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Reverend John Smithurst fonds, 1841-1851
(A.98-36)
.5 cm of the textual records
Reverend John Smithurst (1801-1867) was appointed by the Church Missionary
Society of England to its North West America Mission, and was later appointed
as company chaplain at the Red River Settlement by the Hudson's Bay Company.
He arrived in Rupert's Land in 1839 and served as company chaplain until
1940, when he reverted to serving solely as a missionary of the society.
During this time he oversaw the mission extension at the Pas, in northern
Manitoba, which was run by Reverend Henry Budd, who at the time was catechist
and schoolmaster. Budd eventually became the first native minister in North
America to be ordained by the Church of England
These letters were originally part of the Smithurst fonds, which was part
of the estate of a collector named "Kitchen". The Smithurst fonds was bought
by an Ottawa philatelic dealer, who then sold the letters to a Toronto dealer
who sold them to dealer Warren Baker through the offices of an agent. These
letters were in turn sold to Michael Angel, Associate Director, Collections,
of the University of Manitoba who then placed them with the department of
Archives & Special Collections
The fonds consists of 17 letters from Reverend Henry Budd to the Reverend
John Smithurst about the conditions in Cumberland and the Pas in Northern
Manitoba during the period 1841 to 1851. Budd discusses conditions of the
mission, relating information about supplies, the weather, the response
of the natives to religious instruction and other daily details of missionary
life
Title based upon contents of the fonds
These letters were removed from the larger Smithurst fonds and arranged
chronologically before they came to the University of Manitoba. Their original
order was unknown
There are no restrictions on this material
No further accruals are expected |
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