MCKEOWN, HEZEKIAH (1826-1882)

MCKEOWN, HEZEKIAH, Methodist minister, Chatham circuit, 1876-79; b. Nictaux, Annapolis Co., N.S., 10 Nov 1826, s/o Samuel McKeown and Sarah Burnett; m. 1859, Elizabeth Smithson Harrison, of Sheffield, N.B. (a sister of Dr Thomas Harrison, president of UNB); d. Sussex, N.B., 14 Oct 1882.

The son of a family of twelve, three of whom became clergymen, Hezekiah McKeown was educated at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He was received into the Methodist ministry on trial in 1854 and ordained in 1857. He served for short periods in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but most of his ministry was based in New Brunswick, where he filled some of the "foremost pulpits" of the Methodist church in Saint John, Fredericton, Woodstock, and elsewhere. He was an effective orator and skillful administrator of church affairs. He died unexpectedly, at age fifty-five, at the manse in Sussex a few months after accepting assignment to that circuit.

McKeown and his wife, Elizabeth S. Harrison, had three daughters and two sons. One of their daughters was Edith S. McKeown, the wife of the Rev. George M. Campbell. Another was Bessie C. McKeown, the wife of New Brunswick premier George J. Clarke. One of their sons was Harrison A. McKeown, chief justice of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick.