A LEGACY 0F FAITH

Chapter 7

The Leadership of Reverend McDonald

Reverend D. G. McDonald lost no time in leading his new charge into uncharted waters. He assessed the Baptist situation in Charlottetown and quickly realized their small facility could not satisfy the activities of a membership whose enthusiasm had been generated by the tenure of Pastor John Davis. Pastor McDonald held great respect for John Davis and throughout his term at Charlottetown Baptist often referred to him in endearing terms as ”Father Davis”. The small Chapel on Great George Street was almost 40 years old and had served its usefulness. it was time to seriously consider building a new church. In September of 1878, he convinced the officers and members that the time had come to expand. Sharing his enthusiasm, they immediately established a building committee, hired Charlottetown architect Thomas Alley to do the design work and within two weeks had made the down payment on a large empty lot on the south-east corner of Prince and Fitzroy Streets.Theseforward thinking Ba ptists were putting thefull trust oftheir decisions in God's hands. After all, with the annual meeting showing a balance in the bank of under $100, why would there be a negative thoughts? If nothing else, their faith could not be Questioned. Actually, when the final vote was taken to build a new church there was one dissenting vote, but the individual against expansion was never identified.

In 1874, Charlottetown architect Thomas Alley had ’FAIRHOLM’-230Prince$treet(c. 1885) - PEI Heritage Foundation

Alley - H. B. Sterling Photograph

fig,

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