First Camp-Meeting.
At the District Meeting held in the spring of 1869, it was agreed that I should leave Nanaimo and take up the work at Chilliwack, which the recent revival had opened up. Consequently I left my bachelor quarters adjoining the little Coal City, and taking my books and trunks by canoe, and crossing the Gulf of Georgia, made my way up the Fraser River to Chilliwack, there to take charge of the Indian work, and the white work as well, until a missionary could be secured for the latter.
It was warm weather in April, and the hot days were followed by cool nights, when going up the old Chil-way-uk River, after a week’s trip, there came on a pelting hail-storm, and I was drenched to the skin. When I reached my destination I was shaking with fever and ague, and for nearly six weeks I lay upon my bed, sometimes in a delirious state. No doctor could be reached short of Yale, and his answer to our telegram was to “give a blue pill every four hours,” until he could come down. When he arrived he found me prostrate from the effect of too strong medicine. He looked at me and left, and sent in his bill for fifty dollars. For some seven or eight days following they did not think I could live, but the careful nursing of my dear friends, Bro. and Sister Wells, and others, finally won, and I recovered. The fever, however, settled in my leg, and I had to go with crutch and stick all summer.
When I was getting about the chairman, Rev. E. White, accompanied by David Sallosalton and Amos Cushan, came up and held a field meeting on the ridge over the Achelitz River, on May 24th and 25th, and I assisted them as best I could.
Camp-meetings have been among the most successful means of reaching the Indians and bringing them to the light. In June of that same summer the first camp-meeting ever held in British Columbia took place, on what afterwards became historic ground, at Maple Bay, some miles below Nanaimo. Lumber had been brought from Saanich Mills with which to build a church, and this lumber was used to make “tents” for this first camp-meeting.
The steamer Enterprise brought numbers from Victoria and New Westminster to the camp, and Indians from Chilliwack, Sumas, etc., as well as from Nanaimo, gathered in large numbers. It was at this camp-meeting that “Capt. John” Sua-lis was converted. Following this meeting we had a mighty spiritual upheaval at Nanaimo, which gave us great encouragement after the toils of the years.
The second camp-meeting at Maple Bay took place in July, 1870, and in September of the same year the first camp-meeting was held in Chilliwack, on the banks of the Fraser River, where the old Chil-way-uk joins the larger stream. In the midst of preparations for the gathering, clearing off the ground, etc., a heavy rain came on. We had got the loan of a great raft of lumber which was to be floated down the river to the Sumas to build barns; but the raft got past us, and we feared we should lose it. We stood up to our waists in water to hold it, and then, after finally anchoring it, had to pack the whole 22,000 feet back to place.
It was a grand camp-meeting, however, the forerunner of many blessed seasons of grace which the people of the valley have enjoyed. The steamboats chartered for the occasion brought large numbers of whites from Victoria and New Westminster, while Indians from the north and from the island, as well as a great many from the locality, were there in large numbers. It was a time long to be remembered. Here “Old Capt.” from the head of Sumas Lake was converted, and David Sallosalton preached his steamboat sermon, and Amos Cushan his never-to-be-forgotten sermon on the final judgment. These two native helpers were mightily used of God in touching the hearts of and arousing their own people.