AMOS, CHARLES SPURGEON (1878-1965)

AMOS, CHARLES SPURGEON, steamer captain; b. Lower Derby, 9 Aug 1878, s/o Malcolm Amos and Jessie McKay; m. 1st, 1903, Ethel Price, of Rogersville, N.B., and 2nd, 1958, Susan Ethel (Colpitts) Steeves; d. Newcastle, 17 Jun 1965.

C. Spurgeon Amos's father was a farmer and general merchant at Lower Derby, and he kept the post office there for thirty-three years. He was a highly respected member of the community and one of the leading Baptist churchmen on the Southwest branch of the river.

After he finished his schooling, Spurgeon Amos became a lumber scaler. He worked in that field and as a salesman at different times in his life, but he was best known to the public as a steamboat captain. In 1907 he was in command of the Rustler, one of the passenger and freight steamers owned by John Russell & Co. He was later captain of the Max Aitken for about six years. This ferry, which was designed and built by George Henderson, plied the Chatham-Newcastle-Red Bank route each navigation season from May 1918, when she was launched, until November 1927. After that date, trucks and busses handled the freight and passenger business, and Amos himself went from commanding a boat to driving a bus. He was later an employee of George Burchill & Sons Ltd.

The Amos family lived at Derby until 1918 and then moved to Newcastle. In 1930 Amos was clerk of the Newcastle Baptist Church. There were six children born of his marriage to Ethel Price.