Henry Pope (1789 - 1877)

Born 25 May 1789 in Padstow, Cornwall, England

Ancestors

Husband of Catherine (McPhail) Pope — married 1859 in Halifax, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Descendants

Died 6 Jul 1877 at age 88 in Halifax, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Biography

Henry was baptised June 15, 1789 in Padstow, Cornwall. He is the son of Thomas Pope and Joan Vercoe.^[1]

Marriages

The details of his 1st marriage were told by way of a letter that he wrote sharing details of his first year's labours in the Niagara (in Canada):^[2]

"On the 2nd Feb., 1819, I was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Jones who resided on a fine farm, 2 miles from Utica City, on the Mohawk River" ...

He and his 1st wife Elizabeth Jones had at least 3 children (possibly more) prior to her death which at this time is not known.

He was a widower at the time of his marriage to Catherine McPhail in 1859 in Halifax, Halifax county, Nova Scotia.^[3]

In the 1871 Census, Henry is 82 years old, born England, Wesleyan Methodist Minister and his wife Catherine is 65 and born Nova Scotia and "S. J. C. Pope", age 35, born in Nova Scotia is with them but with nothing stated about a relationship, yet having the same surname (was it a relative??)^[4]

He died July 6, 1877 in Halifax, Halifax county, Nova Scotia and is buried at Camp Hill Cemetery in that city in Section: HH, Row 1.

GRAVESTONE INSCRIPTION

Henry POPE

1789-1877

In Memory

of

Rev. Henry POPE

Wesleyan Minister

Born at Padstone,

Cornwall, England

Died July 6, 1877

n the 89th year

of his age & 64th

of his ministry

... sleeps in Jesus

being with Him

Portrait of a Preacher

Portrait of Rev. Henry Pope, Senior, Wesleyan Methodist Minister^[5]

HENRY POPE, Sen. Rev. Henry Pope, Senr., was born at Padstow, Cornwall, Eng- land, May 25th, 1789, and died at Halifax, N. S., July 6th, 1877. Mr. Pope was the child of pious parents, who dedicated him in early life to the Saviour — his mother dying when he was but three years of age, passed to the skies breathing an earnest prayer to God for the conversion of her four children.

John Wesley, in one of his visits to Cornwall, meeting him in his mother's arms, invoked the blessing of heaven to rest upon the child — a circumstance, the mention of which always suggested to Mr. Pope's mind the most pleasing thoughts. His conversion to God occurred when he reached the age of nineteen; the first link in the chain that led him to the Saviour was the purchase from a hawker, of a copy of Baxter's Saint's Rest.

A year subsequent to this event finds him the leader of a class, and laboring diligently for the moral and spiritual improvement of his neighbors and friends. He was accepted by the English Conference in the year 1814, as a candidate for the ministry, and appointed to the Kingsbridge Circuit, and the year after was designated ns a Missionary to Canada, and reached Quebec to enter upon his work on the 20th October, 1810.

Mr. Pope's experience in the Western Provinces, covering a period of ten years, is intimately associated with the social and political, moral and religious history of those portions of the Dominion.

On circuits where he travelled 4000 miles a year, mostly on horseback, "compelled to ford streams and rivers often amid circumstances of great danger, inconvenienced no little by drawbacks inseparably associated with a new country, and labouring without the appliances and helps which are distinguishing features of the present day, his life shines out with peculiar lustre.

The good Lord favoured his servant during the decade of years that he laboured in old Canada, with gracious and extensive revivals of religion. From Montreal in 1826, Mr. Pope proceeded to Charlottetown, P. E. Island. On that Circuit, at Maccan, Liverpool, Lunenburg, Newport, Horton, Yarmouth, Windsor, and other spheres of Christian toil in Nova Scotia, he spent 29 years in preaching Christ and promoting God's glory in the salvation of precious souls.

In the full development of his physical powers, with his mind improved by study and the experience of years, and his spiritual life quickened by intercourse with the divine Lord, this period of his life was passed as he sowed the good seed of the kingdom, and witnessed on every hand the triumphs of Jehovah's cause. Souls by scores and hundred's were given him by the Lord, and several who subsequently entered the ranks of the Christian ministry, trace their conversion to God to his earnest and impressive appeals.

In 1855 Mr. Pope became a supernumerary, and through most of the 22 years that elapsed between that period and the time of his death, he held the position of Protestant Chaplain at the Provincial Penitentiary. He was for several years the leader of a class which flourished in his charge, and by all the members thereof he was highly esteemed.

His last sickness was short, but the messenger of death found God's servant waiting. The day before he became paralyzed, conversing with his wife he said, "I have been pleading with God to be entirely sanctified, and God has answered my prayer, and now I am ready to die."

Though unable to converse with the loved ones who stood at his bedside, he communicated to them in no uncertain manner his trust in Jesus, and his glowing prospects beyond earth in the paradise of God. Thus his happy soul passed to the better world. Henry Pope's character represents a man of sterling worth, one who was controlled not by fickle sentimentality, but by holy and divine principles.

He was a man of God, one who served his generation wisely and well, one whose motives were pure, whose simple heartedness and Christian consistency were transparent to all. His religion was illustrated outside the pulpit by a blameless life, and a spirit that reflected Jesus, and in the pulpit the cardinal doctrines of revelation were themes on which he delighted to expatiate.

Whilst he was loyal to the Church of his choice, his religious instincts and Christian principles enabled him to fraternize with all who love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in sincerity and truth. Full of honors, his work done, and nobly done, at the advanced age of 89 years he was gathered to his fathers. He rests from his labors and his works do follow him.

Sources

1. ↑ "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JQ3X-DB8), Joan Pope in entry for Henry Pope, 1789.
2. ↑ personal letter of Rev. Henry Pope written to the Methodist Society, (https://archive.org/stream/casehiscotempora02carr/casehiscotempora02carr_djvu.txt)
3. ↑ "Nova Scotia Vital Records, 1763-1957," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KMLB-6WD), Henry Pope and Catherine McPhail, 1859, Marriage; citing p. 10251, volume 1800, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax.
4. ↑ "Canada Census, 1871," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M485-N3V), household of Henry Pope, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; citing 1871; citing National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
5. ↑ Minutes of the Second Nova Scotia Conference of the Methodist Church of Canada, June 1875