board, having received intimation from Rev. Dr. Pickard, that in consequence of the action of the conference in assigning to him another portion of connexional service, his resignation of the office of president of the institution is deemed necessary, though reluctantly accepting that resignation, would express in strongest terms its regret at the removal of Dr. Pickard from the field of usefulness for which he has special qualifications, and at which for upwards of a quarter of a century, he has with fidelity and honour served the church and his generation. The board is also assured that the great work of education in connection with the Wesleyan Conference of Eastern British America is greatly indebted to the retiring president of the institution, and that its success is largely to be attributed to the indomitable application and perseverance—the high business ability, and the earnest Christian aim by which Dr. Pickard has been animated during the whole period of his service in the government of the institution.” The Provincial Wesleyan, in a notice of the Mount Allison Academy, June 15, 1870, says: “The college established in 1862, under a charter from the Legislature of New Brunswick, mainly through the exertions of the Rev. Dr. Pickard, is the latest of the foundations at Sackville. * * * The first president of the college was the Rev. H. Pickard, D.D., president also of the Wesleyan Conference. Dr. Pickard’s name is so intimately associated with the Sackville institutions as almost to rival that of its benevolent founder. To them he gave the flower of his life. And although retired from the responsible office of president, and engaged in another sphere of usefulness, the doctor is still one of its ablest friends and supporters. His address at the recent celebration was received with the warmest demonstrations.” Dr. Pickard, having been elected to the office of editor of The Wesleyan and book steward, became resident in Halifax, from 1869 to 1873, but in this latter year he returned with his family to Sackville. From 1873 to 1875, he acted as agent for the college, and was largely instrumental in securing the first endowment fund; and in 1876 he was superintendent of the Sackville district. In 1877, he became a supernumerary, and has since so remained resident at Sackville, except during the years 1879–80, when, at the call of the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Canada, he acted as book steward at Halifax. He was elected secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of Eastern British America in 1857, 1858, 1859 and 1860, and co-delegate of the same conference in 1861, and president in 1862 and 1870. He was appointed representative of the conference of Eastern British America to the Canada Conference, which met in the city of Kingston, June, 1860; and again to the conference which met in the city of Hamilton, June, 1867. He was appointed representative of his conference to the British Conference, first, in 1857, secondly in 1862, and thirdly in 1873. He was a member of the joint committee on the Federal union of the Wesleyan Methodist church in British America, which met in Montreal, October, 1872; and of the joint committee which met in Toronto in 1882, and formulated the basis of union by which the four separate Methodist bodies in Canada united to form the one Methodist church. Rev. Mr. Pickard was a member of the first and second general conferences of the Methodist Church of Canada, and served in both as chairman of the committee on discipline. He was also a member of the second general conference of the Methodist church, which met in Toronto, in September, 1886, and was appointed a member of the court of appeal and of the book committee for the quadrennium, 1886–1890. Mr. Pickard received the degree of Master of Arts in 1842, from the University at Middletown, and had the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity conferred on him by his alma mater in 1857. At the late session of the annual conference of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island of the Methodist church, the following address, beautifully engrossed and elegantly framed, was presented to Dr. Pickard:—
To the Reverend H. Pickard, D.D.:
Dear Brother—The members of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Conference, assembled in annual session, desire to express to you their hearty congratulations upon the completion of Fifty Years in the honourable work of your ministry. We also express our gratitude to God, that he has so long spared you to see the growth, prosperity, and influence of the church to whose interests you have given such rich qualities of learning, wisdom, and piety.
We rejoice that through all these years your moral and ministerial character has been preserved without a stain. We are profoundly conscious of the far-reaching influence of your life in our Academic and College work. The ministry of this and other churches, as well as the business and professional life of our provinces, have been enriched by the ripe scholarship and godly zeal of those who owe much to you for their culture and their ability in their callings. We are not unmindful that other departments of our church work have been benefited by your consecrated zeal and wisdom. As early life directs and tinges the thoughts of advanced age, we fail not to discern in you the earnestness of purpose, the singleness of aim that mark the years of the early itinerant. Your company has almost gone before, and while with the few venerable men whom we lovingly call Fathers, you wait the summons of the Master, you say—
“In peace and cheerful hope I wait,
On life’s last verge quite free from fears,
And watch the opening of the gate,
Which leads to the eternal years.”
We desire that your day, as it draws to its close, may be brightened by the glory of the sunset, full of the golden promise of the eternity of light.
Signed by order of the Conference,
C. H. Paisley, Robert Wilson,
Secretary. President.
Marysville, N.B., June, 1887.
Mr. Pickard was twice married, first at Boston, on October 2nd, 1841, to the daughter of Ebenezer and Hannah M. Thompson, by whom he had two children—Edward Dwight and Charles F. Allison, who died in early childhood and infancy. Mrs. Pickard died at Sackville, the 11th of March, 1844. She was a lady of superior ability, and much literary talent, her memoirs and selections from her writings were published at Boston, by the Rev. Edward Otheman, A.M., in a duodecimo volume of upwards of 300 pages, in 1845, which is now out of print. He was married again on the 5th of September, 1846, to Mary Rowe Carr, who was born at Portland, Maine, United States, the daughter of John and Avis Preble Carr. This second wife bore him two daughters, the first, Mary Emarancy, is the wife of Andrew M. Bell, hardware merchant in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the mother of two boys, Winthrop P. and Ralph P. The second, Amelia Elizabeth, is the wife of A. A. Stockton, D.C.L., M.P.P., of St. John, New Brunswick, and mother of six living children, three daughters and three sons. The second Mrs. Pickard died on the 24th of January, 1887, in the 77th year of her age.
Kennedy, George, M.A., LL.D., Barrister, Toronto, was born on 1st March, 1838, at Bytown, now the city of Ottawa, Ontario. His father, Donald Kennedy, was born near Blairathol, in Scotland, and came with his father to Canada in 1818, the family settling in the township of Beckwith. About the time of the building of the Rideau canal the father of the subject of this sketch removed to Bytown, engaged in business as a contractor and builder, was employed for some time as surveyor for the district of Dalhousie, now the county of Carleton, and for many years carried on, in partnership with John Blyth, an extensive cabinet-making business. An ancestor of his took part in the battle of Culloden, on the side of Bonny Prince Charlie, by some called the “Pretender,” and the dirk he used on the occasion is still in the possession of the family. Dr. Kennedy’s mother, Janet Buckham, was born in 1807, in Dunblane, Scotland, and came, with her father, to this country in 1828. This family settled in the township of Torbolton, and Mr. Buckham went into farming on a large scale at the head of Sand Bay, where he planted one of the finest orchards in that part of the country. The Buckhams were descended from an old Border family that have resided in Jedburgh from the time of Queen Mary, of Scotland. Mrs. Kennedy died in 1856; but Mr. Kennedy is still alive, and resides about three miles from Ottawa city, on a picturesque spot overlooking the Rideau river. George received his education at the Carleton county Grammar School (now the Ottawa Collegiate Institute), and at University College, Toronto, where he matriculated in 1853, taking the first-class scholarship in classics, and in his subsequent course held first-class honors also in mathematics, metaphysics and ethics, natural
