7. Next in seniority after [Samuel] Coate
was Sylvanus Keeler, although a very dissimilar man. He was
converted and raised up into the Ministry in Canada, in
Elizabethtown, not many miles from where Brockville now
stands. He had no advantages of education in early life; and
when he first began to speak in public, it is said, he could
scarcely read his hymn. But by private study he so far
surmounted this defect as to become possessed of tolerable
attainments in English. He had, moreover, endowments natural
and of divine bestowment, which went far to counterbalance
the defects referred to. His person was commanding and even
handsome. His voice, for speaking at least, was
excellent; it was clear, melodious, and strong. The distance
at which the old people said he could be heard was
marvelous. His spirit and manners too were bland and
engaging; and his zeal and fervor in his Master's cause knew
no bounds, and suffered no abatement to the last.
8. He had been received on trial in 1795,
ten years before Case entered the Province, and was that
year appointed to the Bay of Quinte Circuit. From '96 to
'99, his name disappears from the Minutes. It may be he
retired for a time from a sense of education incompetency,
or, more likely, from the ever recurring embarrassment,
"from family concerns," as they then phrased it; for he was
encumbered with a domestic charge before entering the
field.[*] In 1800 he was received again, and stationed where
first appointed five years before, Bay of Quinte, where he
remained two years. His former year's service counted for
one of his probation, so that in 1801, he was received into
full connexion, the probation for deacon's orders being only
two years. In 1802 he was appointed to "Oswegotchie" (which
embraced his family residence.) "and Ottawa," with Seth
Crowell and Nehemiah U. Tomkins for colleagues. His Circuit
must have extended from Gananoque to La Chute, in Lower
Canada, a distance of about two hundred miles, and as
far North as there were any settlements. In 1803, his
Circuit was Niagara and Long Point—extremities you will say,
wide apart! Yes, and made wider still by the indescribable
difficulties then attending travelling. In 1804, we find him
back on his old stamping ground, which, though not so wide
as his previous years' field of labour, was yet wide enough;
it extended from Kingston, on both sides of the Bay, beyond
Belleville, to the township of Sidney. And now, in 1805, we
find him back at Oswegotchie, disencumbered of its awkward
appendage, Ottawa—a proof that he had "honour in his own
country, and among his own kin."
* Cornish notes that Keeler located
from 1796 to 1799 (44).