MCGREGOR, JAMES DRUMMOND (1759-1830)

MCGREGOR, JAMES DRUMMOND, visiting Presbyterian missionary; b. Portmore, Comrie parish, Perthshire, Scotland, Dec 1759, s/o James Drummond and Janet Dochert; m. 1st, 1796, Ann McKay, and 2nd, 1811, Mrs Janet Gordon; d. Pictou, N.S., 3 Mar 1830.

James D. McGregor was educated at the University of Edinburgh and ordained in 1786 for missionary service in Nova Scotia. For the remainder of his life he was based at Pictou, where he was "one of the leading spirits behind the organization of Pictou Presbytery, Pictou Academy and Divinity Hall, and the Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia." Before the church became widely established he made missionary journeys to many parts of the Maritimes, preaching in both English and Gaelic and administering the sacraments.

McGregor was invited to visit the Miramichi as early as 1791, but he undertook his first tour in 1797. At that time, he preached and baptized at Black River, Bay du Vin, and on both sides of the Miramichi up as far as the Point. "He had been raised," states Donald MacKay, in "that dissenting branch of the Scottish Presbyterian Church known as the Anti-Burghers which refused all truck with the Established Church of Scotland" and "preached a muscular brand of democratic religion, strong on the Calvinistic work ethic and the need for education..." The Presbyterian settlers pleaded with him to help get them a minister, and later, while in Scotland, he addressed the synod of the Secessionist Church on the need for a resident clergyman on the Miramichi.

The Rev. John Urquhart came to the Miramichi in 1802 from Prince Edward Island and the Rev. Archibald McQueen in 1814 from Nova Scotia, but it was not until 1816 that a Secessionist minister, in the person of the Rev. James Thomson, arrived directly from Scotland. When he was inducted at Chatham in the summer of 1817 McGregor and one of his colleagues, the Rev. John Keir, of Malpeque, P.E.I., were on hand to officiate. McGregor lived until 1830; that is, until the year of Thomson's death, and he took a continuing interest in his ministry.