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This story and photos available online:

www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09185<http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09185

Hard work and faith

San Juan Island church readies 150th anniversary celebration

>by the Rev. Joe Bettridge
>Friday Harbor Presbyterian Church
>Reprinted from the Journal of the San Juans

FRIDAY HARBOR, WA ― As Friday Harbor Presbyterian Church
anticipates its 150th anniversary in 2010, a brief review of the
church's origins seems in order.

A look around the island ― floating 10 miles of the coast
of Vancouver Island between northwest Washington State and
Victoria, British Columbia ― reveals a number of obvious
physical landmarks that testify to the congregation's
longevity.

There are three church buildings still in existence:

>-The current Spring Street church (1988);

-The 1897 church building, also on Spring Street, that now
serves as an office;

- and The historic Valley Church (Presbyterian)
located at the San Juan Cemetery (1882).

In addition, a number of the town's streets are named after
prominent 19th century Presbyterians ― names like Tucker, Blair,
Guard, Jensen and Carter.

Can we rely on the traditional 1860 date as the beginning
point for Presbyterian ministry and mission on San Juan
Island? Frances Seels wrote her outstanding history of the
Friday Harbor Presbyterian Church in 1987. The Presbyterian
Story on San Juan Island begins with the following
paragraphs:

"This story begins anno Domini 1860. It was at about this
time, tradition has it, that a visiting missionary, a
'colored' man from Victoria, was the first to hold services
in a log school house at Portland Fair Hill.

"In due time he met with the Rev. Thomas Summerville,
pastor of a Presbyterian Church located in Victoria on
Vancouver Island. Thereafter, in consequence of this
meeting, Rev. Summerville undertook to minister to the
people across the channel himself, dividing his time
between Victoria and San Juan."

By 1870, there was worship every Sunday, led not by the
itinerant missionary from Victoria but by San Juan's own
resident ... sandy sideburned, beloved T.J. Weekes.

Probably in the late 1860s, young T.J. Weekes, who was born
in Kent, England, left his home and sailed around the Horn
to land in Victoria. Here he met Thomas Summerville. In
1870, Summerville sent young Weekes to the San Juan Island
Church to become their regular pastor.

I have examined the source documents cited by Frances
Seels. In addition, I have spoken about our common heritage
and history with the Rev. Ian Victor, the current pastor of
St. Andrews' Presbyterian Church in Victoria. I have also
consulted with the St. Andrews archivist, Alan Arneil.
These gentlemen graciously gave me a copy of The Kirk that
Faith Built ― the authorized history of the St. Andrews
Presbyterian Church in Victoria. Arneil provided me with a
copy of the Rev. Summerville's April 28, 1867
correspondence from Victoria to the Colonial Committee of
the Church of Scotland. In this report, Summerville
describes his extensive missionary trips to communities on
Vancouver Island. While he does not mention San Juan
Island, this correspondence does establish Rev.
Summerville's willingness to regularly minister to folks at
some distance from Victoria.

I discussed Summerville's unrecorded visits to San Juan
Island with National Park Service historian Michael Vouri.
In the early 1860s, San Juan Island enjoyed a peaceful
joint occupation by British and American troops. There was
also a growing civilian population.

San Juan Island would have been an attractive, if not
irresistible, destination for early Presbyterian missionary
interest from Victoria. It is hard to imagine how the
well-traveled and mission-minded Summerville would not have
eagerly visited this nearby and potentially fruitful
missionary field.

The Summerville connection with San Juan Island is solidly
documented a couple of years later when Summerville sent
the Englishman, Rev. T.J. Weekes, from Victoria to San Juan
Island.

The Mary Jane Fraser account also points to an 1860
beginning date for the Presbyterian story on San Juan
Island. Mrs. Fraser was interviewed in 1936 as a part of an
official State of Washington compilation of pioneer
reminiscences from territorial days and before. She
describes the arrival of "the first minister to come to the
island" in circa 1859.

David Richardson. author of Pig War Islands, relied on the
oral history of island pioneers to set 1860 as the date for
the first worship services on Portland Fair Hill. We know
that several years earlier there was a considerable
fellowship of Presbyterians and Congregationalists in
Victoria under the leadership of Rev. John Hall. It was
from this diverse Calvinist community in Victoria that our
first missionary came across Haro Straits to proclaim
Christ on San Juan Island.

>From the mid-1860s, the congregation on San Juan Island
continued to relate to the Presbyterian Community in
Victoria. In particular, the Rev. Thomas Summerville, the
founding pastor of Victoria's St. Andrews Presbyterian
Church, encouraged the San Juan Island congregation in
those early years.

Thus, the roots of Friday Harbor Presbyterian Church derive
not from American Presbyterianism but from Victoria, BC and
the Church of Scotland.

We have also located the approximate site of the
schoolhouse/church on Portland Fair Hill. This comes from
several sources including long time local memory, pioneer
accounts of the walking distances to the schoolhouse and a
picture of the structure itself.

If you look from the beach on the eastern side of the City
of Victoria toward San Juan Island, you can easily imagine
a 10-mile missionary voyage to San Juan Island in 1860
followed by a hike up Portland Fair Hill to the
schoolhouse/church.

Speculation continues about the ethnicity of the "colored"
missionary sent to the island from the Victoria
Presbyterian group. Though early suggestions were that he
might have been Hawaiian, Mary Jane Fraser's account makes
clear that he was a man of black African ancestry.

>Why ponder these historical matters?

We live in a beautiful place surrounded by sea and sky,
forests, fauna, flowers and farms. Everywhere we look we
see the evidence of a good and loving Creator. We live on
an island that is blessed with a pace of life that
encourages serenity of soul. This too, is God's kind gift
to us.

We also dwell in time as well as place. We are creatures
that experience duration. The Bible asks us to reflect on
both the shortness and the beauty of our earthly life. We
are not the first to live on our island, nor will we be the
last.

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