Serving "the North East Corner of Creation": The Community Role of a Rural Minister in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, 1829-1870

Abstract

Ammi Parker, a nineteenth-century Congregational minister in Danville, Quebec, was the only clergyman in his community for many years, as well as senior representative of a church which had begun to decline just as American settlers were moving onto this northern frontier. As elsewhere in the Eastern Townships, the Congregational Church in Danville was caught between the growth of aggressively revivalistic denominations, on the one hand, and the well-endowed Church of England on the other. Given the additional impact in later years of the growing English-Canadian exodus from the region, Reverend Parker’s pragmatism and resourcefulness were essential to the survival of his family and the endurance of his congregation. Viewed from a broader perspective, Parker was a somewhat belated transitional figure, combining aspects of New England’s community-tied pastorate of the eighteenth century and its more professional ministry of the nineteenth century.