When Durham Baptist Church holds its special Centennial service on Sunday August 6th the service will have a direct link with Durham's earliest days as a settlement.

When the first settlers were trekking into Durham, among them was a pioneer Baptist minister, the Rev. Alexander Stewart, who according to early records was here prior to 1848. The house which he built still stands [but was demolished soon afterwards] on the knoll of Lambton St. just east of the Royal Bank.

Although it is recorded that the Rev. Alexander Stewart came to Durham as a colporteur, it was he who founded the Baptist Church here, which was one of the first organised congregations in the area. A stained glass window in the present building contains a picture of the founder of the Durham Church.

On Sunday August 6th Rev. Hugh W. Stewart will be the speaker at the Baptist Centennial service. He is the grandson of Durham's first Baptist minister and church founder, Rev. Alexander Stewart.

When the Reverend Alexander Stewart moved to Durham he was the first ordained minister in the area. He organized a Baptist congregation in his own home and helped build a frame church building for it in 1858-59. By 1861 there were four churches in the village but Rev. Stewart continued to be so beloved by his neighbors that they called him "Father Stewart". It had been a Scottish custom to ask a favorite minister, not necessarily the parish minister, to perform one's marriage and "Father Stewart" was often called on even by people not in his congregation.

Durham, with a current population of something over 2500, is still the center for the surrounding countryside of rolling, small hills. The hollows between once were cedar swamps. Only scattered clumps of cedars now remain to remind us of the forest that once covered the area, replaced by prosperous-looking farms with dairy and beef cattle, brick and stone Victorian and early 20th century farmhouses. Douglas Dadson, a great-grandson of Alexander Stewart, wrote: "Durham still has the character of a prosperous mid-19th century western Ontario town -- evident in the 'neighborly' people I met and in the many solid brick and stone houses."

The Stewarts' house stood on Lambton Street in the part of Durham that was formerly part of the town of Glenelg. It was on a rise on the southeast corner of Lambton and Garafraxa Street, now the business center of Durham. It stood until the 1970s when it was torn down for a parking lot between the commercial building on Garafraxa and a law office on Lambton. A newspaper photograph shows the house in the 20th century as a 1½-storey structure with a door and window in the gable end at ground floor level and two windows above under the roof, which slopes down on the left to cover a shed addition. It was sided with stucco or "rough-cast". John MacArthur, one of the Durham Baptist Church's oldest members, explained in 1990 that houses were often roughcast because the area had lots of limestone. Farmers cleared their fields of stones and then took advantage of them by burning them in kilns and selling the lime for use in mortar and stucco.

AMS described this period of his grandfather's life:

In June of 1900, this writer sat beside Reverend Alex Stewart in his garden in Durham, Ontario. It was then that the grandfather told the grandson that about fifty years before he had come and sat in the same spot in a huge forest and wondered whether he should bring his family to this proposed settlement now called Durham, Ontario. It was two or three years later before he was ready to move. Delay doubtless was caused by the birth of his son, Joseph William Alexander Stewart, on January 17th, 1852. Imagine a pioneer family with some young daughters, and a mother carrying a small baby boy, moving into the wilderness. At the time of moving to Durham, the Guelph-Owen Sound Highway was only an Indian trail, widened into a rough cadge road. ...

Despite the fact that the Red Sandy Stewart had had less than five months of schooling in Scotland, for which he had to walk nine miles each way, he nevertheless developed qualities of leadership, persuasion and public speaking. Exercising these with the help and blessing of his good wife, he became a Baptist missionary preacher for the raw new country in the counties of Grey and Bruce and was ordained. He founded the Baptist Church in Durham and was the first minister or clergyman of that. village. ... His salary, paid by interested Baptists in Toronto, was $200.00 a year. His good wife supplemented this meager allowance by taking in boarders, one of whom began the education of [her son] by teaching him "his spellings'. [Until that son] was earning money for himself, he always was clothed in second-hand clothes. These clothes were cast-off, and sent up by religious people in Toronto. There are [writing in 1947] remains, however, of almost century-old quilts and shawls, made from native wool, and spun by the good wife.

Son JWAS told a little more about how the dedicated missionary's family managed to survive:

How did he and his family live those early years? Two summers my father went to older parts of the province and worked in the harvest fields. One year his entire income from Convention and field was one hundred and thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents. He chopped and drew his own wood. He got all out of his little bit of ground that it could be made to yield. While he labored on my mother opened the home to boarders, sold milk, vegetables, and I know not what. The edge of actual want was reached more than once. The family could not possibly have been clothed had it not been for the kindness of Christian friends in Toronto and elsewhere whose kindness my father can never forget. I see distinctly before me now the first coat that was actually bought for me out of a store! Perhaps I might have had that coat sooner were it not that in 1858-9 when the little chapel in Durham was built, my father besides his manual help, paid on that chapel out of his own pocket and out of his poverty ninety-six dollars and twenty cents. How he did this I cannot tell, but I found the bill of it lately in rummaging his papers.

Isabella Cranston McGibb, writing in The Canadian Baptist in 1932, summarized Alexander Stewart's ministry and added:

Mr. Stewart was a true pioneer. He knew what it meant to see the last of the flour in the barrel made into bread for his family and have no idea where the next was coming from. He shared the plainest fare of the pioneers. His lunch of bread and cheese carried on his journey was cheerfully shared with those who had less. He hadn't a multitude of material possessions to share with his people, but he had abundance of good cheer, kind words and a message of salvation, which he gave liberally.

In those early days a receiver of a letter had to pay the postage, which amounted to 122 cents. The Rev. Mr. Stewart heard there were three letters in the post office for him and he had no money. But faith did not waver. He went to the postmaster and told him the situation and some arrangement was made and the letters were handed to him. In two of them there was money from friends. How true is the promise, "Before they call, I will answer."

The agricultural part of the census of 1861 gives a few details about how the family lived. They had an acre of land (probably planted mostly in potatoes, since they give the most calories per square yard of land, as well as such vegetables as cabbage and kale), and they kept cow and a few pigs for milk and pork. The acre certainly could not have fed the cow, so probably the children took her out into the countryside to browse and graze each day. Perhaps they were able to collect and store enough grass and leaves to keep her alive over the winter, or perhaps Esther saved some of her pennies to buy hay.

By 1861 Alexander Stewart had been able to acquire a horse again to take him on his rounds. The horse, cow, and three pigs were valued at a total of only $100 and the "capital invested in real and personal estate" was listed at $900, including the house and the acre of land in the center of the thriving village. Esther and the children must have worked as hard as their dedicated and hard-working missionary husband and father.

In his work as a home missionary sent out by the Canadian Baptist Church, the Rev. Mr. Stewart was covering hundreds, even thousands, of miles a year on foot and on horseback, preaching two or three sermons a week, and making more than seven pastoral visits a week. This would be a busy schedule for a minister even today, with a car and paved roads. On the 19th century frontier, it was heroic.

A letter from him, published in The Christian Messenger of 20 December 1855, gives something of the flavor of the early years of his ministry:

Dear Brother,

You will no doubt be anxious to hear how the cause prospers in this part of the Lord's vineyard. A church meeting was held in my house on the 29th of Sep. when the brethren with one exception requested me continue my labours among them. At the same meeting it was agreed, that the brethren on the Durham Line East, should have the Lord's Supper administered in their own settlement, and that the brethren in Egremont would have the same privilege. This arrangement will divide the church at Durham in four branches, each branch having the privilege of communion in a regular manner. I went to administer the Lord's supper in due course, at the house of Donald McKenzie, on the Durham Line on the second Sabbath in October and found that he had departed to his rest and was no more to be seen here. He died of a short sickness, but in the enjoyment of a good hope in Christ. He was one of the first persons baptized, in one of the Western Isles of Scotland, and lived to the age of 78 years, always maintaining an unblemished character. I attended his funeral and endeavoured to improve the solemn event for the good of those who were left behind in the wilderness. After preaching I baptized three persons, in the name of the Triune God.; two of whom are heads of families. A universal manifestation of brotherly love prevailed through the whole of the day, and it was to me, one of the happiest Sabbaths I have ever enjoyed since I came to these parts.

On the following Friday I met with a very extraordinary occurrence. Returning to my house some time after dark, I found a woman who I had never seen before, who soon made herself known to me. She had embraced a hope in the Saviour, about six months ago, and at that time had a strong desire to follow her Lord and Master, in the ordinance of Baptism, feeling that she could not enjoy peace of mind until she had obeyed her Lord's command. There was noone in the township where she resided, to whom she could apply to obtain the privilege, and she had come all the way from Saugeen with the husband's consent to Durham, a distance of 45 miles leaving two small children in her husband's care, to seek an opportunity to obey the command of Baptism. I had to preach in Bentinck on the Sunday following, and asked her to stay over that day, and then she might meet with the brethren; and if they received her as a believer in Christ, I would baptize her according to her wish. She made her way to the place on Saturday, was received, and in the presence of a very respectable assembly I baptized her and she returned home to her husband and dear babies with a heart full of joy and peace. Before enjoying the delights of descending into the baptismal stream she had travelled 51 miles, over very rough roads in a new country. Her name is Ann McArthur and her native country is Scotland.

I can say to you, my dear Bro. in Christ, that I have been in the school of experience since I came to this part of the country. I have left my home to fill my appointments when my house was without a loaf of bread, and not a York shilling to purchase one. But I did not leave my family to provoke providence. I trusted in the Lord and the God of the Bible to supply our wants. Often when I have returned home weary and exhausted, I have found two or three letters pressing me to visit the places they came from, to preach to dying sinners "the word of life". When will the time come to favour Zion, by raising up a host of goodly ministers, to stand upon her walls to sound the trumpet of the blessed gospel of peace.

I am sorry to hear that MacIay College is not likely to go into operation soon. One of the first questions our churches ask when they want a minister is -- is he an educated man? If he is a self-taught man they say he will not suit us, but he will do for the back settlements. What is the result if he is sent there? I can tell you from experience that it will be to meet a more intelligent congregation of people, than can be found in many of the old settled parts of the country. I am not able to hold the ground that is gained without more help. We must leave all in the hands of God. The residue of the Spirit is with him, and he knows the needy state of this part of the country.

ALEXANDER STUART [sic]

That same year, The Canadian Baptist had reported on a tour of a deputation that visited the frontier, going by stage from London to Goderich on Lake Huron, then by water or horseback to Kincardine, where they met Alexander Stewart. A member of the deputation wrote:

I again take up pen to complete the account of our visit through the new regions in the North. ... Next morning we left for Durham, a distance of nearly 45 miles. Rev. Wilson was furnished with a good horse and I came in for a due share of Mr. Stewart's. This portion of our journey was performed by alternate riding and walking. ... We spent a short time with a few Baptist friends in Greenock, a place which Bro. Stewart occasionally visits, and where the field is fully open for labour. ...

The village of Durham contains between 3 and 4000 inhabitants and will rapidly increase. Bro. Stewart is pleasantly situated here and through his indefatigable exertions has collected together a church numbering over 50 members. ... The church in Durham are desirous, and ought to be supplied, with preaching every Sabbath, which Bro. Stewart is not able to do, and occupy the other important stations which he now visits and which are continually growing in interest. ...

We reached the first small church in the town of Arthur...They also requested Bro. Stewart to give a brief account of their organisation, with their doctrinal sentiments and their practice since they became a church, which he did. He then read over the articles of faith and practice contained in the Minutes of the Grand River Association to which the church unanimously agreed. ...

We were favourably impressed with the work which is being done through our Missionary Society in this new region of the country ... Among the Scotch portion of the inhabitants we found many who were friendly to Baptist sentiments.

I am grateful to Helen Poole for transcribing and sending the previous two letters, one by Alexander Stewart and the other concerning his work.

One of the churches established with the help of the Rev. Alexander Stewart was the Baptist Church of the Hanover and Carrick area. In 1960 the pastor, the Rev. Alfred J. Barker, wrote a history of the church on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first baptism of that congregation. Excerpts follow:

[A] people who have a sense of history will face the tasks of the present and the future with dignity. The appreciation of what has gone on in the past helps us to face the present and future with courage and a sense of proportion. It is also important to think of the past of our Church's life, for it also takes us back to the beginning of community life in Hanover. ...

The first Baptist missionary in the area was the Rev. Alexander Stewart, familiarly known as Father Stewart. He was that indeed to many Baptist causes, as well as being the sire and grandsire of noted Baptist ministers, educators, and laymen of distinction. He himself came to Canada in 1832, was ordained into the ministry in 1851, and in 1853 began missionary work in Durham, where he organized a church. His ministry was exceedingly fruitful down the years. ... His success seems to have been due not to any spectacular means, but to an earnestness born of deep faith, and expressed in loving, patient service. It was a common occurrence for him to walk the sixteen miles to Mount Forest in time for an eleven o'clock service. So he travelled on foot over the primitive roads to preach to the little band in Hanover.

Apparently in the mid 1850s a little group of English-speaking Baptists had settled in the new village, which in 1856 came to be known as Hanover. ... In coming to gather these together to meet from time to time in homes, the first foundation stone was laid. The second stone was laid in the establishment of a work among the German-speaking settlers by the Rev. John Stumpf. ...

On August 24, 1859, a little group of Baptists banded themselves together and formed the Carrick Baptist Church. ... The real beginning of organized work in Hanover seems to have begun with the completion of the first little wooden church, which still stands on Twelfth Street. Both English and German speaking groups met in the building at different times for their services...and the first gathering in 1861 of the Huron Association met here, after its founding the previous year.

At first the English-speaking congregation founded by Rev. A. Stewart flourished, and the little chapel became rather small for the numbers that attended. Mr. Stewart tells in one report that his flock was "for intellect and stability of more than common moral worth".

Rev. Barker went on to say that Alexander Stewart remained the pastor through 1862, that after him "they were without a settled pastor more than they were with one", the English-speaking congregation dwindled and the German-speaking one flourished; finally, the congregation once again became English-speaking. The little wooden chapel was replaced by a larger church and it, in turn, by one still larger. The program to celebrate the church's centennial in 1960 was addressed by the grandson of "the founding minister", Rev. Hugh Stewart.

In another article, Rev. Barker wrote:

Many of [the German-speaking settlers] were those who had come to the new world to escape service in the Prussian army. The establishment of Baptist work in their midst is a clear example of the working out of the Baptist principle of the church and its ministry. August Rauschenbusch of the German Baptist Seminary of Rochester, N. Y., had been the leader of a revival movement among German speaking people. This movement was carried into Normanby and Carrick townships and resulted in twelve conversions. The Rev ... Stewart baptized the group.

The Canadian Baptist Register annually published reports of the work of the home missionaries. Reports of the Rev. Alexander Stewart's work follow:

REV. A. STEWART, MISSIONARY IN THE COUNTY OF GREY [From the 1860 Register]

On this wide and new field, much time has been spent and labour expended, and the results begin to be manifest. Bro. S. preaches in the Townships of Egremont, Bentinck, Sullivan, Elderslie, Greenock and Holland, and in the Villages of Durham and Hanover. In his last report, our Missionary says,

"My labours have not been limited to the above interests during the time that I have received aid from the Board, but were formerly extended to Arthur, Priceville, and Carrick, where Churches have been organized and pastors settled over them." The Rev. Dr. Fyfe, and the Secretary of the Convention, were sent as a deputation to visit the stations abovenamed, and others in the County of Bruce, and can bear the most satisfactory testimony in regard to the toilsome labours and painstaking efforts of Bro. Stewart and his aids, in the work of God, on this promising field. The Congregations were large -- the Churches united and in a working condition, and the prospects of future success very flattering indeed. Since last April, our Missionary has baptized forty-nine persons into the fellowship of the Churches.

REV. A. STEWART--COUNTY OF GREY [From the 1862 Register]

Brother S. is our senior Missionary, and has been long in our employ. He preaches at 7 stations to an average of 600 persons, preaching in the village of Durham occasionally, and regularly in those of Mount Forest and Hanover, while he keeps up appointments in the Townships of Bentinck, Elderslie, Holland, Sullivan and Greenock. Brother Stewart writes hopefully as follows:

"Our cause is progressing slowly but steadily. The past year has been one of the happiest seasons of my sojourn with the Church. Nothing has occurred amongst our brethren, or between me and them, to mar my peace. A few good members have moved away during the year, and we have received a few by letter, and 12 by baptism, principally heads of families and persons of moral worth to the Church. I have visited all the little plantations on this field and broken bread when I could, but to preach to them regularly is more than any one can do. It is with a degree of pleasure that I make out this report, while I reflect on what God has done for us. About the 20th of January, 1852, a small church numbering 12 was organized in the room in which I sit and write, being the first organized of the 15 Churches that now compose the 'Huron Association', and now we have 8 ordained Ministers, 7 Chapels completed, and two more will soon be finished, and very nearly 600 members, and a good prospect before us. Can anyone say that the Convention has done nothing? I feel at times as if I could labor from the Ottawa to the Georgian Bay under its auspices."

REV. A. STEWART, DURHAM, EGREMONT AND BENTINCK [From the 1864 Register]

Elder Stewart is the Senior Missionary of the Convention, having now been employed longer than any other of our present staff. He has resided in Durham all these years, but has not confined his labors to Durham, and part of the time did not preach there at all. He has been a far-travelling, hard-toiling, pioneer and backwoods preacher and missionary, who has borne the brunt of the battle and the burden and heat of the day, in establishing the Baptist cause in the County of Grey, and even to some extent in Bruce County. He ought to write his autobiography. It would be both a readable and useful book for Baptist students henceforth, and for place-seeking ministers who are continually seeking to build on other men's foundations, and to find a line of things made ready to their hands. During the past year he has again preached regularly in Durham. In his last report he remarks,

"In sending my report for the last quarter of another year, I desire to express my gratitude to God for the blessings of health and strength, of which I was greatly in need, and which He graciously bestowed on me when about to enter this field of labor. A year ago, several things appeared to oppose me, but the Lord was my confidence. I have not been without trials, but they have been comparatively few and easily overcome. My brethren have manifested all the Christian confidence and kindness that I could desire, and now at the close of the year I have satisfactory evidence of having been in the path of duty. In the village of Durham our cause has been considerably revived. Eight have been added by letter, and three by baptism. The average attendance has been small, but is increasing. Our meetings have been harmonious, and most of our members manifest a deep interest in the cause of our Redeemer. We maintain our prayer meetings, and a small Sabbath School efficiently taught. One of our sisters, in a secluded place, opened a Sabbath School for the neighbors` children, about 20 in number, and is teaching them successfully. Another of our sisters, in a more distant place, is engaged in the same work with thirty scholars. Can any of our old and more wealthy churches send libraries for the encouragement of our faithful sisters and pupils [?]

Dear brethren, I regret that our ingathering has been so small, but the whole of this field has suffered more or less for want of means, and other influences have become very powerful. Owing to the largeness of my field, I have not been able to visit the people as I wished, a means which, during my experience, I have seen God's blessing accompany, in a more visible manner, than any other means I have tried to use. Our future prospects are favorable. May God water the seed sown."

Besides preaching in Durham, Bro. S. has kept up regular preaching at four stations: two in Egremont, one in Bentinck, and one in Glenelg. The average attendance at all has been 250; sermons preached, 153; pastoral visits made, 215; miles travelled, 1540; baptized 4 candidates professing faith.

In 1864, Rev. Alexander Stewart decided to leave Grey County, where he had worked so long, first as a colporteur and then as a minister, in order to go to a newer mission field. Grey County was filling up and newcomers and younger sons were moving into Bruce and Huron counties to the north and west, all the way to Lake Huron. Alexander had helped start churches that were now established. It was time to move on to an area without Baptist churches. The Canadian Baptist Register published this report in 1865: