The following information comes from: http://brookfieldcharge.ca/about/
Records indicate that Brookfield was named by Alexander Sutherland who was pastor of a church here in 1855. The first minister inducted into the Brookfield Presbyterian Church was Rev. William Ross in 1860. The present building was dedicated to the Glory of God on August 4, 1895. It was moved to its present site in October 1997 from near the corner. At that time the church hall was built complete with kitchen, wash rooms and space for Sunday School and a community hall.
The original land was donated by Thomas William Johnston and additional land was donated in 1997 by the Bert Dykerman family.
The present church building was built by the Schurman, Clark & Company. In 1997 the church was moved by PD Construction and the new portion was built by D&C Construction with Wayne Houston doing plumbing and Don MacLeod the wiring.
In the early years the congregation was bilingual with Gaelic and English. In 1895 the pews were purchased by families but were deemed free in 1921.
The pump organ which is still used by times, was presented in the early 1900’s by Donald E. and Neil Campbell. Prior to that psalms and hymns were started by a presenter. There is now a keyboard which was purchased by the congregation in 1999. Electricity was introduced in 1939 and in 1957 the furnace was converted to burn oil.
There is a Gaelic bible dated 1872 a King James version with Rev. George Millar’s name 1895 – 1907, another presented by Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Hyndman 1900, and the present pulpit bible was donated in 1955 by Mr. and Mrs. Brenton Dollar.
The church is well equipped with a TV, VCR, Overhead projector and screen also a sound system, infloor heating and a hot air furnace. The Brookfield church has been associated with various other churches throughout its history. At present the Pastoral Charge is comprised of Brookfield, Hunter River and Glasgow Road.
Some of the extra activities that the church congregation has taken part in are Vacation Bible School and is hosted every third year in rotation with Hunter River and Glasgow Road. The world’s Day of Prayer is hosted every five years.
The mission group has functioned consistently since 1910 and in conjunction with three other churches hosted the Atlantic Mission Society’s 128th Annual Meeting in September, 2004, the first time in recent history that a rural pastorate had hosted the annual meeting.
Pastoral Charge Services are hosted on special occasions such as Christmas Eve, Easter Sunday and in January, 2005, for a Tsunami Relief Fundraiser. The most recent event was the hosting of Karuna Roy, a speaker from North India. A.M.S. Sunday School and youth Group meet on a regular basis. Bible Studies for the three congregations are also held.
We traveled down to Brookfield for a few weeks back in the early/mid 80's to paint the exterior of this church . It had been tendered out in the Guardian and we won the bid[was one of our first big jobs] . It was a huge job and we had Ravenwood Carpentry...now called Ravenwood Stairways , do some repair work on the Steeple because the woodpeckers had it almost ruined . Brian Enman did a lot of the work for Ralph Clark who we[Westisle Paintng Co] had hired .
ReplyDeleteMyself and Carmen Pineau did most of the painting with Carmen being the brave one and climbing up the 40 ft ladder which we had on top of 25 ft of staging to do the cross . The caretaker when he saw us doing the cross told us not to worry about the back side...LOL...he figured we would probably end up falling if we continued...so we obliged him !
One of the funniest things I remember about doing the church was that they had a very small congregation and one day there was a Funeral there and when the funeral home showed up with the hearse...they asked for help to carry the casket in...we had to stop painting and help .
Leigh McKenna/Westisle Painting .
Hi, This is a nice article you shared great information i have read it thanks for giving such a wonderful blog for the reader. William Marrion Branham
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