f:f_flewelling
Frederick Fairweather Flewelling (1872 – 1914)
Frederick Flewelling was born in Rothsay, Kings, New Brunswick to parents Robert and Caroline A. Dickson Flewelling.1) He taught school before he went to work with the Canadian National Railroad as a telegraph operator. When his sister moved to the Boston area, he joined her and worked with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail Road. He trained as a missionary between 1889 and 1895 when he was recruited to work in the Yukon. He taught and preached to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in at Tr’ochëk and Moosehide for three years. He was ordained as a deacon during that time.2)
Rev. Flewelling kept a diary from May 8, 1896 to June 21, 1897. It describes his journey to St. Michael and up the Yukon River to the mission at Forty Mile, and his experience and emotions while establishing the mission at the mouth of the Klondike River. A typed transcription of the diary is held at Yukon Archives.3)
Flewelling arrived at Tr’ochëk in 1896, the same year that gold was discovered on Bonanza Creek. After a trip, he returned to Tr’ochëk on 29 May 1897 to find Dawson overrun with gold seekers. The nearest unclaimed land was about two miles downriver, so Flewelling wrote in his diary that he purchased a tract of forty acres and determined to build mission buildings at one end. This became the community of Moosehide.4)
Chief Isaac corresponded with officials in Ottawa with the assistance of Flewelling, to determine a place to settle and to protect the salmon fishery from non-native use. A full year past before a reply was heard from Ottawa. In the meantime, the Church, the NWMP who had commandeered a Hän campsite, and the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, agreed that the First Nation would relocate to land 5km down river to another traditional place near Moosehide Creek.5) Flewelling was the rector at St. Paul’s in Dawson from September 1903 to July 1905.6)
Flewelling returned to New Brunswick after three years in the Yukon and served one year at St. Luke’s in St. John. He then went to Bedford, MA and Providence, RI. He served for a year in Puerto Rico before going to Pittsburgh, McKees Rocks, and Johnstown, PA. He delivered a sermon in New York City and was offered a church of his own in Barrytown in 1912. Flewelling died in 1914 of a ruptured appendix.7)
1)
, 7)
“Rev Frederick Fairweather Flewelling.” Find A Grave, 2020 website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106323010/frederick-fairweather-flewelling
2)
Reverend Frederick Fairweather Flewelling,” 2018 website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106323010/frederick-fairweather-flewelling.
3)
Yukon Archives, Frederick Flewelling collection description, MSS 13 (82/176.
4)
Ven. Laurie Munro, “A Visitor with Past Connections.” Northern Lights, # 179, Winter 2017: 8.
5)
Jody Beaumont and Michael Edwards, “An Introduction to First Nations Heritage Along the Yukon River.” 2018: 131. Pdf on a 2018 web site: Iss.yukonschools.ca.
6)
Ken Spotswood, The Rush for Souls. St. Paul’s Anglican Pro-Cathedral, Summer 2002: 36.
f/f_flewelling.txt · Last modified: 2024/11/07 20:18 by sallyr