REV . J. B. STRONG AND THE FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL The Rev. John Hick succeeded Mr. Bullpit in 1815 and the next year he opened the Chapel for public worship. Two years later he was transferred to Upper Canada and the Rev. J. B. Strong was sent to Charlottetown . To Mr. Strong belongs the honor of forming the first Sunday School of any denomination in Prince Edward Island . It was known as the Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School of Charlottetown. At first it had only twenty members, including the Superintendent and teachers, and the main activity seems to have been the memorizing of Scriptural passages and verses. Nine years after this Sunday School was opened the "Island Register" contained the following article: "A public examination of the Wesleyan Sunday School took place on Sunday last, which we are glad to observe was very respectably attended. The cleanly and cheerful appearance of the children was an interesting and pleasing spectacle. When we mention that considerably upwards of one hundred children regularly attend this school, where they are gratuitously taught and have their youthful minds early embued with a reverence for divine things, some estimate may be formed of the important benefits which this institution has conferred on the community". The Rev. Mr. Strong came to the Island twice as pastor of the Methodist Church, the first time in 1817 when he stayed for one year only. When he returned for the second time in 1843, he found that the Sunday School had an enrollment of one hundred and fifty- eight. He was one of the Wesley missionaries and was sent to Canada from Newark, Nottinghamshire, to Three Rivers, Quebec . His great-grandson was Heath Strong , Barrister and M.L.A . of Sum- merside, at one time Speaker in the Provincial Legislature. Rev. Mr. Strong 's remains lie in the old Cemetery. For nearly twenty years the Sunday School, was held in the old Chapel on . Later, it was moved to the corner of Prince and Streets when the present site was purchased. The names of the Superintendents , taken from early records are: Charles Welsh , John Bovyer , George Weldon , and Watson Duchemin , who served while the school was held in the first chapel. This second chapel, built in 1835, stood where the present Heartz Memorial Hall now stands. From an account in the Royal Gazette of Tuesday, July 21, 1835, I quote "nineteen years ago in Charlottetown the friends of Methodism laid the foundation of their first place of worship 'small and feeble was their day.' Owing to causes to which we shall not refer here that place of worship was never finished .... to repair and finish it was a waste of money and labour .... so a new edifice was projected. A lot of land _ 20 —