Читать книгу A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography - Various - Страница 130
ОглавлениеPickard, Humphrey
Pickard, Rev. Humphrey, D.D., Methodist Minister, Sackville, New Brunswick, was born at Fredericton, New Brunswick, June 10th, 1813. His parents, Thomas Pickard, was the son of Deacon Humphrey Pickard, and was born at Sheffield in 1783, and Mary Pickard, daughter of David Burpee. Mrs. Pickard was also born at Sheffield in 1783. Both Deacon Pickard and Squire Burpee, came, while yet mere youths, from Massachusetts, New England, with a party of the earliest English settlers on the Saint John river, about the year 1762. The subject of this sketch, after receiving a fair English education in Fredericton, was sent to the Wesleyan Academy, North Wilbenham, Massachusetts, United States, in 1829, where he commenced a classical course of study, and having prepared for matriculation, he entered the Freshman class in the University at Middletown, Conn., in 1831. He, having completed the Freshman course of study, retired from the university in 1832, and spent the following three years in mercantile pursuits. In 1835, he entered the Methodist ministry, as an assistant to the Rev. A. Des Brisay, in the Sheffield circuit. In 1836, he was received on trial as a Wesleyan missionary, by the British Methodist Conference, and laboured for a year as such on the Miramichi mission and Fredericton circuit. In 1837, he resumed his course of university study at Middletown; in 1839, he graduated, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and re-entered the work of the Methodist ministry, being stationed at Richibucto, until 1841, when he was appointed to St. John. In 1842, he was ordained and received into full connection with the English Conference as a Methodist minister, and appointed editor of the British North American Methodist Magazine, which was published at St. John. In November of the same year, he was elected principal of the Mount Allison Academy, and removed with his family to Sackville at the close of the year. The academy was opened on the 19th of January, 1843, with a very few students, but under his skilful management, it rapidly rose into importance in public estimation, and attracting students from all parts of the Maritime provinces, soon took position in the very front rank of the educational institutions of Eastern British America. The catalogue for the term from January to June, 1855, contains 250 names of students in actual attendance, viz.: of 134 in the male branch, and 116 in the female. In 1862, the Mount Allison College was organized at Sackville, by the authority of an Act of the Legislature of New Brunswick, and Mr. Pickard was appointed its president, and he continued to act as president of the college and principal of the academy until 1869. At the annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the united institutions, held May 26, 1869, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: “That the board, having received intimation from Rev. Dr. Pickard, that in consequence of the action of the conference in assigning to him another portion of connexional service, his resignation of the office of president of the institution is deemed necessary, though reluctantly accepting that resignation, would express in strongest terms its regret at the removal of Dr. Pickard from the field of usefulness for which he has special qualifications, and at which for upwards of a quarter of a century, he has with fidelity and honour served the church and his generation. The board is also assured that the great work of education in connection with the Wesleyan Conference of Eastern British America is greatly indebted to the retiring president of the institution, and that its success is largely to be attributed to the indomitable application and perseverance—the high business ability, and the earnest Christian aim by which Dr. Pickard has been animated during the whole period of his service in the government of the institution.” The Provincial Wesleyan, in a notice of the Mount Allison Academy, June 15, 1870, says: “The college established in 1862, under a charter from the Legislature of New Brunswick, mainly through the exertions of the Rev. Dr. Pickard, is the latest of the foundations at Sackville. * * * The first president of the college was the Rev. H. Pickard, D.D., president also of the Wesleyan Conference. Dr. Pickard’s name is so intimately associated with the Sackville institutions as almost to rival that of its benevolent founder. To them he gave the flower of his life. And although retired from the responsible office of president, and engaged in another sphere of usefulness, the doctor is still one of its ablest friends and supporters. His address at the recent celebration was received with the warmest demonstrations.” Dr. Pickard, having been elected to the office of editor of The Wesleyan and book steward, became resident in Halifax, from 1869 to 1873, but in this latter year he returned with his family to Sackville. From 1873 to 1875, he acted as agent for the college, and was largely instrumental in securing the first endowment fund; and in 1876 he was superintendent of the Sackville district. In 1877, he became a supernumerary, and has since so remained resident at Sackville, except during the years 1879-80, when, at the call of the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Canada, he acted as book steward at Halifax. He was elected secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of Eastern British America in 1857, 1858, 1859 and 1860, and co-delegate of the same conference in 1861, and president in 1862 and 1870. He was appointed representative of the conference of Eastern British America to the Canada Conference, which met in the city of Kingston, June, 1860; and again to the conference which met in the city of Hamilton, June, 1867. He was appointed representative of his conference to the British Conference, first, in 1857, secondly in 1862, and thirdly in 1873. He was a member of the joint committee on the Federal union of the Wesleyan Methodist church in British America, which met in Montreal, October, 1872; and of the joint committee which met in Toronto in 1882, and formulated the basis of union by which the four separate Methodist bodies in Canada united to form the one Methodist church. Rev. Mr. Pickard was a member of the first and second general conferences of the Methodist Church of Canada, and served in both as chairman of the committee on discipline. He was also a member of the second general conference of the Methodist church, which met in Toronto, in September, 1886, and was appointed a member of the court of appeal and of the book committee for the quadrennium, 1886-1890. Mr. Pickard received the degree of Master of Arts in 1842, from the University at Middletown, and had the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity conferred on him by his alma mater in 1857. At the late session of the annual conference of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island of the Methodist church, the following address, beautifully engrossed and elegantly framed, was presented to Dr. Pickard: —
To the Reverend H. Pickard, D.D.:
Dear Brother,—The members of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Conference, assembled in annual session, desire to express to you their hearty congratulations upon the completion of Fifty Years in the honourable work of your ministry. We also express our gratitude to God, that he has so long spared you to see the growth, prosperity, and influence of the church to whose interests you have given such rich qualities of learning, wisdom, and piety.
We rejoice that through all these years your moral and ministerial character has been preserved without a stain. We are profoundly conscious of the far-reaching influence of your life in our Academic and College work. The ministry of this and other churches, as well as the business and professional life of our provinces, have been enriched by the ripe scholarship and godly zeal of those who owe much to you for their culture and their ability in their callings. We are not unmindful that other departments of our church work have been benefited by your consecrated zeal and wisdom. As early life directs and tinges the thoughts of advanced age, we fail not to discern in you the earnestness of purpose, the singleness of aim that mark the years of the early itinerant. Your company has almost gone before, and while with the few venerable men whom we lovingly call Fathers, you wait the summons of the Master, you say —
“In peace and cheerful hope I wait,
On life’s last verge quite free from fears,
And watch the opening of the gate,
Which leads to the eternal years.”
We desire that your day, as it draws to its close, may be brightened by the glory of the sunset, full of the golden promise of the eternity of light.
Signed by order of the Conference,
C. H. Paisley, Robert Wilson,
Secretary. President.
Marysville, N.B., June, 1887.
Mr. Pickard was twice married, first at Boston, on October 2nd, 1841, to the daughter of Ebenezer and Hannah M. Thompson, by whom he had two children—Edward Dwight and Charles F. Allison, who died in early childhood and infancy. Mrs. Pickard died at Sackville, the 11th of March, 1844. She was a lady of superior ability, and much literary talent, her memoirs and selections from her writings were published at Boston, by the Rev. Edward Otheman, A.M., in a duodecimo volume of upwards of 300 pages, in 1845, which is now out of print. He was married again on the 5th of September, 1846, to Mary Rowe Carr, who was born at Portland, Maine, United States, the daughter of John and Avis Preble Carr. This second wife bore him two daughters, the first, Mary Emarancy, is the wife of Andrew M. Bell, hardware merchant in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the mother of two boys, Winthrop P. and Ralph P. The second, Amelia Elizabeth, is the wife of A. A. Stockton, D.C.L., M.P.P., of St. John, New Brunswick, and mother of six living children, three daughters and three sons. The second Mrs. Pickard died on the 24th of January, 1887, in the 77th year of her age.
