MACARTHUR, SAMUEL JOHNSON (1866-1950)

MACARTHUR, SAMUEL JOHNSON, Presbyterian minister, Newcastle, 1907-17; b. Port Hill, P.E.I., 2 Sep 1866, s/o James Macarthur and Jessie Elizabeth Anderson; m. Libbie Carruthers, of North Bedeque, P.E.I.; d. Moncton, 16 May 1950.

Samuel J. Macarthur was educated at Prince of Wales College and Dalhousie University (BA 1893, MA 1894) and trained for the ministry at the Presbyterian College in Halifax (grad. 1895, BD 1899). Ordained in 1895, he had a total of three pastorates in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island before being called to Newcastle in 1907. At the beginning of his term the eighty-year-old St James Church was extensively renovated and expanded. The alterations were designed by the architectural firm of H. H. Mott and carried out by the contractor Henry Ingram of Newcastle. The work was completed in the fall of 1909.

Because of a philosophical bent, Macarthur was nicknamed "Kant" in college, and it was evident to all that he was a man of "outstanding ability and marked individuality." A sermon which he preached on "Culture" in 1914 was deemed to be a masterpiece and was published in the Union Advocate. During World War I, he delivered stirring, patriotic addresses. He remained in Newcastle for ten years, until 1917, when he was called to Quebec City.

In 1922 Macarthur moved to Ontario. He had previously been a fervent advocate of church union, but he chose not to join the United Church in 1925. In 1928 he was named to the Moncton charge of the continuing Presbyterian church. Between 1934 and 1936 he was Presbyterian minister-at-large for New Brunswick. His last church was at Stellarton, N.S. He was eighty-three years old when he died at the home of one of his daughters in 1950, leaving his wife, Libbie Carruthers, and nine children as his survivors.