John Bethune (1751 - 1815)

Ancestors Descendants

Biography

John Bethune was born into a respected family on the Isle of Skye; however, his youth was apparently marked by poverty; he held a college bursary in his third year at King's College (University of Aberdeen), and in 1770 the Synod of Glenelg, at the request of the Presbytery of Skye , granted his family £5 to help meet the expenses of his education. After graduation from King's College with a B.A. in 1769 and an M.A. in 1772, Bethune returned to the Isle of Skye and was licensed as a Church of Scotland minister. In July 1774 the Presbytery of Skye came under criticism from the synod for having licensed Bethune before he could be presented to its meeting. From the standpoint of the presbytery, however, time had been of the essence. Soon after returning from Aberdeen, Bethune had decided to emigrate with some members of his family to North Carolina, a colony that had become a place of refuge for thousands of Highlanders, in the years after the 1745 rebellion. It thus seems highly probably that in hastily licensing Bethune the presbytery had been inspired by a desire to prepare him for the ministry in America.

The Bethunes arrived in North Carolina in 1773, and on 14 Jun 1775 John was recruited as chaplain to the 1st battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrants (later known as the 84th), a loyalist unit raised by Allan MacLEAN. Before assuming this post, he saw action at the battle of Moores Creek Bridge in Feb 1776, probably while serving as chaplain to the North Carolina royal militia. Along with hundreds of other Highlanders, he was captured at this battle by the victorious rebels and imprisoned. For a time he was held in Philadelphia, PA, and it was from here on 31 Oct 1776 that he and a group of fellow prisoners requested permission to rejoin their families. Although the evidence is unclear, he possibly was released at this time and made his way to New York City. Be this as it may, he is not heard of again until his arrival in late 1778 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the 2nd battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrants was stationed.

After reaching Nova Scotia, Bethune acted as chaplain to the 2nd battalion, assisted recruitment amongst Scottish Highlanders, and ministered to the loyalist settlers. His stay in the colony, however, was brief. By Aug 1779 he had moved to Montreal to take up his appointment as chaplain to the 1st battalion of his regiment. There he performed his regular duties as chaplain, administering the ordinances of marriage and baptism for military personnel of the 84th and other regiments. Since the Presbyterians of the city lacked a church of their own, Bethune attended the service conducted by the Anglican rector of Montreal, David Chabrand DELISLE. It was Delisle who married Bethune and Véronique WADDENS in Sep 1782.

From 1783 until the disbanding of the 84th in the following year, Bethune was stationed at the garrison on Carleton Island (NY). On demobilization, he spent a year at Fort Oswegatchie (Ogdensburg, NY) before returning to Montreal in 1786. In Montreal he lived on his half pay but continued to perform marriages and baptisms for army personnel. Around him other Montrealers rallied - Presbyterian Scots, Dutch and German loyalists, and Anglican friends. Being sufficiently numerous to form a congregation, Bethune's followers rented a large room on Rue Notre-Dame where, on 12 Mar 1786, Bethune conducted a Presbyterian service. He continued to minister to his "small but interesting" congregation until May 1787, when on the invitation of a group of Highland settlers he moved to the western area of the province, soon to become Upper Canada. Although his Montreal congregation was short-lived, it is noteworthy as the first Presbyterian congregation west of the town of Quebec and as a precursor of the St. Gabriel Street Church, the mother church of Presbyterianism in Canada.

Bethune devoted the remainder of his life to his ministry among the Highland settlers in Glengarry County, Upper Canada, and to his family of six sons and three daughters. His ability to preach in Gaelic placed him in good stead with his new flock, and the welcome he received was repaid with years of dedicated service. In Williamstown, his place of residence, he formed a Presbyterian congregation and soon had the satisfaction of seeing a log church built, to be replaced by a stone structure before his death. In neighbouring Lancaster, Martintown, and Cornwall, he preached, organized congregations, and encouraged the building of frame churches. Besides the financial support he received from his congregation, he was awarded 2,000 acres as a retired chaplain, and his land holdings were increased in 1811 with the grant of a town lot in Cornwall. In 1789 he began drawing an annual salary of £50 from the local government. This salary was discontinued shortly after the formation of the new province of Upper Canada, but it was soon restored when 150 Presbyterians in the counties of Glengarry and Stormont signed a petition protesting that Bethune was "not a recent adventurer, but a gentleman of approved Loyalty" and that his government salary was necessary to keep him "above Want, and Consequently above contempt."

Bethune's relations with Lieutenant Governor SImcoe were complicated by the controversy surrounding the Marriage Act of 1793, a measure which confined the solemnization of marriages to clergy of the Church of England and justices of the peace. In March 1796 Presbyterians in Grenville County drew up a petition complaining that the act made them "aliens in their own country." In his reply to the petitioners, Simcoe stated that their appeal was "the Product of a Wicked Head and a most disloyal Heart." Later he informed the Home secretary that criticisms of the marriage act would be followed by demands for the partition of those lands set apart for the "National Clergy." He also noted that Bethune, whom he had admitted had "the character of a most loyal man," "signed the Petition, and is said to be the Author."

Bethune was one of only a few Church of Scotland ministers who served in Upper Canada before the War of 1812. Still, he was not totally isolated from other clergymen, both of his own and of other denominations. He and his family frequently returned to Montreal for extended visits when a christening or church business was pending, and on these occasions he came into contact with fellow clergymen, including John YOUNG, his successor as Presbyterian minister in Montreal. With the Roman Catholic priest in Glengarry County, the Reverend Alexander McDonnell, he lived in peace, but he was careful to warn his flock that, although they should remain friendly with their Catholic neighbours, they should "flee from their principles, as from the face of a serpent." He was also on intimate terms with John Strachan, the Anglican clergyman. When Strachan taught school at Cornwall during the years 1803 to 1812, Bethune entrusted him with the care of his sons, and later he even allowed two of them, John and Alexander Neil, to take Church of England orders since he could not afford to send them to Scotland for their education.

Little else is known about Bethune. He seems to have taught school in Cornwall from 1812 to 1814; he may have been present as a chaplain at the attack, led by George Richard John MacDonell on Ogdensburg, NY in Feb 1813; and in June 1815 he was appointed road commissioner for the Eastern District. A few days before his death in 1815, he delivered an address to his Williamstown congregation in which he drew attention to his "precarious health" and stressed the need for an assistant minister. Noting that "there is as great an apathy respecting this essential measure, as if it were certain that I should outlive the whole Congregation," he warned his parishioners that if he died before an assistant could be provided, they would soon fall victim to the "snares" of the Roman Catholic Church, an "arrogant communion" whose members believed themselves to be "the exclusive favorites of heaven." He also stated that there were "private gentlemen" in Lower Canada who would "gladly give you every assistance in their power" in the search for a Highland minister, but that "without timely and vigorous exertion on your own part, the matter will languish away in useless talk; a fault very common in all your public transactions."

Bethune is most honoured and respected of Canada's pioneer Church of Scotland ministers, and his children were a credit to him. John and Alexander Neil rose high in the Church of England's hierarchy, the former becoming dean of Montreal, the latter bishop of Toronto. Of his other sons, James Gray became a banker, Angus was made a chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Donald founded a prominent shipping firm. A daughter, Cecilia, married John KIRBY, the Kingston merchant and legislative councillor. The best known of his descendants is Norman Bethune, one of the heroes of the Chinese revolution. E.A. McDOUGALL

John Bethune (c.1751–1815) whose life in America and Canada has been described in the previous section was, as shown below, descended from the Bethunes/Beatons of Husabost in Skye, one of the largest and most influential branches of the medical kindred. He was born in Breabost in the parish of Duirinish in northern Skye and studied at the University of Aberdeen where he obtained a bursary in his third year of study. The following year the Synod of Glenelg granted his family £5 to help meet expenses for his education.13 After graduating with the degree of BA in 1769 and of MA in 1772, Bethune returned to Skye and was made a licentiate Church of Scotland minister by the Presbytery of Skye.14 This was a time of mass emigration from the island of Skye, particularly to North America. A letter from Allan MacDonald suggests that some 1,700 individuals emigrated from the island between 1771–3. His wife Flora MacDonald, the Jacobite heroine, wrote of the privation on ‘this poor miserable island’ where ‘the best of its inhabitants are making ready to follow their friends to America... because in Skye ...we can promise ourselves but poverty and oppression’.16 (Surprisingly both MacDonalds were ardent loyalists, prominent in recruiting for the Royal Highland Emigrants. After Allan MacDonald’s capture at Moore’s Creek Bridge, both moved like Bethune to stay in Nova Scotia before returning to Skye.)

The emigrations to North Carolina, largely led by tacksmen (land tenants) like the Bethunes, were bound up intimately with the disintegration and collapse of the traditional clan-based society of which the Bethune/Beaton kindred had been a key component for many generations.

In 1773 John Bethune emigrated to North Carolina, a haven for Highland emigrants, who had established a number of colonial settlements there. He settled in McLendon’s Creek in what is now Moore County, to join his mother Christian and his maternal grandparents Donald and Katherine Campbell, who had all emigrated earlier. It is important to note that his name is given as Bethune in Fasti Ecclesiae Scotanae,in Whyte’s account and in Canadian biographies. John Bethune is found in Whyte’s family history, written only five years after his departure for America. Whyte describes him as having gone to America and become ‘a chaplain in Colonel McLean’s Royal Highland Emigrants’, thus clearly establishing that he was the same John Bethune described above.

Note

Tracing ancestry in Skye before 1800 is made particularly difficult because of the lack of old parish records, the usual source of information about births, deaths and marriages in Scotland in the years before statutory records began in 1855. Two principal sources, however, are available: Whyte and Bannerman. Rev Thomas Whyte (c.1718–89) was minister of Liberton Kirk in Edinburgh and had married into the Bethune family. In 1778 he published An Historical and Genealogical Account of the Bethunes of the Island of Sky [sic].11 Whyte’s account gives detailed genealogy but rarely gives dates. The Scottish historian John Bannerman (1932–2008) who analysed the genealogy in Whyte’s account concluded that it was ‘on the whole accurate’ as the period concerned was ‘well within the capabilities of the contemporary kin- based genealogist’.12 Bannerman himself published what has become the standard work of reference on the topic, The Beatons: a Medical Kindred in the Classical Gaelic Tradition.

Sources

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70066671/john-bethune
• [S1951] Bethune Family Research of Gillian (Bethune) Day & Clifford Bethune, Gillian (Bethune) Day / Clifford Bethune, ((Family History Research, 1250-1999, Clifford Bethune, Victoria, Australia); http://members.tripod.com/~bethunec/).
• [S1012] Bethune Family Research of Lawrence E. Bethune, Lawrence E., Bethune, (email and website documentation, 1999/2000, Lawrence E. Bethune.
• [S997] Bethunes of the Island of Skye (Alfred A. Bethune-Baker; ed. Thomas Whyte), Whyte, Thomas, 1717-1777. (Main); Alfred A. Bethune-Baker (Supl.), ((London : A. Chilver, 1893.), FHL Film #: 0277980; LC CALL NO.: Microfilm85/5621(C); FORMAT: Book [Microform]; LCCN: 85-123193), 929.241 B465b., p. 31 (Reliability: 3).
• [S1013] Canada: MacMillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (William Stewart Wallace), Wallace, William Stewart 1884-1970, ed., ((London, Macmillan; New York, St. Martin's, 1963.); LC Control Number: 64010158 ; LC Classification: F1005 .D5 1963; National Bib. No.: GB64-1134; Other System No.: (OCoLC)480820), 920.071. (Reliability: 3).

A. H. Young, "The Bethunes" (Ont. Hist. Soc., papers and records, 1931); W. Gregg, "History of the Prebyterian church in the Dominion of Canada" (Toronto, 1880); W. Cannitl, "A history of the early settlement of Upper Canada" (Toronto, 1809).)

• [S1022] Canada: Becoming prominent : regional leadership in Upper Canada, 1791-1841 (J.K. Johnson), Johnson, James Keith, 1930-, ((Kingston : McGill-Queen's University Press, c1989.); ISBN: 0773506411 (alk. paper) LC Classification: F1056.8 .J64 1989), LCCN: 89198085..
• [S1014] Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, A History 1784-1945, Harkness, John Graham, K.C., ((Oshawa, Ont. :, Mundy-Goodfellow Printing Co., , 1946 )), 971.37 H2 ;..
• [S2001] Bethune Family: Montreal History and Gazeteer to the year 1892, Borthwick, Rev. J. Douglas, ((Montreal:Canada, John Lovell & Sons, 1892)).
• [S1003] Bethune Family Research of Betsy Elaine Harvel Jones, Jones, Betsy Elaine Harvel, (Pedigree Resource File(http://www.FamilySearch.org, The Church f Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, n.d.)).
• [S2002] Bethune Family Research of Roxanne Woodruff, Woodruff, Roxanne, (pre May 2001, http://www.geocities.com/heartland/Oaks/2189/Kittson.htm).
• [S2003] Bethune Family Research of Patty Brown, Brown, Patty, (pre-May 2001, email: GenWebMontreal, coordinator of the MontrealGenWeb).
• [S1402] Genealogical Research of Kirk Larson (Reliability: 2).
• [S44] LDS: IGI, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Common Index of International Genealogical Information (Salt Lake City:UT, Family History Center, July 1996 © data as of 2 January 1996), (Created by FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service, 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150, Oct 12, 2001 , http://www.familysearch.org), Batch #: 7909504, Sheet #: 8, Source Call #: 1260516 (Reliability: 3), 31 May 2001.
• [S1013] Canada: MacMillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (William Stewart Wallace), Wallace, William Stewart 1884-1970, ed., ((London, Macmillan; New York, St. Martin's, 1963.); LC Control Number: 64010158 ; LC Classification: F1005 .D5 1963; National Bib. No.: GB64-1134; Other System No.: (OCoLC)480820), 920.071..
• [S1002] Bethune Family Research of Marilyn J. Anderson, Anderson, Marilyn J., (May 24, 2001, Marilyn J. Anderson maintains Hard Copy files) (Reliability: 3), 30 May 2001.
• [S1013] Canada: MacMillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (William Stewart Wallace), Wallace, William Stewart 1884-1970, ed., ((London, Macmillan; New York, St. Martin's, 1963.); LC Control Number: 64010158 ; LC Classification: F1005 .D5 1963; National Bib. No.: GB64-1134; Other System No.: (OCoLC)480820), 920.071., Vol. 5 (Reliability: 3).
• [S997] Bethunes of the Island of Skye (Alfred A. Bethune-Baker; ed. Thomas Whyte), Whyte, Thomas, 1717-1777. (Main); Alfred A. Bethune-Baker (Supl.), ((London : A. Chilver, 1893.), FHL Film #: 0277980; LC CALL NO.: Microfilm85/5621(C); FORMAT: Book [Microform]; LCCN: 85-123193), 929.241 B465b., p. 31 (Reliability: 0).
• [S2005] Loyalist: A Roll of Loyalist, Ontario People, 1796-1803, The Eastern District, Fitzgerald, Dr. Keith E., ((West Hill:, n.p., 1985), Cornwall Public Library, Ontario, Canada), LHCR 929.3713 LIE., p. 39 (Reliability: 3).

John Bethune #845-#846, File 1, p. 27

• [S2005] Loyalist: A Roll of Loyalist, Ontario People, 1796-1803, The Eastern District, Fitzgerald, Dr. Keith E., ((West Hill:, n.p., 1985), Cornwall Public Library, Ontario, Canada), LHCR 929.3713 LIE., p. 67. (Reliability: 3).

Rev. John Bethune #1528, #848, Charlottenburg, File #3, p. 4

• [S2006] Reaman, G. Elmore. The Trail of the Black Walnut (Canada, 1957)
• [S1015] Loyalists in Ontario ; the sons and daughters of the American loyalists of Upper Canada, Reid, William D., ((Lambertville, N. J. : Hunterdon House, c1973)), G929.1713 R272Lo., p. 23 (Reliability: 3).
• [S2007] Cornwall, Ontario, Canada: Settlements and Early Progress, Pringle, J. H., County Judge, Lunenburgh or the old Eastern District, ((Cornwall:Ontario, Standard Printing House, 1890)), pp. 193, 213 (Reliability: 3).
• [S2004] Ontario, Canada: Death Notices, Reid, William D., ((Lambertville:NJ, Huntendon House, 1980)), Kingston Gazette, 1810-1818, p. 14 (Reliability: 3).
• [S44] LDS: IGI, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Common Index of International Genealogical Information (Salt Lake City:UT, Family History Center, July 1996 © data as of 2 January 1996), (Created by FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service, 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150, Oct 12, 2001 , http://www.familysearch.org), Film #: 1903995 (Reliability: 3), 31 May 2001.
• [S1001] Bethune: Prologue to Norman: The Canadian Bethunes (Mary Larratt Smith), Smith, Mary Larratt (Main Author), ((Oakville, Ont. : Mosaie Press/Valley Editions, c1976), ISBN/ISSN: 0889620296), 929.271 B465a..
• [S1015] Loyalists in Ontario ; the sons and daughters of the American loyalists of Upper Canada, Reid, William D., ((Lambertville, N. J. : Hunterdon House, c1973)), G929.1713 R272Lo., p. 23 (Reliability: 3), 30 May 2001.
• [S1002] Bethune Family Research of Marilyn J. Anderson, Anderson, Marilyn J., (May 24, 2001, Marilyn J. Anderson maintains Hard Copy files).
• Relationship: occupied Bethune-Thompson house, John Street in Williamstown, Glengarry, Relationship: Next door neighbours in Philadelphia was Flora Macdonald and her husband (Bonnie Prince Charlie fame), Relationship: Early Bethunes are Cardinal Beaton, one of Mary Queen of Scots "four Mary's" the Archbishop Bethune of Glasgow, etc., Immigrated: ; Came to Cumberland Co., NC, with his parents, Angus Bethune & Christian Campbell, from the Isle of Skye in the early 1700's, Military: 23 Nov 1778 ; after Prisoner, became Chaplain to 84th Regiment in Halifax, Nova Scotia "because he was in some distress for want of money", Military: 1775 ; He was chaplain to the Royal Militia Regiment ( Royal Highland Emigrants ) serving in North America and was captured by the Americans at the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775 at Moore's Creek Bridge, Military: 15 Apr 1778 ; Chaplain (prisoner) on Return of officers of the first Battalion of his majesty's Regiment of Royal Highland Emigrants, Military: Abt. 1776 ; Imprisoned at Halifax, North Carolina, later sent to Philadelphia, Military: Abt. 1773 ; At the outbreak of the revolution, he was made prisoner. Freed by exchange of prisoners, he made his way to Nova Scotia where he helped to organize the 84th Royal Highland Reg't of which he was appointed chaplain & in which he served during the war., Military: 1776 ; Taken prisoner at the battle of Cross Creek or (Cross Keys), Occupation: Thompson tried his hand at farming but was not successful, Education: ; King's College, Aberdeen, Scotland, Residence: Abt. 1778 ; Halifax, Nova Scotia. Went to Montréal "after the peace"., Residence: 1786 ; "We find him in Montréal & he seems to have been instrumental in laying the foundations of the St. Gabriel Street Presbyterian Congregation.", Residence: 1787 ; Came to Glengarry in 1787. Settled in Williamstown., Residence: ; David Thompson added veranda to front of house in keeping with popular regency style, Residence: ; His home was a focal spot in the community., Residence: 1815 ; Property including church and cemetery to David Thompson.

www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onglenga/Genealogies/Bethune.pdf