McColl, Duncan

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: T. W. Acheson, “M’COLL, DUNCAN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/m_coll_duncan_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Soldier and Methodist clergyman; b. 22 Aug. 1754 at Glastrein, parish of Appin, Scotland; m. 1784 Elizabeth Channal in Halifax; d. 17 Dec. 1830 in St Stephen (St Stephen–Milltown), N.B.
    • The next spring he was sent to New York as paymaster to the 2nd Grenadier Battalion. He remained in that city until the fall of 1781, when he accompanied his battalion to the relief of Lord Cornwallis in Virginia. The force was too late to save the British commander and retired to spend the winter at Jamaica, Long Island. While there M’Coll underwent a religious conversion, finding a “peace of soul,” a freedom, and an ability to forgive which led him to abandon many of his old habits and friends.
    • In the fall of 1783 he was discharged from the army and set off for Halifax on a refugee ship. The ship was driven off course in a storm and eventually reached Bermuda, where the passengers spent the winter. Among them was a young refugee, Elizabeth Channal of Philadelphia, who had been disowned by her family for joining the Methodist connection. Over the winter M’Coll was greatly influenced by the Bermudan Methodists who provided a framework and theological direction for his religious ardour. 
    • In the spring of 1784 the vessel resumed its journey to Halifax, where M’Coll and Miss Channal were married. The newly-weds spent the next year in Halifax, the groom finding employment for a time with Marchinton. In 1785 they moved to the recently founded town of St Andrews, on Passamaquoddy Bay in New Brunswick, where many of the disbanded Argyll Highlanders had settled. M’Coll entered the employ of two army officers and took charge of their business in St Stephen Parish, some 20 miles up the St Croix River from St Andrews. St Stephen had been settled in 1784 by loyalist refugees and members of the British commissary corps whose first home in Nova Scotia, at Port Mouton, had been destroyed by forest fires. When M’Coll and his wife arrived in the spring of 1785 they found a wretched, lawless, and demoralized people, “a mixed multitude . . . from many parts of the world,” living on the largesse of the British government, lacking any sense of community or purpose.
    • In the absence of a clergyman the M’Colls began to hold prayer-meetings at their home in November 1785. On the first Sunday there were six persons present; on the second, more than sixty. Within two months a revival had broken out: in M’Coll’s words, “some fell on their faces, some ran to the doors and windows, others adored the Lord.” There were 21 converts in a matter of weeks and as the movement grew the following year M’Coll found himself more and more involved in pastoral work and less and less in his employment. He then severed his business connections, “called the believers together, and joined them together as near the Methodist plan as I knew and was able.” M’Coll brought his characteristic vigour and enthusiasm to the work.
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=5179
  • Find A Grave : Cannot locate.