THE REVEREND ROBERT ADDISON,

 ST. PETER’S CHURCH HEVERSHAM’S ENVOY TO CANADA

FOUNDER OFST. MARK’S ANGLICAN CHURCH

NIAGARA ON THE LAKE, ONTARIO

The Reverend Robert Addison, originally from Heversham, was sent to Niagara by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1791. Information about his early years is scanty. He was baptized in Heversham in 1754. In 1780 he married Mary Atkinson of Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. The following year he graduated from Cambridge, recognized for his skills in languages and mathematics.  He served for one year as curate in Upwell.

The Society had no appreciation of the Canadian weather nor the distances involved in this mission. At his appointment in July 1791 he was told to be ready to sail within a month. This hurried departure was made the more difficult in that in addition to his personal effects and the chalice that was to serve during his ministry in Canada he had to pack up and load his library of 1500 books. The majority of the books had been the property of his father-in-law. They included the classics as well as many theological tomes dating from as early as the 1540’s.  Addison’s library, the oldest west of Quebec, remains in the possession of the parish.

The trip across the Atlantic took at least six weeks. Consequently he had to spend the winter in Quebec. In April he began the long and arduous journey by boat up the St. Lawrence River with a series of portages by cart around the rapids until he reached Niagara in July of 1792.

Niagara was made up of a great number of refugees from the American Revolutionary War, a group of enterprising merchants and the British military personnel around Fort Niagara.  Addison’s primary focus when he left Britain had been the members of the Six Nations aboriginal people who had fought at the side of the British during the revolution and consequently were dispossessed and seeking a new homeland. They were living in Niagara pending their settlement on the Grand River.

This intrepid thirty seven year old clergyman set about meeting the spiritual needs of the parish that presented itself.  His baptismal records indicate that in winter months he traveled extensively to all the little settlements that were springing up. When the ground was frozen he could pass through lands that in summer were marked by swamps and bogs.

His territory reached from York (now Toronto) sixty miles to the east of Niagara, Dundas forty miles to the north west, the Grand River where the aboriginals had settled, sixty mile to the west and Long Point on Lake Erie sixty miles to south east. He was missioner to the Aboriginals, chaplain to the Provincial Legislature, chaplain to the military regiment and pastor at large to the scattered settlements of what is now Southern Ontario. The archdeacon of Toronto, John Strachan, wanted Addison to be principal of what later became the University of Toronto considering him to be the most learned man in the province.

Addison was never able to return to England. His sister, Mary, brought his two daughters to Canada to live with him. His wife was never able to make the journey and died in England.

There is very little first hand information about Robert Addison. The mission society papers provide a clerk’s summary of a verbal report referring to his correspondence with the board.  This consisted primarily of his regular notitia of baptisms and communicants, with only fragments of personal information and somewhat confusing references to his various preaching stations. There must have been correspondence to family members, but to date it has not come to light.

Robert Addison was first and foremost a missionary in an unexplored land. He left no account of his travels nor of the territory he explored. His records are of the people he baptized, married and ministered to. Today most of the older churches in the territory within a sixty mile radius of Niagara claim this son of Heversham as their founding minister.