Yukon who is who

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
John W. Ellington (1862  -1902)
	
John Ellington was the son of missionaries. His father served eighteen years as a Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary in South India. After her husband’s death, his mother became a missionary with the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society.  John  was school friend with David Kirkby who was born at Fort Simpson, the son of Canadian missionary William West Kirkby. They attended the same English school for eight years.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North.// The University of Alberta Press, 2002: 241, 248fn.))
	
Ellington was young and naïve in 1885 when Reverend Sim, ministering at Old Rampart House, appealed for assistance in the Yukon watershed. T.F. Buxton promised the Church Missionary Society (CMS) an annual donation in return for establishing a mission and the CMS recruited John Ellington from England. He was to receive language training from Reverend V.C. Sim, and he set out for Rampart House, Alaska in March 1885. He was enroute when Sim died, but the CMS decided not to recall him.((Old Log Church Virtual Museum web site 2006: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/BishopStringer/english/mission-ellington.html))
	
The Riel Rebellion delayed Ellington at the Red River settlement for a year. He spent the winter of 1885-86 teaching at a mission school at Rainy River. He reached Fort Simpson, NWT in August 1886 where Bishop Bompas ordained him as deacon and started to teach him Tukudh, Archdeacon McDonald’s translation of the Gwich’in language. The CMS had asked that Ellington not work alone, so he spent the first winter at Rampart House with George C. Wallis, a young Englishman who was to take over Reverend Sim’s ministry. They shared the preaching, using the Hudson’s Bay Company employee Mr. Flett as an interpreter until mid-January when they spoke enough Gwich’in to be understood.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 25-28.))
	 
Ellington left Rampart House in the middle of May 1887 and travelled to Fort Yukon and then to St. Michael to order supplies for the new Buxton Mission at the mouth of the Fortymile River.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 25-28.)) The mission was just upstream of the Forty Mile community. In May, he reached David’s Place and started teaching school and giving services. Ellington had learned Gwich’in and his Buxton parishioners spoke Han so they had difficulty understanding one another. Ellington thought the men were lazy and had a habit of telling them when to hunt and to do more of the women’s work bringing in wood. He refrained from sharing food when asked. The First Nation group left to hunt caribou at the end of August and returned to David’s Camp in October when Ellington resumed his school and services. Finding the people at David’s Camp “becoming awkward” as he told them how to conduct their lives, Ellington visited Charlie’s camp, a distance of fifteen miles away, and told them that people in southern cities had to work very hard for what they had. He told them if they were industrious, they could catch and dry enough salmon in the summer to feed themselves for six months – something he was sure had passed their notice.((Letter from J.W. Ellington at Forty Mile, 13 June 1888 to Reverend C.C. Fenn. National Archives of Canada, microfilm records. Old Log Church Museum research files.))
	
In March 1888, Ellington met people from Fort Reliance visiting the Forty Mile community. On their invitation, Ellington visited Fort Reliance to teach and hold services. He prayed over a dying girl and was unable to save her. He returned to Charlie’s Camp but found his duties interfering with his need to learn more of the language. He returned to Forty Mile hoping to find a vacant cabin where he could study in peace but had to pitch a tent with the First Nations. Logs were erected for the Mission House and part of the school, and the men left in the spring to bring in more building logs. Ellington anticipated a visit from Bishop Bompas and hoped he might stay, and he was anticipated Archdeacon’s translation of the New Testament. He had high hopes that some of his young congregants could be trained as ‘native agents’ for the church. Ellington hoped to have more time to learn the language after the buildings were completed.((Letter from J.W. Ellington at Forty Mile, 13 June 1888 to Reverend C.C. Fenn. National Archives of Canada, microfilm records. Old Log Church Museum research files.)) 

The First Nation men building the Forty Mile mission buildings were paid one dollar a day with food but that dropped to one dollar without food as the buildings neared completion. The head man received two dollars a day. To explain the expenditure, Ellington reported that some of the First Nation men at Forty Mile were earning a wage working for the miners.((Letter from J.W. Ellington at Forty Mile, 19 June 1888 to Mr. Gray. National Archives of Canada, microfilm records. Old Log Church Museum research files.))    
	
Ellington was an easy target for the practical jokes of the Forty Mile miners, and one prank had Ellington solemnly holding a funeral for a casket filled with rocks. He fell into debt with the traders. His relationship with the First Nation congregation deteriorated. Mr. J.E. McGrath of the Yukon River Boundary Survey visited Ellington and judged him pious, zealous, and conscientious, but unfit to be left alone in wild country like Forty Mile. The CMS had warned Bompas but the Bishop was short of staff and everyone had to contribute. By June 1889, Ellington was overcome by loneliness and depression, and he set off down the Yukon River, determined to leave the country. He stopped at Noukelakayet and Reverend Canham persuaded him to return to his post. A year later he had to be taken home to England. His family thought his condition was due to sunstroke. The doctor at St. Michael, Alaska diagnosed him with "softening of the brain." Ellington was committed to an asylum in England where he died in 1902.((Old Log Church Virtual Museum web site 2006: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/BishopStringer/english/mission-ellington.html))