GNB
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

1,109 records available in this database
IntroductionIntroduction | Name IndexName Index | Occupation IndexOccupation Index | Organization IndexOrganization Index | Full-Text SearchFull-Text Search | The DictionaryThe Dictionary

LanguageLanguage
Page 109 of 1109

jump to page
BROWN, ADOLPHUS FULLER (1856-1923)

BROWN, ADOLPHUS FULLER, Baptist minister, Newcastle field, 1900-03; b. London, England, 4 Dec 1856, s/o Isaac Brown and Mary Fuller; m. 1879, Sarah Rachel Ladd; d. Kingston, Ont., 11 Oct 1923.

When Omar E. Steeves resigned as pastor of the Newcastle Baptist church in 1897 he was succeeded by the Rev. C. E. Baker, a minister who was ordained in 1888, but about whom little is known. Baker preached at Newcastle and elsewhere on the field from January 1898 to June 1900 and then took a church in Kansas. The pulpits were empty for three months, until the arrival of Adolphus F. Brown in September.

Brown began to study medicine as a young man but was drawn to religion through the preaching of the famous Baptist evangelist Charles H. Spurgeon, of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. His conversion led to his enrolling in the pastors' college which Spurgeon conducted, and he was profoundly influenced by his example. After graduating he had a total of three pastorates in England. Around 1888 he immigrated to Canada with his wife and a young son and daughter.

Brown was at Campbellton prior to coming to the Miramichi in the fall of 1900 as minister of the churches at Newcastle, Lower Derby, Whitneyville, and Little Southwest. He had "pulpit gifts of a high order" and drew many non-Baptists to his sermons, which were advertised in the newspapers. Titles announced in the Union Advocate included: "Furious Driving," "Fire Ever Burning," "Poultice that Cured the Carbuncle," and "Short Bed with a Narrow Covering." He delivered a "masterly oration" on the war in South Africa in 1900, and an overflow crowd listed to his sermon on the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 - "a masterpiece from beginning to end."

A new Baptist church which had been started by Robert P. Whitney was in process of completion at Whitneyville during Brown's term, but he departed in July 1903, and the dedication service was not held until November. He later had pastorates in southern New Brunswick and along the St John River, his last being at Keswick and Burtts Corner. His main interest was in "building up weak, struggling causes," and the different churches prospered in his care. In 1919, at age sixty-two, he resigned and moved to Kingston, Ont. There, while still a Baptist, he served as assistant pastor of the Congregational church, until his "life of cheerful, courageous faith" came to an end in October 1923. He was survived by his wife, who had been "a most loyal and loving helpmate" throughout his ministry, a son, and three daughters.

Sources

[b/d] official death records / Acadia archives; Advocate 29 Dec 1897, 5 Apr 1898, 6 Jun 1900, 12 Sep 1900, 19 Sep 1900, 7 Nov 1900, 13 Aug 1902, 1 Jul 1903; Garner; Maritime Baptist 3 Nov 1915, 15 Oct 1919, 21 Nov 1923


4.11.1