THOMSON, JAMES (1780-1830)

THOMSON, JAMES, Presbyterian minister, St Andrew's Church, Chatham, 1816-30; b. Dumfriesshire, Scotland, c1780, s/o John Thomson and Catherine Johnstone (of "the renowned Annandale Clan Johnstone"); m. 1807, Catherine MacKay (the d/o "a Scottish Laird who traced his descent from Robert Bruce"); d. Chatham, 11 Nov 1830.

James Thomson was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, but since no record of his baptism has been discovered it cannot be stated with certainty that he was born in Wamphray parish, a few miles north of Lockerbie where his father and mother are known to have lived. He had an older brother William Thomson who was baptized in Wamphray parish in 1769, and his father's grave is in the parish. In an account of the Auchtergaven charge in the Presbytery of Perth, for which he was ordained in 1806, it is stated that he was "from the parish of Wamphray and the congregation of Lockerbie." His marriage to Catherine MacKay in 1807 took place in Barony parish in Glasgow.

Thomson "made a fair beginning" in the Auchtergaven charge, but the population of the place was in decline while he was stationed there and the size of the congregation along with it. So after nine years, and "in the midst of discouragements," he "turned in the direction of America." A half-year's stipend was advanced to him when he resigned in October 1815, and "in May 1816 he was appointed to Miramichi, New Brunswick, from which an application for a minister had recently arrived [in Scotland]."

Thomson's induction into the Chatham and Newcastle charge took place in August 1817, with the Rev. James D. McGregor (q.v.) of Pictou Co., N.S., officiating, in company with the Rev. John Keir of Princetown, P.E.I. McGregor had visited the Miramichi in 1797 and had spoken with church authorities in Scotland about the need for a ministerial appointment on the river. Finally, after twenty years, a Scottish minister had arrived.

Thomson preached in Chatham, as well as in the church at Moorfield, until it was lost in the Miramichi Fire, and in the old church at Wilson's Point, until Newcastle became a separate charge with its own minister in 1830. At that time a majority of Presbyterians were identified with the 'Kirk', or Established Church of Scotland, but there were several breakaway bodies, the largest of which was the Secessionist Church, of which Thomson was a member. It is a tribute to his leadership that his preaching proved to be acceptable to all Chatham-area Presbyterians, but at the time of his death a rift occurred which resulted in Chatham having two Presbyterian churches for the next ninety years. These were St Andrew's, of which he was minister but which was later of the Church of Scotland connection, and the new St John's Church, which continued to reflect the reform tradition in Presbyterianism of which he had been an exponent.

Thomson displayed a keen interest in education and acted for some years as a school trustee for Chatham parish. He also did his part to promote the agricultural development of the community and was one of two vice-presidents of the first Northumberland County agricultural society when it was formed around 1824. In social situations he was said to have been affable and of a mild and unassuming manner. In the judgment of The Gleaner, he was "a truly worthy man" in all relations in life and was of "unimpeachable integrity."

If Thomson had a serious failing it may have been in the realm of personal finances. At his death, at age fifty, he left his wife and ten children with an estate that was deeply in debt. For seven years, his executors could not bring themselves to take the steps needed to settle his affairs. It was left to an official commission of inquiry to rule that the real estate, and even the household furniture, must go on the auction block.

By whatever means, the Thomson children were well provided for educationally and otherwise, and the 1851 census returns do not show the survivors as living in poverty by any means. In the family at that time were Thomson's widow; her twenty-six-year-old son Samuel Thomson, a lawyer; her thirty-two-year-old daughter Christina (Thomson) Richardson, a teacher; four Richardson grandchildren; and a servant. Her somewhat older son, John Thomson, had been practicing medicine on the Miramichi for the previous nineteen years and had his own home and family.

Catherine (McKay) Thomson died at Chatham in 1857, at age seventy-two.