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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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URQUHART, JOHN (174?-1814)

URQUHART, JOHN, Presbyterian minister, Miramichi, 1802-14; b. Cromarty, Scotland; bap, 22 Sep 1743, s/o William Urquhart and Ann MacKay; m. 1st, Jane - , and 2nd, 1776, Mary McIntyre, of St George, Me; d. Miramichi, 1814.

"Joannes Urquhart, Cromartiensis" graduated from Kings College, Aberdeen, in 1769. 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 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 1800-1801, Urquhart was stationed at Princetown, P.E.I., and working as a missionary in the district east of Malpeque Bay. In 1802, he and 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 Urquhart's work in Maine, however, no records specific to his 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 to two 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 1799, 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 population of the community.

Sources

[bap] see first note below [m] Urquhart family data [d] see text / Bangor Hist. Mag.; Hoddinott

Remarques

i) The Aberdeen & North-East Scotland Family History Society reported in 2003 that William Urquhart and Ann Macky, of the parish of Cromarty, had a daughter Mary christened 23 Apr 1841 and a son John christened 22 Sep 1843 (ref. LDS Film 1681, Batch C110612). Mary's christening is confirmed by LDS data posted online, but John's is not, leaving a question concerning the documentary source of the information provided for him. ii) 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.


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