A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose

the Plymouth Brethren in Montreal, and generally conducted their services. * * * * * =Strachan, John=, LL.D., D.D., Bishop of Toronto.—The late Bishop Strachan was born at Aberdeen, Scotland, on the 12th of April, 1778, and received his early education at the Grammar School of that city, and finished his term at King’s College in 1796, when he got his Master’s degree. His father was a poor man, straitened in circumstances; yet, with the characteristic ambition of a Scotchman, he had determined that his son should be well equipped for future conflict with the world. He was only nineteen years of age when he was declared the successful candidate for the parochial schoolmastership of Kettle. There were nearly one hundred and fifty pupils in this school, among them Sir David Wilkie, the artist, and Commodore Robert Barclay, doomed to misfortune on Lake Erie, from no fault of his own. He remained at Kettle three years, when an invitation to Canada came to change the current of his life. It was towards the close of the eighteenth century that some liberal friends of education anxiously contemplating the establishment of a high school and university, bethought themselves of applying to Scotland for a teacher to whom they could confide the training of their sons, and, amongst those, the most directly interested was the Hon. Richard Cartwright, grandfather of the present Sir Richard Cartwright, a man of enterprise and far-sighted views. Mr. Strachan having been engaged for the purpose, towards the end of 1799 he sailed from Greenock, by way of New York, and arrived in Kingston on the last day of the year. His first experience of Upper Canada took the form of disappointment. Governor Simcoe, with that statesmanlike prescience that characterised him, had from the first made the establishment of a university his first and chief desideratum. But unfortunately the first governor had been removed before his patriotic scheme was carried into effect, and just when Mr. Strachan arrived at Kingston there seemed to be no prospect that either the university or grammar school system would be attempted for the present. Mr. Cartwright recognised the trying position of the young teacher, and generously set himself to work on his behalf. He had four sons himself, and his friends could add to the number of pupils, and so provide the young Scot with an honorable and fairly remunerative living until the plans of the government were matured. Mr. Strachan was a Presbyterian, but his father was an Episcopal non-juror—a champion of the lost cause of the Stuarts, and his earliest recollections of church services were those he attended with his father at Aberdeen, presided over by Bishop Skinner. Subsequently he habitually accompanied his widowed mother to the Relief Church, of which she was a member. He was only a Presbyterian by accident. When he arrived at Kingston, and was thrown in contact with the Rev. Dr. Stuart, who, although an Anglican, was the son of a Presbyterian, he was naturally attracted to the church of his father, so that when Mr. Cartwright and Dr. Stuart advised him to study divinity, the change was easily made, and the result was that the future bishop received deacon’s orders in 1803. The bishop of Niagara, who was afterwards one of his pupils at Toronto, has given a graphic description of Mr. Strachan’s methods, and of his remarkable success as a teacher. His great care was to interest the boys in their studies, and to draw out their latent capabilities by attractive means. To him education meant what its etymology implies, not cramming, but development. Perhaps no instructor could boast of a larger number of pupils who obtained eminence in after life. Chief Justice Robinson, and his brother, the Hon. W. B. Robinson, Chief Justices Macaulay and McLean, Judge Jonas Jones, Dean Bethune, of Montreal, and his brother, Bishop Strachan’s successor in the See of Toronto, the Hon. H. J. and G. S. Boulton, Col. Vankoughnet, father of the chancellor, Donald Æneas Macdonell, and others, sat at the feet of the ex-dominie of Kettle. Dr. Strachan removed to York, at the insistance of General Brock, and, in 1812, became rector of York. For the first time he now entered the political sphere, by taking the initiative in forming a loyal and patriotic society. The times were out of joint; war was imminent, and with characteristic vigor the new rector came to the fore. There was a strong heart beating beneath the ecclesiastical vestments, and he had an opportunity soon of showing his mettle. When the long expected shock of war came on, there never was a busier or more useful man than Dr. Strachan. It has been remarked that when York was taken, he was “priest, soldier, and diplomatist,” all in one. At the capture of York, he was incessantly active. After the explosion by which General Pike was killed at the old fort, the Americans threatened vengeance upon the defenceless town which had been evacuated by General Sheaffe and his forces. The rector, however, was equal to the occasion; and, as a contemporary writer puts it, “by his great firmness of character, saved the town of York in 1813 from sharing the same fate as the town of Niagara met with some months afterwards.” The sturdy clergyman at once visited General Dearborn, and threatened that if he carried out his threat of sacking the town, Buffalo, Lewiston, Sackett’s Harbor, and Oswego, should be destroyed as soon as troops arrived from England. His earnestness and determination moved the American, and he spared the little Yorkers from any systematic burning and plunder. But all the danger was not over; marauding parties wandered about the town seeking for plunder, and not unfrequently were confronted by the sturdy little rector. On one occasion two American soldiers visited the house of Colonel Givens, who was an officer in the retreating army. The inmates were absolutely helpless, and the marauders made off with the family plate. Dr. Strachan at once went after them, and demanded back the stolen property. Under the circumstances this was a singularly courageous thing to do, and apparently a hopeless one. But the rector was a man of unwavering resolution, and managed at last, without any other weapon than that which nature had placed in his mouth, to secure the return of the goods to their rightful owner. The pluck and bravery displayed by him throughout that trying time showed sufficiently the real “grit” of the man, and the boldness and strength of will shewn then, characterized his life. In resolution and determined perseverance, he was every inch a Scot. In 1818 began Dr. Strachan’s public life in the ordinary sense of the term; for he was then nominated an executive councillor and took his seat in the Legislative Council. He remained a member of the government until 1836, and of the Upper House up to the union of the provinces in