Viets, Roger

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Thomas B. Vincent, “VIETS, ROGER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/viets_roger_5E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Church of England clergyman and poet; b. 9 March 1738 in Simsbury, Conn., second of four children of John Viets and Lois Phelps; m. first 19 Nov. 1772 Hester Botsford, and they had eight children; m. secondly 18 July 1802 Mary Pickett of Kingston, N.B., widow of Benjamin Isaacs; d. 15 Aug. 1811 in Digby, N.S.”
    • During the American revolution Viets sympathized with the loyalists, and in late 1776 he was jailed at Hartford, Conn., on suspicion of having aided fugitive British officers. However, his leaving Simsbury after the war may have been motivated as much by economics as by politics: when the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel withdrew financial support from its American missions and instead offered salaries to clergymen willing to move to British North America, Viets applied for a post in Nova Scotia.
    • On 1 Dec. 1785 he was assigned to Digby, and in May of the following year he set out to inspect his new mission. Arriving in July after an unusually harrowing 64-day voyage, he immediately began his pastoral duties and visited many of the outlying areas of his mission.
    • Viets, described by Joseph Peters as “a Strange Mortal: Whimsical, Quiddling, Stingy, Close-Shin’d, Strait-laced, Iron found,” had strong views on the importance of observing the sabbath: on one occasion, according to Peters, Viets became so impassioned after seeing pleasure-boats on a Sunday that John Wiswall, a fellow Anglican clergyman, had to intervene to hold him in check. He was a writer of some merit, publishing seven sermons and a topographical poem, Annapolis-Royal. The latter work, which describes the Annapolis area and the simple pleasures of life there, was the first poem to be published as a separate imprint in British North America
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=11125
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/136342589/roger-viets