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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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ROBERTSON, JOHN (1824-1917)

ROBERTSON, JOHN, Presbyterian minister, Tabusintac and Burnt Church, 1868-77, and Black River, 1877-1904, and Napan, 1883-1904; b. Gartly parish, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 24 Jan 1824, s/o the Rev. John Robertson Sr and Jessie Gordon; m. Isabella Robina Lochore, a native of England; d. Loggieville, 4 Jul 1917.

John Robertson's father was a Church of Scotland minister who came from a family which had close ties to the church and the professions, and his mother was a daughter of Alexander, Duke of Gordon. He was fifth among eleven children, and one of two sons to be educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen (MA 1842), of which his father was also an alumnus. Two of his sisters were married to ministers, and one of his younger brothers was a physician.

After taking his MA at age eighteen Robertson enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study divinity and had Thomas Chalmers, the first moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, as a professor. Nothing is known of his activities after he left Edinburgh, but if "his entire ministry was spent on the Miramichi," as stated in the press, he could have had another occupation for upwards of twenty years. In 1868, when he was forty-four years old, he made the colonial committee of the church aware of his availability to serve in Canada, and he was sent to Tabusintac, where the charge had been vacant since the resignation of the Rev. James Murray in 1865.

Until 1871 Robertson was classed as a missionary. He was then inducted as the minister of Tabusintac and Burnt Church. He served until 1877, when he resigned and took over the Black River charge. He evidently lived at Newcastle, however, until a new manse was built at Black River in 1880, and he may also have acted as a visiting minister at Red Bank between the terms of William McCullagh and John McI. McCarter. On 12 August 1883 a church was dedicated at Napan, and from that date onward he was the minister of both Black River and Napan. He preached his last sermon on 10 July 1904, as shown on a program printed for the occasion. He lived in retirement at Napan for several years and then built a cottage at Loggieville.

Robertson was "a preacher of no mean quality," and his sermons were remarkable both "for their depth of thought and for the rich and intimate knowledge of the 'Book of books' which they revealed." He loved other books as well, and addressed the Mechanics' Institute in Newcastle on "Wordsworth" (1870) and a Chatham audience on "Scotch Proverbs" (1873). On the occasion of his ninetieth birthday the Chatham World referred to him as "a clergyman of strong Celtic sympathies, simple tastes, and refined manners."

Robertson's wife, Isabella R. Lochore, was nearly twenty years his junior. They had three sons and two daughters baptized between 1875 and 1885. Frank G. A. Robertson, their only son to survive to adulthood, was drowned in the Napan River in 1908, at age thirty-one. Their daughters, the Misses Margaret E. and Jessie A. Robertson, were residents of Loggieville, where they both lived to an advanced age.

Sources

[b] FES [d] Leader 13 Jul 1917 / Advance 10 Feb 1881; 10 Nov 1904; Advocate 10 Mar 1870, 22 Nov 1871, 1 Oct 1873, 14 Feb 1877, 8 Aug 1877, 16 Feb 1881, 29 Jun 1904; annual 1917; Archibald; church records (re. baptism and death of Frank Robertson); Commercial World 1 Dec 1955; Robertson biog. data; World 15 Aug 1883, 4 Nov 1911, 28 Jan 1914, 31 Jan 1917


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