MCNEIL, GEORGE (1815-1876)

MCNEIL, GEORGE, teacher, b. Miramichi River, c1815; m. 1852, Josephine Davidson, d/o Alexander Davidson and Ann Saunders; d. Weldford parish, Kent Co., N.B., 17 Jul 1876.

George McNeil would appear to have launched his teaching career in the Richibucto area in the 1830s. Around 1843 he began to teach at Douglastown, which in this period was reputed to have had the best parish school on the Miramichi. In 1844-45 he was being paid the highest salary of any teacher in the parish schools of the county, and he was one of few parish teachers holding a 1st class license in 1849. He was teaching in Chatham in 1860, and when the Presbyterian Academy opened there in December 1861 he was appointed second teacher, under William Crocket. He was still on the Academy staff in 1866, but he retired soon afterwards, after completing thirty-five years in the teaching field. He was the proprietor of a small store in Chatham in 1871.

McNeil was an elder of St Andrew's Church in Chatham, having been ordained in 1862. Of several children whom he and his wife, Josephine Davidson, had baptized at St James Presbyterian Church in Newcastle in the 1850s, only one son, Joseph McNeil, was living at home with them in the 1860s.