miramichi. He died in 1814 and was buried in Moorefield Cemetery below Douglastown, where a monument was erected to his memory and that of his children and grandchildren in 1907. Hon. W. S. Loggie, of Chatham is a descendant. Rev. Mr. Urquhart received a grant of Lot 18, north side Miramichi, between Newcastle and French Fort Cove, just above the Mill Lot of Benjamin Marston and John Mark Crank Delesdernier.

From The History of Chatham by William Godfrey Excerpt from Pages 22 and 23

"… The first protestant minister, Reverend Mr. Urquhart, came to Miramichi 1802. Two years later church was built at Moorfields across river from Chatham at what is now Millbank. Services were held alternately at Wilson's Point and Moorfields. Life of people was very primitive … Families came up and down river to service, bringing picnic baskets and containers cheese and jugs of West India rum. Canoes were hauled up on shore and people sat on shore or in church yard till service began. Then worshippers filed into benches to hear sermon of several hours. Next came intermission when baskets were opened and so were jugs of rum. Contents supplied sufficient spirit for similar service in afternoon. The silver communion cup belonging to congregation with date 1805 engraved on it is in possession of Mrs. D. Henderson, Chatham, now.

GEDCOM Note

It is speculated that the Rev. John Urquhart is a direct descendant of the infamous Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611-1660), a famous translator of "Rebelais" who invented a universal language in which every word could be read backwards or forward. He died, incidentally, in a fit of joyous laughter on learning that King Charles II of England had been restored to the throne.(CS)

The Rev. John Urquhart and his wife Jane had one daughter born to them in Scotland. John came to the United States of America. He left his wife and daughter back in Scotland. He was hired by the town of Warren, Maine to be the pastor of their church, The Church of Scotland.(CS)

The following information about Rev. John Urquhart is quoted from W. D. Hamilton's work, "Dictionary of Miramichi Biography."

"URQUHART, JOHN, Presbyterian minister, Miramichi, 1802-14; b. Scotland, 1740s; m. 1st, Jane ? , and 2nd, 1776, Mary McIntyre, of St. George, Maine, USA. He died in the Miramichi area circa 1814. According to tradition, John Urquhart's ancestors were from Dingwall in Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. He had two sisters who lived in Cromarty parish, but nothing else is known about his origins or early life. It has been stated that he arrived in America in 1774 as an ordained minister of the Presbyterian church, but since no record of his ordination has been found, this cannot be confirmed. During his first years in New England he preached in and around St. George, Knox Co., Me, which was then part of Massachusetts. Urquhart had been married in Scotland and supposedly had a daughter born there, but he brought neither wife nor child to the New World. Before long he told people that his wife had died, and in 1776, he married Mary McIntyre, a daughter of Capt. John McIntyre of St. George, Me. However, there were many who did not believe that his first wife was dead, and who also had complaints about his personal conduct, so in 1784 the town of St. George called for his resignation. His reaction to this was not only to refuse to resign, but to launch a lawsuit for the recovery of unpaid salary. The fact that his suit was successful probably made the town more determined than ever to be rid of him, and the Salem Presbytery, under which his ministry was conducted, was finally persuaded "to take him away." For a number of months in 1784-85 Urquhart was based at Topsham, near Brunswick, Me, and preached on different occasions at Union River. The congregation there liked his sermons, which were "forcible, humorous, quaint, and personal," and in the fall of 1785 he was appointed minister of the Union River church. He was just getting established again when Mrs. Jane Urquhart, the wife who was supposed to have died, showed-up in Union River. When she discovered that he was living with another woman she flew into "a great rage" and ordered wife number two out of the house. So the second wife withdrew, and the first Mrs. Urquhart moved in with her estranged mate and his second family. It soon became apparent to the first wife that she could not win back her husband's heart, at which point she had him arrested and paraded before a magistrate. He insisted that he believed her to have died before the date of his second marriage, but as compensation he agreed to transfer a farm which he owned to her. This would seem to have ended his difficulties with the law, but not with the members of his church, who filed additional complaints against him in 1790. He was declared "not guilty" of these charges by the Salem Presbytery, but it is nonetheless stated that his pastorate ended in 1790. No church records of his ministry in Maine have been found. He was enumerated at Union River in the census of 1790, as "John Orcutt," and a published history of the town states that he continued to live there throughout the 1790s. During 1800-01, Urquhart was stationed at Princetown, P.E.I.. and working as a missionary in the district east of Malpeque Bay. In 1802 his family moved to the Miramichi where he was the first regular Presbyterian minister, his only predecessor, the Rev. James Fraser, having been a missionary to the Indians. By the time of his arrival a church had been standing at Miramichi Point for at least five years, but its interior was still not finished. Another church was under construction at Moorfield. In his historical work entitled "From Whence We Came," D. F. Hoddinott states that Urquhart "served congregations which gathered at both churches" and "laid the foundations not only of St. James' congregation in Newcastle, but the beginnings of St. Andrew's in Chatham, St. James' in Nelson, St. Stephen's in Red Bank, and possibly of the congregations at Tabusintac and Black River." As noted with respect to his work in Maine, however, no records specific to Urquhart's Miramichi ministry are known to exist. He died between 17 May 1814, when his Will was dated, and 1 September 1814, when it was noted that he was deceased. From the beginning of his residency on the Miramichi, Urquhart had possession of a property at Douglastown which had been granted to the Rev. James Fraser. In 1804 he bought the adjacent downriver lot, and in 1810 he was granted a meadow lot on the Northwest. When he died in 1814 he was in possession of a good deal of valuable land, including lots 17, 18, 19, and half of lot 20 at Douglastown. By his will, the bulk of his estate was bequeathed to his wife, Mary McIntyre, in trust for his sons but the fact that he also left more than 230 pounds sterling to his sisters and other persons in Cromarty, Scotland, shows that he was well-off and suggests that he may have been repaying monies received in an earlier period from overseas. Urquhart and his second wife had seven daughters and four sons born between 1777 and 1789, most of whom became permanent residents of the Miramichi. The sons were rough and ready individuals who engaged in the ordinary occupations of the time and left many descendants among the working people of the community."

Source: "Dictionary of Miramichi Biography", W.D. Hamilton, Keystone Printing & Litho. Ltd, St. John, N.B., p.389-390; [m] Urquhart family data [d] see text /Bangor Hist. Mag.; D. F. Hoddinott.

Author's Note: One source records the birth date as: 22 September 1743, and the death date as: 1 September 1814. (CS) Tradition states that Urquhart died by drowning while crossing the river near Moorfield. The fact that he prepared a will shortly before his death, however, raises a doubt. It is known, at least, that his son-in-law John Taylor, a son of Alexander Taylor, was drowned while crossing the river on 26 Jul 1814. (WDH)

E-mail dated 07 December 2003 from Urquhart descendant, Bob Walde, Saskatchewan, Canada. "Hi Carl, please note our new address bob.marj@@sasktel.net , That being out of the way, Indeed we are related through the Urquhart line. I come down through Rev. John Urquhart and Mary McIntyre's daughter Sarah who married John Alexander Campbell. Who was the father of your Margaret? William, Lewis, John or, Edmond? I have spouses for John and Edmond but no children.

I have quite a bit on the Rev., some not as nice as could be but, we cannot change the past.

"The Reverend John Urquhart appears in the history of Warren, Maine in June 1775. He was preaching under the Presbyterian Synod of Salem, Massachusetts. He remained in Warren for nearly ten years, serving the towns in the St. Georges (sic) area, the seems to have been in Topsham, Maine and in 1785 he was hired to preach at Union River, later called Ellsworth, in Hancock County, Maine. He is found there in the 1790 Census as John Orcutt (this was his own pronunciation of his name) and in an account book in 1794. It appears as if he remained here until the late 1790's, even though the Synod was abolished in about 1790. In 1800-1801 he preached in Prince Edward Island making his headquarters at Princeton and serving London, Bedeque and the west side of Richmond Bay. In 1802 he came to Moorefields (sic), New Brunswick and soon built a Church there. The Church was burned in the Great Fire of 1825, but the Cemetery is still there. A memorial monument was later erected to mark the Urquhart plot and the Stone lists Reverend John Urquhart and "Wife". The Reverend John is said to have died in a canoe accident, or as a result of this accident. He is buried in Moorefields cemetery. An interesting bit of tradition comes to us regarding the Canoe Funerals on the Mirimachi river from Mrs John Connolly (the former Vad McLeod of Chatham). Her grandfather remembered his grandmother telling of these early funerals. In the lead canoe stood a bag-piper, the second canoe held the coffin and the mourners followed in other canoes. The mournful echo of the pipes could be heard up and down the river and out into the valleys as the procession went up river to Moorefields. In the History of Warren, Maine a section of Genealogy gives Mary, daughter of Captain John McIntyre married Rev John Urquhart and removed to New Brunswick. In the will of Capt John a daughter is listed as Mary Orcutt. In Crown Land Grant Office, Fredericton there are three grants to Rev John Urquhart as follows: 1805, 1810 and 1814, Northumberland County. The grant in 1814 included his son Lewis Urquhart. Volume 13 page 170 #99, Mary Urquhart, reclict of Rev. John Urquhart sell Lot 19 Newcastle to James Donaldson, 1818. Lot left her in will of her late husband John Urquhart. Also lot 19 is on North side of Mirimachi river. Volume 12 page 2-7 #2 Will of Reverend John Urquhart, written 17 May 1814, registered 11 Oct 1815. Parish of Newcastle, proven 1 Sep 1814. DEATH: He died between 14 May and 1 Sep 1814, Moorefields (sic), near Milbank."

This is just a small part, I have been in contact with seveal other Urquhart cousins and would be happy to introduce them to you. Would also be happy to share more information with you. My wife and I have a band and are preforming later today but wanted to contact you."

TTYS, Bob Walde Neilburg, Sk Formerly from SSI, BC

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