A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose
1887. He leaves four sons. He was for many years the leading member of
1156 words | Chapter 78
the Plymouth Brethren in Montreal, and generally conducted their
services.
* * * * *
=Strachan, John=, LL.D., D.D., Bishop of Toronto.—The late Bishop
Strachan was born at Aberdeen, Scotland, on the 12th of April, 1778, and
received his early education at the Grammar School of that city, and
finished his term at King’s College in 1796, when he got his Master’s
degree. His father was a poor man, straitened in circumstances; yet,
with the characteristic ambition of a Scotchman, he had determined that
his son should be well equipped for future conflict with the world. He
was only nineteen years of age when he was declared the successful
candidate for the parochial schoolmastership of Kettle. There were
nearly one hundred and fifty pupils in this school, among them Sir David
Wilkie, the artist, and Commodore Robert Barclay, doomed to misfortune
on Lake Erie, from no fault of his own. He remained at Kettle three
years, when an invitation to Canada came to change the current of his
life. It was towards the close of the eighteenth century that some
liberal friends of education anxiously contemplating the establishment
of a high school and university, bethought themselves of applying to
Scotland for a teacher to whom they could confide the training of their
sons, and, amongst those, the most directly interested was the Hon.
Richard Cartwright, grandfather of the present Sir Richard Cartwright, a
man of enterprise and far-sighted views. Mr. Strachan having been
engaged for the purpose, towards the end of 1799 he sailed from
Greenock, by way of New York, and arrived in Kingston on the last day of
the year. His first experience of Upper Canada took the form of
disappointment. Governor Simcoe, with that statesmanlike prescience that
characterised him, had from the first made the establishment of a
university his first and chief desideratum. But unfortunately the first
governor had been removed before his patriotic scheme was carried into
effect, and just when Mr. Strachan arrived at Kingston there seemed to
be no prospect that either the university or grammar school system would
be attempted for the present. Mr. Cartwright recognised the trying
position of the young teacher, and generously set himself to work on his
behalf. He had four sons himself, and his friends could add to the
number of pupils, and so provide the young Scot with an honorable and
fairly remunerative living until the plans of the government were
matured. Mr. Strachan was a Presbyterian, but his father was an
Episcopal non-juror—a champion of the lost cause of the Stuarts, and
his earliest recollections of church services were those he attended
with his father at Aberdeen, presided over by Bishop Skinner.
Subsequently he habitually accompanied his widowed mother to the Relief
Church, of which she was a member. He was only a Presbyterian by
accident. When he arrived at Kingston, and was thrown in contact with
the Rev. Dr. Stuart, who, although an Anglican, was the son of a
Presbyterian, he was naturally attracted to the church of his father, so
that when Mr. Cartwright and Dr. Stuart advised him to study divinity,
the change was easily made, and the result was that the future bishop
received deacon’s orders in 1803. The bishop of Niagara, who was
afterwards one of his pupils at Toronto, has given a graphic description
of Mr. Strachan’s methods, and of his remarkable success as a teacher.
His great care was to interest the boys in their studies, and to draw
out their latent capabilities by attractive means. To him education
meant what its etymology implies, not cramming, but development. Perhaps
no instructor could boast of a larger number of pupils who obtained
eminence in after life. Chief Justice Robinson, and his brother, the
Hon. W. B. Robinson, Chief Justices Macaulay and McLean, Judge Jonas
Jones, Dean Bethune, of Montreal, and his brother, Bishop Strachan’s
successor in the See of Toronto, the Hon. H. J. and G. S. Boulton, Col.
Vankoughnet, father of the chancellor, Donald Æneas Macdonell, and
others, sat at the feet of the ex-dominie of Kettle. Dr. Strachan
removed to York, at the insistance of General Brock, and, in 1812,
became rector of York. For the first time he now entered the political
sphere, by taking the initiative in forming a loyal and patriotic
society. The times were out of joint; war was imminent, and with
characteristic vigor the new rector came to the fore. There was a strong
heart beating beneath the ecclesiastical vestments, and he had an
opportunity soon of showing his mettle. When the long expected shock of
war came on, there never was a busier or more useful man than Dr.
Strachan. It has been remarked that when York was taken, he was “priest,
soldier, and diplomatist,” all in one. At the capture of York, he was
incessantly active. After the explosion by which General Pike was killed
at the old fort, the Americans threatened vengeance upon the defenceless
town which had been evacuated by General Sheaffe and his forces. The
rector, however, was equal to the occasion; and, as a contemporary
writer puts it, “by his great firmness of character, saved the town of
York in 1813 from sharing the same fate as the town of Niagara met with
some months afterwards.” The sturdy clergyman at once visited General
Dearborn, and threatened that if he carried out his threat of sacking
the town, Buffalo, Lewiston, Sackett’s Harbor, and Oswego, should be
destroyed as soon as troops arrived from England. His earnestness and
determination moved the American, and he spared the little Yorkers from
any systematic burning and plunder. But all the danger was not over;
marauding parties wandered about the town seeking for plunder, and not
unfrequently were confronted by the sturdy little rector. On one
occasion two American soldiers visited the house of Colonel Givens, who
was an officer in the retreating army. The inmates were absolutely
helpless, and the marauders made off with the family plate. Dr. Strachan
at once went after them, and demanded back the stolen property. Under
the circumstances this was a singularly courageous thing to do, and
apparently a hopeless one. But the rector was a man of unwavering
resolution, and managed at last, without any other weapon than that
which nature had placed in his mouth, to secure the return of the goods
to their rightful owner. The pluck and bravery displayed by him
throughout that trying time showed sufficiently the real “grit” of the
man, and the boldness and strength of will shewn then, characterized his
life. In resolution and determined perseverance, he was every inch a
Scot. In 1818 began Dr. Strachan’s public life in the ordinary sense of
the term; for he was then nominated an executive councillor and took his
seat in the Legislative Council. He remained a member of the government
until 1836, and of the Upper House up to the union of the provinces in
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