Books: Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher
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William Henry Withrow >> Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher
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12 Produced by Seth Hadley, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.
NEVILLE TRUEMAN,
THE
PIONEER PREACHER.
A TALE OF THE WAR OF 1812.
BY THE
REV. W. H. WITHROW, M.A.
TO THE
REV. EGERTON RYERSON, D.D., LL.D.,
WHOSE LONG LIFE
HAS BEEN DEVOTED TO THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY,
THIS
"Story of the War,"
WHOSE HISTORY
HE HAS WITH GRAPHIC PEN RECORDED,
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
In this short story an attempt has been made--with what success
the reader must judge--to present certain phases of Canadian life
during the heroic struggle against foreign invasion, which first
stirred in our country the pulses of that common national life,
which has at length attained a sturdier strength in the
confederation of the several provinces of the Dominion of Canada.
It will he found, we think, that the Canadian Methodism of those
troublous times was not less patriotic than pious. While our
fathers feared God, they also honoured the King, and loved their
country; and many of them died in its defence. Reverently let us
mention their names. Lightly let us tread upon their ashes.
Faithfully let us cherish their memory. And sedulously let us
imitate their virtues.
A good deal of pains has been taken by the careful study of the
most authentic memoirs, documents, and histories referring to the
period; by personal examination of the physical aspect of the
scene of the story; and by frequent conversations with some of the
principal actors in the stirring drama of the time--most of whom,
alas! have now passed away--to give a verisimilitude to the
narrative that shall, it is hoped, reproduce in no distorted
manner this memorable period.
W. H. W.
TORONTO, March 1st, 1880.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
War Clouds
CHAPTER II.
The Eve of Battle
CHAPTER III.
Queenston Heights
CHAPTER IV.
The Wages of War
CHAPTER V.
A Victory and its Cost
CHAPTER VI.
The Capture of York
CHAPTER VII.
The Fall of Fort George
CHAPTER VIII.
The Fortunes of War
CHAPTER IX.
A Brave Woman's Exploit
CHAPTER X.
Disasters and Triumphs
CHAPTER XI.
Elder Case in War Time
CHAPTER XII.
A Dark Tragedy--The Burning of Niagara
CHAPTER XIII.
A Stern Nemesis--A Ravaged Frontier
CHAPTER XIV.
Toronto of Old
CHAPTER XV.
A Quarterly Meeting in the Olden Time
CHAPTER XVI.
The "Protracted Meeting"
CHAPTER XVII.
Heart Trials.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Tragedy of War.
CHAPTER XIX.
Chippewa and Lundy's Lane.
CHAPTER XX.
The Closing of the War.
CHAPTER XXI.
Closing Scenes. NEVILLE TRUEMAN, THE PIONEER PREACHER [Footnote:
The principal authorities consulted for the historical portion of
this story are:--Tupper's Life and Letters of Sir Isaac Brock,
Auchinleck's and other histories of the War, and Carroll's,
Bangs', and Playter's references to border Methodism at the period
described. Many of the incidents, however, are derived from the
personal testimony of prominent actors in the stirring drama of
the time, but few of whom still linger on the stage. For reasons
which will be obvious, the personality of some of the characters
of the story is Slightly veiled under assumed names.]
CHAPTER I.
WAR CLOUDS.
Now lower the dreadful clouds of war;
Its threatening thunder rolls afar;
Near and more near the rude alarms
Of conflict and the clash of arms
Advance and grow, till all the air
Rings with the brazen trumpet blare.
Towards the close of a sultry day in July, in the year 1812, might
have been seen a young man riding along the beautiful west bank of
the Niagara River, about three miles above its mouth. His
appearance would anywhere have attracted attention. He was small
in person and singularly neat in his attire. By exposure to
summer's sun and winter's cold, his complexion was richly bronzed,
but, as he lifted his broad-leafed felt hat to cool his brow, it
could be seen that his forehead was smooth and white and of a
noble fulness, indicating superior intellectual abilities. His
hair was dark,
--his eye beneath
Flashed like falchion from its sheath.
His bright, quick glances, alternating with a full and steady
gaze, betokened a mind keenly sympathetic with emotions both of
sorrow and of joy. His dress and accoutrements were those of a
travelling Methodist preacher of the period. He wore a suit of
"parson's grey," the coat having a straight collar and being
somewhat rounded away in front. His buckskin leggings, which
descended to his stirrups, were splashed with mud, for the day had
been rainy. He was well mounted on a light-built, active-looking
chestnut horse. The indispensable saddle-bags, containing his
Greek Testament, Bible, and Wesley's Hymns, and a few personal
necessaries, were secured across the saddle. A small, round,
leathern valise, with a few changes of linen, and his coarse
frieze great-coat were strapped on behind. Such was a typical
example of the "clerical cavalry" who, in the early years of this
century, ranged through the wilderness of Canada, fording or
swimming rivers, toiling through forests and swamps, and carrying
the gospel of Christ to the remotest settlers in the backwoods.
Our young friend, the Rev. Neville Trueman, afterwards a prominent
figure in the history of early Methodism, halted his horse on a
bluff jutting out into the Niagara River, both to enjoy the
refreshing breeze that swept over the water and to admire the
beautiful prospect. At his feet swept the broad and noble river,
reflecting on its surface the snowy masses of "thunderhead"
clouds, around which the lightning still played, and which,
transfigured and glorified in the light of the setting sun, seemed
to the poetic imagination of the young man like the City of God
descending out of heaven, with its streets of gold and foundations
of precious stones, while the rainbow that spanned the heavens
seemed like the rainbow of the Apocalypse round about the throne
of God.
Under the inspiration of the beauty of the scene, the young
preacher began to sing in a clear, sweet, tenor voice that song of
the ages, which he had learned at his mother's knee among the
green hills of Vermont--
Jerusalem the golden,
With milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation,
Sink heart and voice opprest,
I know not, oh! I know not
What joys await me there;
What radiancy of glory,
What bliss beyond compare.
They stand, those walls of Zion,
All jubilant with song,
And bright with many an angel,
And all the martyr throng.
With jasper glow thy bulwarks,
Thy streets with emeralds blaze,
The sardius and the topaz
Unite in thee their rays.
Thine ageless walls are bonded
With amethyst unpriced;
The saints build up its fabric,
The corner-stone is Christ.
[Footnote: We cannot resist the temptation to give a few lines of
the original hymn of Bernard of Clugny, a Breton monk of English
parentage of the 12th century--"the sweetest of all the hymns of
heavenly homesickness of the soul," and for generations one of the
most familiar, through translations, in many languages. The rhyme
and rhythm are so difficult, that the author was able to master
it, he believed, only by special inspiration of God.
Urbs Syon aurea, patria lactea, cive decora,
Omne cor obruis, omnibus obstruis et cor et ora,
Nescio, nescio, quae jubilatio, lux tibi qualis,
Quam socialia gaudia, gloria quam specialis.]
For a moment longer he gazed upon the broad, flowing river which
divided two neighbouring peoples, one in language, in blood, in
heroic early traditions, and the common heirs of the grandest
literature the world has ever seen, yet severed by a deep, wide,
angry-flowing stream of strife, which, dammed up for a time, was
about to burst forth in a desolating flood that should overwhelm
and destroy some of the fairest fruits of civilization in both
countries. As he gazed northward, he beheld, on the eastern bank
of the river, the snowy walls and grass-grown ramparts of Fort
Niagara, above which floated proudly the stars and stripes.
As he gazed on the ancient fort, the memories of its strange
eventful history came thronging on his mind from the time that La
Salle thawed the frozen ground in midwinter to plant his
palisades, to the time that the gallant Prideaux lay mangled in
its trenches by the bursting of a cohorn--on the very eve of
victory. These memories have been well expressed in graphic verse
by a living Canadian poet--a denizen of the old borough of
Niagara. [Footnote: William Kirby, Esq., in CANADIAN METHODIST
MAGAZINE for May, 1878.]
Two grassy points--not promontories--front
The calm blue lake--the river flows between,
Bearing in its full bosom every drop
Of the wild flood that leaped the cataract.
And swept the rock-walled gorge from end to end.
'Mid flanking eddies, ripples, and returns,
It rushes past the ancient fort that once
Like islet in a lonely ocean stood,
A mark for half a world of savage woods;
With war and siege and deeds of daring wrought
Into its rugged walls--a history
Of heroes, half forgotten, writ in dust.
Two centuries deep lie the foundation stones,
La Salle placed there, on his adventurous quest
Of the wild regions of the boundless west;
Where still the sun sets on his unknown grave.
Three generations passed of war and peace;
The Bourbon lilies grew; brave men stood guard;
And braver still went forth to preach and teach
Th' evangel, in the forest wilderness,
To men fierce as the wolves whose spoils they wore.
Then came a day of change. The summer woods
Were white with English tents, and sap and trench
Crept like a serpent to the battered walls.
Prideaux lay dead 'mid carnage, smoke, and fire
Before the Gallic drums beat parley--then
Niagara fell, and all the East and West
Did follow: and our Canada was won.
As the sun sank beneath the horizon, the flag slid down the
halyards, and the sullen roar of the sunset gun boomed over the
wave, and was echoed back by the dense forest wall around and by
the still low-hanging clouds overhead. A moment later the British
gun of Fort George, on the opposite side of the river, but
concealed from the spectator by a curve in the shore, loudly
responded, as if in haughty defiance to the challenge of a foe.
Turning his horse's head, the young man rode rapidly down the
road, beneath a row of noble chestnuts, and drew rein opposite a
substantial-looking, brick farmhouse, but with such small windows
as almost to look like a casematad fortress. Dismounting, he threw
his horse's bridle over the hitching-post at the gate, and passed
through a neat garden, now blooming with roses and sweet peas, to
the open door of the house. He knocked with his riding-whip on the
door jamb, to which summons a young lady, dressed in a neat calico
gown and swinging in her hand a broad-leafed sunhat, replied.
Seeing a stranger, she dropped a graceful "courtesy,"--which is
one of the lost arts now-a-days,--and put up her hand to brush
back from her face her wealth of clustering curls, somewhat
dishevelled by the exercise of raking in the hayfield.
"Is this the house of Squire Drayton?" asked Neville, politely
raising his hat.
The young lady, for such she evidently was, though so humbly
dressed--_simplex munditiis_--replied that it was, and
invited the stranger into the large and comfortable sitting-room,
which bore evidence of refinement, although the carpet was of
woven rags and much of the furniture was home-made.
"I have a letter to him from Elder Ryan," said Neville, presenting
a document elaborately folded, after the manner of epistolary
missives of the period.
"Oh, you're the new presiding elder, are you?" asked the lady. "We
heard you were coming."
"No, not the presiding elder," said Neville, smiling at the
unwonted dignity attributed to him, "and not even an elder at all;
but simply a Methodist preacher on trial--a junior, who may be an
elder some day."
"Excuse me," said the young lady, blushing at her mistake. "Father
has just gone to the village for his paper, but will be back
shortly. Zenas, take the preacher's horse," she continued to a
stout lad who had just come in from the hayfield.
"I will help him," said Neville, proceeding with the boy. It was
the almost invariable custom of the pioneer preachers to see that
their faithful steeds were groomed and fed, before they attended
to their own wants.
Miss Katherine Drayton--this was the young lady's name--was the
eldest daughter of Squire Drayton, of The Holms, as the farm was
called, from the evergreen oaks that grew upon the riverbank. Her
mother having been dead for some years, Katherine had the
principal domestic management of the household. This duty, with
its accompanying cares, had given her a self-reliance and maturity
of character beyond her years. She deftly prepared a tasteful
supper for the new guest, set out with snowy napery and with the
seldom-used, best china.
"Hello! what's up now?" asked her father, cheerily, as he entered
the door. He is worth looking at as he stands on the threshold,
almost filling the doorway with his large and muscular frame. He
had a hearty, ruddy, English look, a frank and honest expression
in his light blue eyes, and an impulsiveness of manner that
indicated a temper--
That carries anger as the flint bears fire,
Which much enforced, showeth a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.
He was not a Methodist, but his dead wife had been one, and for
her sake, and because he had the instincts of a gentleman, of
respect to the ministerial character, he extended a hospitable
welcome to the travelling Methodist preachers, who were almost the
only ministers in the country except the clergyman of the English
Church in the neighbouring village of Niagara.
"The new preacher has come, father. He brought this letter from
Elder Ryan," said Katherine, handing him the missive.
The Squire glanced over it and said, "Any one that Elder Ryan
introduces is welcome to this house. He is a right loyal
gentleman, if he did come from the States. I am afraid, though,
that the war will make it unpleasant for most of those Yankee
preachers."
"Why, father, is there any bad news?" anxiously inquired the young
girl.
"Ay! that there is," he replied, taking from his pocket the
_York Gazette_, which had just reached Niagara, three or four
days after the date of publication.
Here the young preacher returned to the house, and was cordially
welcomed by the Squire. When mutual greetings were over, "This is
a bad business," continued the host, unfolding the meagre,
greyish-looking newspaper. "I feared it would come to this, ever
since that affair of the _Little Belt_ and _President_
last year. There is nothing John Bull is so sensitive about as his
ships, and he can't stand defeat on the high seas."
"War is not declared, I hope," said Neville, with much
earnestness.
"Yes, it is," replied the Squire, "and what's more, Hull has
crossed the Detroit River with three thousand men. [Footnote:
Rumour had somewhat exaggerated the number of his force. It was
only twenty-five hundred.] Here is part of his proclamation. He
offers 'peace, liberty, and security,' or, 'war, slavery, and
destruction.' Confound his impudence," exclaimed the choleric
farmer, striking his fist on the table till the dishes rattled
again. "He may whistle another tune before he is much older."
"What'll Brock do, father?" exclaimed Zenas, who had listened with
a boy's open-mouthed astonishment to the exciting news.
"He'll be even with him, I'se warrant," replied the burly Squire.
"He will hasten to the frontier through the Long Point country,
gathering up the militia and Indians as he goes. They are serving
out blankets and ammunition at the fort to-night. I saw Brant at
Navy Hall. He would answer for his two hundred tomahawks from the
Credit and Grand River; and Tecumseh, he said, would muster as
many more. We'll soon hear good news from the front. The
Commissary has given orders for the victualling of Fort George. We
are to take in all our hay and oats, beef cattle, and flour next
week."
"O Father, mayn't I go with Brock"? exclaimed the young enthusiast
Zenas, "I'm old enough."
"We may soon be busy enough here, my son. No place is more exposed
than this frontier. The garrisons at Forts Porter and Niagra are
being strengthened, and I could see the Yankee militia drilling as
I rode to the village."
"Hurrah!" shouted the thoughtless boy, "won't it be fun? We'll
show them how the Britishers can fight."
"God grant, my son," said the farmer solemnly, "that we may not
see more fighting than we wish. I've lived through one bloody war
and I never want to see another. But if fight we must for our
country, fight we will."
"And I'm sure none more bravely than Zenas Drayton," said
Katherine proudly, laying her hand on her brother's head.
"You ought to have been a boy, Kate," said her father admiringly.
"You've got all your mother's pluck."
"I'd be ashamed if I wouldn't stand up for my country, father: I
feel as if I could carry a musket myself."
"You can do better, Kate: you can make your country worth brave
men dying for," and he fondly kissed her forehead, while something
like a tear glistened in his eyes.
For a time Neville Trueman mused without speaking, as if the prey
of conflicting emotions. At last he said with solemn emphasis, "My
choice is made: I cast in my lot with my adopted country. I
believe this invasion of a peaceful territory by an armed host is
a wanton outrage and cannot have the smile of Heaven. I daresay I
shall encounter obloquy and suspicion from both sides, but I must
obey my conscience."
"Young man, I honour your choice," exclaimed the Squire
effusively, grasping his hand with energy. "I know what it is to
leave home, and kindred, and houses and lands for loyalty to my
conscience and my King. I left as fair an estate as there was in
the Old Dominion because I could not live under any other flag
than the glorious Union Jack under which I was born. It was a
dislocating wrench to tear myself away from the home of my
childhood and the graves of my parents for an unknown wilderness.
Much were we tossed about by sea and land. Our ship was wrecked
and its passengers strewn like seaweed on the Nova Scotia coast--
some living and some dead--and at last, after months of travel and
privation, on foot, in ox carts and in Durham boats, we found our
way, I and a few neighbours, to this spot, to hew out new homes in
the forest and keep our oath of allegiance to our King."
The old U. E. Loyalist always grew eloquent as he referred to his
exile for conscience' sake and to the planting by the conscript
fathers of Canada of a new Troy under the aegis of British power.
"_I_ came of regular Yankee stock," said Mr. Trueman. "My
mother was a Neville--one of the Nevilles of Boston. She heard
Jesse Lee's first sermon on Boston Common, and joined the first
Methodist society in the old Bay State. My father was one of Ethan
Allen's Green Mountain Boys, and assisted at the capture of
Ticonderoga. He was also a volunteer at Bunker Hill. It was then
he met my mother, being billeted at her father's house."
"You have rebel blood in you and no mistake," said the Squire.
"I believe the colonists were right in resisting oppression in
'76," continued Neville; "but I believe they are wrong in invading
Canada now, and I wash my hands of all share in their crime."
"We will not quarrel about the old war," said the veteran
loyalist. "The _Gazette_ here says that many of your
countrymen agree with you about the new one. At the declaration of
hostilities the flags of the shipping at Boston were placed at
half-mast and a public meeting denounced the war as ruinous and
unjust."
"I foresee a long and bloody strife," said Neville.
"Neither country will yield without a tremendous struggle. It is
ungenerous to attack Great Britain now, when, as the champion of
human liberty, she is engaged in a death-wrestle with the arch
despot Napoleon."
"But Wellington will soon thrash Boney," interjected Zenas, who
was an ardent admirer of the Peninsular hero, "and then his
redcoats will polish off the Yankees, won't they, father?"
"If you had seen as much of the horrors of war, my boy, as I have,
you would not be so eager for it. God forbid it should deluge this
frontier with blood; but if it do, old as I am, I will shoulder
the old Brown Bess there above the fireplace that your grandfather
bore at Brandywine and Yorktown."
"What I dread most is the effect on religion," said Trueman.
"Several of the Methodist preachers are, like myself, American-
born, and we all are stationed by an American bishop. I am afraid
many will go back to the States, and all will be liable to
suspicion as disloyal to this country by the bigoted and
prejudiced. But I shall not forsake my post, nor leave these
people as sheep without a shepherd. If there is to be war and
bloodshed and wounds and sudden death on this frontier circuit,
they will need a preacher all the more, and, God helping me, I'll
not desert them.
"I am a man of peace, and fight not with worldly weapons, but I
can, perhaps, help those who do."
"God bless you for that speech, my brave lad," exclaimed the
Squire. "Nobody questions _my_ loyalty, and if need arise,
I'll give you a paper, signed with my name as a magistrate, that
will protect you from harm."
Kate had sat quiet, busily sewing, during this conversation, but
her heightened colour and her quickened breathing bore witness
that she was no uninterested listener. With a look of deep
gratitude, she quietly said, "We are all very much obliged to you,
Mr. Neville, for your noble resolve."
The young man thought that grateful look ample compensation for
the mental sacrifice that he had made, and an inspiration to
unfaltering fidelity in carrying it into effect.
The next morning all was bustle and excitement at the farmhouse.
"All hands were piped," to use a sea phrase, to aid in the
revictualling of the fort, the orders for which were urgent.
Breakfast was served in the huge kitchen, the squire, his guest,
his children, and the hired men all sitting at the same table,
like a feudal lord, with his men-at-arms, in an old baronial hall.
"Father," said Zenas, "Tom Loker and Sandy McKay have gone off
with the militia. They went to the village last night and signed
the muster-roll. I saw them marching past with some more of the
boys and the redcoats early this morning."
"I saw them, too," said the squire. "They needn't have given me
the slip that way. It will leave me short-handed; but I wouldn't
have said nay if they wanted to go."
After breakfast Neville mounted his horse and rode off to the
place appointed for holding the Methodist Conference,--the new
meeting-house near St. David's. He soon overtook the detachment of
militia, which was marching to join, at Long Point, the main force
which Brock was to lead thither from York by way of Ancaster. He
noticed that the men, though tolerably well armed, were very
indifferently shod for their long tramp over rough roads. They had
no pretence to uniform save a belt and cartouch box, and a blanket
rolled up tightly and worn like a huge scarf. As He walked his
horse for awhile beside Tom Loker who had groomed his horse the
night before, he told him what the squire had said about his
joining the militia.
"Did he now?" said Tom. "Then my place will be open for me when I
return. We'll be back time enough to help run in that beef and pork
into the fort, won't we, Sandy?"
"That's as God pleases," said the Scotchman, a sturdy, grave-
visaged man. "Ilka bullet has its billet; an' gin we're to coom
back, back we'll coom, though it rained bullets all the way."
Neville bade them God speed and rode on to "Warner's meeting-
house," as it was called. It was a large frame structure, utterly
devoid of ornament, near the roadside. "Hitching" his horse to the
fence, he went in. A meagre handful of Methodist preachers were
present--not more than a dozen--indeed, the entire number in the
province was very little more than that. In the chair, in front of
the quaint, old-fashioned pulpit, which the present writer has
often occupied, sat a man who would attract attention anywhere. He
was nearly six feet in height, and of very muscular development;
indeed tradition asserted that he had once been a prize-fighter.
His dark hair was closely cut, which increased his resemblance to
that especially unclerical and un-Methodistic character. This was
the Rev. Henry Ryan, the Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada
District--extending from Brockville to the Detroit River.
[Footnote: The whole of Lower Canada formed another district, of
which the celebrated Nathan Bangs was at that time Presiding
Elder.] In a full rich voice, in which the least shade of an Irish
accent could be discerned, he was addressing the little group of
men before him. The ministers labouring in Canada had expected to
meet their American brethren; but, on account of the outbreak of
the war, the latter had remained on their own side of the river,
and held their Conference near Rochester, New York State. The
bishop, however, appointed the Canadian ministers to their
circuits, but the relations of Methodism in the two countries were
almost entirely interrupted during the war. A few of the ministers
labouring in Canada obeyed what they conceived the dictates of
prudence, and returned to the United States; but the most of them,
although cut off from fellowship, and largely from sympathy with
the Conference and Church by which they were appointed, continued
steadfast at their posts and loyal to the institutions of the
country, notwithstanding the obloquy, suspicion, and persecution
to which they were often subjected. In this course they were
greatly sustained and encouraged by the unfaltering faith and
energy of Elder Ryan, who, though subsequently in his history he
became a religious agitator, was at this period a most zealous and
effective preacher, one who, in the words of Bishop Hedding,
"laboured as if the thunders of the day of judgment were to follow
each sermon." During the agitations and civil convulsions by which
the country was disturbed, he continued to meet the preachers in
annual conference, and endeavoured to maintain the ecclesiastical
organization of Methodism till it was permitted to renew its
relations with the mother Church of the United States.
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