CHAPTER III.

The Ministries of William Meek and James Arminius Rickey, 1852-1867

A brief historical sketch printed in Church Work, June, 1904, would lead the reader to believe that New London Anglicanism was first organized under William Meek. This is far from being the case as the foregoing chapters attest. For a quarter century much effort had been made to build up Church life in the com- munity. A list of communicants, 1850, written in the St. Eleanors parish register in Dr. Wiggins’ hand and spelling contains the following names:

William Profit Mrs. Sudsbeir Mrs. Profit Jonathan Adams Wm. H. Profit Mrs. Windsor Francis Pillman Mrs. Jacks

Jane Pillman Wm. Paynter James Pidgeon John Profit Mrs. Pidgeon Mrs. Profit

A. J. Pidgeon Mrs. Coleson Mrs. W. H. Profit James Campbell, Esq. John Saunders George Campbell Mrs. Halley Richard Paynter Mrs. Hamilton Mrs. Harding

Francis Sudsbeir

A further communicant list made up of fifty—one names and covering both New London and Irishtown appears in the old parish register. It includes members of the following families: Graham, Meek, McLeod, Dunning, Cousins, Campbell, Coulson, Burrows, Lock, Murphy, Wigmore, Found, Champion, Evans and Simmons.

But if due credit must be given to those Who laboured at New London previous to 1850, it is no less the fact that William Meek was the first clergyman to reside continuously among his people and to care for them lovingly and assiduously as his training and experience had taught him to do on the rugged coasts of New— foundland. In that sense he may be called the real founder of the

Parish of New London.

One of his first duties was to get a parsonage built. By 1853 this work was completed, as the Diocesan Church Society’s (D.C.S.) report for that year indicates. The Ladies’ Branch of the Society in Charlottetown had promised £130 towards the cost of the building, and the congregation contributed nearly £100. This house stood near the church and sheltered successive incumbents of New London and their families for over thirty years, until, under the Reverend T. B. Reagh, a new rectory was built in Ken- sington in 1886.

The next task was that of church extension. Families from the western part of the parish had attended the Old Church (as it