Munro, John | genealogyhistory

John Munro (July 20,1809 - May 25, 1877)

A native of Latheron, Caithness, Scotland, John Munro started out as a cabinet maker being apprenticed for seven years to an uncle in Inverness. He seems to have spent some time in the US visiting another uncle. On his return, he began working on his own in Edinburgh – and reported it was a time when while working as a cabinet maker, he reflected on his desire to be a better Christian man and spent every spare moment at Bible study. In January of 1939, he was asked to take a position as a missionary at Canongate, an area of Edinburgh where the poor were prevalent. While nursing some of the afflicted, he caught typhus fever. In his delirium, he jumped out of his bedroom window, some 50 feet. His nightdress caught in a tree branch and broke his fall. He was found wandering and nursed back to health.

The great disruption of the Presbyterian Church occurred in 1843, and he strongly favoured the Free Church. In 1848, wishing to follow his fellow Scots, he arrived in Nova Scotia and was sent to Wallace. The Old Kirk Presbyterians were unwelcoming, and he often had no church to preach in. He spoke in any building available. His field of operation was large: he ministered from Toney Bay (Port Howe) to Tatamagouche.

He built a home and a church in Wallace and sent for his fiancee, Margaret Arnot Boyak ( - 1895) ,

who had been preparing for her life in Nova Scotia by studying medicine and becoming a

homeopathist.

The Wallace Free Church that he built was referred to as the Knox Church. It stood about 100 yards

west of the manse and was taken down in 1936.

He convinced a large group from the Gulf Shore to follow him, and realizing he needed his own

church, he toured parts of the United States lecturing until he was successful in getting enough

money to finish it. It was the Melville Church and it stood for one hundred and forty-one years until

the late 1990's.

He was also the driving force behind the building of two other churches, one in Pugwash

(St. Matthews) and one in Malagash Mines.

Rev. John Munro was firm in his convictions. No music was permitted in his churches. The tuning fork was used to sound the key, and the congregation sat while singing the hymns. They stood for prayers. No women were allowed to speak at a service of worship, or take any part in the business affairs of the church. He disagreed greatly with the Methodists and the Kirk because of the encouragement they gave their female members to speak up and testify in a meeting.

An annual communion session began on Thursdays and ended on Monday. Mr. Munro always had one or more eminent preachers to assist him on those occasions and people came from miles around. Every house was full and there was no getting away until it was over.

There was a mutual affection between him and his congregation. He was 68 when he died, worn out from endless miles of travelling through mud and snow, bitter cold, summer’s heat, and the chilling winds off the strait. He often walked many miles through the woods, when roads were deep with mire, to visit the sick or perform the last rites for the dying. He and his wife are buried in the churchyard on the Gulf Shore. His parishoners did not forget him after he died and a sum of money was raised to cover the cost of upkeep of his and his wife’s grave into perpituity.

Although the two factions of the Presbyterian church reunited in 1875, it was not until 1897 that the divided congregations actually began to worship again. The church was used more and more sporadically until it was eventually torn down.

The information for this article was excerpted from a speech written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of MelvilleChurch.