DAWSON, GEORGE FREDERICK (1861-1938)

DAWSON, GEORGE FREDERICK, Methodist minister, Chatham circuit, 1908-11; b. New Bandon, Gloucester Co., N.B., 31 Aug 1861, s/o Richard Dawson and Mary Lockhart; m. 1888, Annie Florence Huestis, of Halifax; d. Toronto, 15 Nov 1938.

George F. Dawson was the son of a grindstone manufacturer at New Bandon who later conducted a hotel in Campbellton, N.B. After attending school in Campbellton he enrolled in the Provincial Normal School at age seventeen. Upon graduation he was hired as a teacher in Campbellton, but he resigned in November 1881 to become a probationer for the Methodist ministry. His first assignment was to the Tabusintac mission field, in which he preached at Tabusintac, Stymiest Settlement, Tracadie, and other locations over a large area. After two successful years he left to complete his education and theological training at Mount Allison University (BA 1888, MA 1897). Ordained in 1888, he spent forty-four years as a Methodist and United Church minister in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, occupying pulpits in Saint John, Sussex, St Andrews, and elsewhere.

Dawson was stationed at Little York, P.E.I., during a term which ended in 1908. He then accepted appointment to St Luke's Methodist Church in Chatham for a three-year term. It was said that his style as a pulpit speaker was conversational instead of declamatory and that his illustrations were always taken from everyday life, which made him a favorite as a minister on the Miramichi and elsewhere. When he departed in 1911 he went to St Stephen.

Dawson retired in Toronto in 1934 and died there in 1938, at age seventy-seven. He was survived by his wife, A. Florence Huestis, three daughters, and three sons. A brother, Dr William J. G. Dawson, practiced medicine in Newcastle between 1870 and 1876 and then left for California. Another brother, Arthur O. Dawson, was a well-known Canadian businessman, and president of Canadian Cottons Ltd of Montreal.