TOZER, JAMES (1795-1880)

TOZER, JAMES, Baptist minister, North Esk and Blackville, and home missionary, Southwest Miramichi; b. Sunbury Co., N.B., c1795, s/o Jared Tozer Sr and S. Eunice Ives; brother of Jared Tozer; m. 1823, Artimacy Foster, of St Mary's parish, York Co.; d. Ludlow, 13 Apr 1880.

James Tozer accompanied his parents to the Miramichi around 1811 and was a charter member of the Miramichi (North Esk) Baptist Church in 1819. He was elected a deacon of the church in 1821 and began to "improve publickly" in anticipation of being called to the ministry. His ordination in his home church in 1826 was the first Miramichi Baptist ordination.

Tozer was called to the North Esk pastorate in 1827 and retained it until around 1840. At the same time, he engaged in missionary work along the Southwest branch of the river and was instrumental in organizing a Blackville, Blissfield, and Ludlow church in 1829. From the 1840s onward he was a full-time missionary on the Southwest under auspices of the Baptist home mission board. "Here, like the primitive disciples, he preached the gospel from house to house, in barns and schoolhouses." He was the pioneer Baptist missionary of the Miramichi. He was succeeded in 1860 by the Rev. William M. Edwards, but he continued to assist with the work in the Boiestown area until 1877, when he was past eighty years of age.

Tozer also took an interest in education and acted as a school trustee in the parishes of North Esk and Blissfield. He and his wife, Artimacy Foster, had one son and three daughters.