RICE, STEPHEN HENRY (1844-1916)

RICE, STEPHEN HENRY, Methodist minister, Newcastle circuit, 1886-87; b. South Petherwin parish, Cornwall, England, 1844; m. 1871, Mary Jane Pollard, of Darlington, Ont.; d. Sunny Brae, N.B., 18 Jan 1916.

Stephen H. Rice became a preacher for the Bible Christian Church in England at an early age and was with that body in Ontario for approximately fourteen years. In 1883 he took a Bible Christian pastorate in Prince Edward Island but transferred to the Methodist ministry the next year.

Rice became the Methodist minister at Newcastle in 1886 for a one-year term after the Rev. Frederick W. Harrison and the Rev. Douglas Chapman had served terms of the same length. All were married men, and a serious obstacle to retaining married Methodist ministers at Newcastle was that, even though it had been a separate circuit of the church since 1875, it had no parsonage. One was erected in 1886, however, and three-year pastorates were later the norm.

Rice had assignments on seven Methodist circuits in all in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. He retired at Sunny Brae in 1905. When he died in 1916 he was survived by his wife, Mary Jane Pollard, three daughters, and two sons: Henry C. Rice and Jabez M. Rice. Another son died in tragic circumstances in 1894 in Saint John during the course of his probation for the ministry.