Walter Dendy: Visionary and Father of Tourism in Western Jamaica

 

Mt. Carey Baptist Church

Several of the BMS missionaries who served in Jamaica gave less than 5 years of service. Few spent more than 40 years in the country. Among these are J. E. Henderson (41 years), James Reid and Edward Hewett (42 years); Walter Dendy (50 years) and James Phillippo (56 years). Several books have been written on Phillippo’s contribution, but none that I am aware of, on Dendy’s.

 

Walter Dendy was from a place called Ditton’s Marsh in Wiltshire in the south of England.  On October 20, 1831, BMS leaders gathered in the Baptist church at Salisbury, not far from Dendy’s early home, and commissioned him as a missionary to Jamaica. Dendy and his wife, together with Thomas and Hannah Burchell departed their homeland, arriving in Montego Bay, Jamaica on January 7, 1832. They arrived when the “Baptist War” was underway in western Jamaica. What a time to arrive in a foreign land where you are to serve as a missionary!

After the “War” was over, Dendy managed to make his way to Kingston and, like Thomas Knibb and William Knibb before him, was put in charge of the church at Port Royal. After a short time there, he was attached to the Baptist Church in Spanish Town, during which time he visited Annotto Bay and preached to a congregation that included enslaved people, thereby breaching Jamaica’s Toleration Act. For this, he received a summons to appear before the magistrates in Buff Bay, who, for his offence, committed him to jail in Kingston. While in jail, Dendy twice took the opportunity to preach to the imprisoned population and, in April 1833, he was taken before Jamaica’s Chief Justice who freed Dendy.

After this, Dendy took charge of the church in Falmouth in the absence of their pastor, William Knibb, who later wrote in glowing terms about Dendy’s work in Falmouth. Then, Dendy went on to serve at Salter’s Hill in St James – the church Moses Baker had started at Crooked Spring. He commenced work at the Salter’s Hill church on January 31, 1836, and between that date and 1863, he administered the baptism of 2,129 persons. Yet, Dendy’s tenure in Salter’s Hill was not without disappointments. For example, his wife died on August 21, 1865. Disappointed, but not despairing, Dendy continued to serve the Salter’s Hill church and community until his death 17 years later, in 1882.

During his time at Salter’s Hill, Dendy contributed to the development of the Bethtephil Church. In 1840, he started a so-called Free Village in the community he named Maldon, because the Baptists of Maldon in Essex, England contributed significantly to fund this project. Dendy started Baptist witness in that community.

Dendy’s contribution to the 1865 publication, Voice of Jubilee: A Narrative of the Baptist Mission, Jamaica, From Its Commencement with Biographical Notices of its Fathers and Founders, has significantly improved our awareness of the contribution of 17 of the BMS missionaries who served in Jamaica.

Dendy played a vital role in organizing the distribution of Bibles donated by the British and Foreign Bible Societies for the emancipated people of Jamaica who could read or whose children were learning to read.

Apart from his work in support of the struggle against slavery, Dendy played a vast role in the formation of the Western Association of Baptists in Jamaica and is renowned for his contribution to the emergence and development of the Jamaica Baptist Union. He was the first person to be elected chairman (now president) of the Union and he was the prime human mover behind the establishment of the critically important former Baptist Educational Society in 1836.

Dendy made an outstanding contribution to community building in post-emancipation Jamaica. A visionary, who was always on the lookout for ways to contribute to human and community development, Dendy published a pamphlet addressed to the authorities in Montego Bay. In it, he advocated for Jamaica’s north coast to be developed as a tourism resort where the people could create craft items for sale to visitors. Earlier, the construction in 1888, of the 100-room Constant Spring Hotel marked a new departure in what was to become an important contributor to Jamaica’s economic development.

Renowned church historian Horace Russell has credited Dendy’s retiring ways and the outgoing nature of his contemporary fellow missionaries for Dendy’s significance being often overlooked.

Philip Williams, former JBU chairman and general secretary, in his Centennial Review of the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society illustrated Dendy’s good influence, which led his only son, who predeceased him, to leave a will bequeathing some ₤6,000 to the Jamaica Baptist Union, noting that ₤1,200 was for renovation and repair of church buildings; ₤900 was to spent on Home Missions; ₤900 for Calabar College; ₤900 for Haiti and ₤500 to be committed to providing new graduates of Calabar College with a horse and a saddle.

It is to be regretted that the name, Walter Dendy, is not very well known in the churches of the Jamaica Baptist Union. Dendy’s name deserves to be included in the list of illustrious Baptist missionaries who served in Jamaica – men such as William Knibb, Thomas Burchell, James Phillippo and John Clarke. Dendy’s contribution deserves to be celebrated when we remember the way God provided and equipped workers to serve the divine cause in Jamaica.

James Mann: A Few, but Very Productive, Years

 

                                        Webb Memorial Baptist Church, Stewart Town, Trelawny

James Mann is a good example of a British Baptist missionary who came to Jamaica, spent only a few years, but made a vital contribution to Baptist work in the country.

 

He was from Scotland and he decided to offer himself to the BMS for service on the mission field. In 1826, BMS accepted him and commissioned him as a missionary to Jamaica, where he arrived in Kingston on June 7, 1826. He was on the island for almost 4 years before he died, a victim of yellow fever, on February 10, 1830.

 

He started his ministry in the country by filling in at Montego Bay for Thomas Burchell, who was on a visit to England. After this, he served enthusiastically in the parishes of St James, Westmoreland and Trelawny. At that time, of course, the parish of Hanover did not exist; it was a part of Westmoreland. His mode of transport was horseback!

 

Mann was involved in the planting or renewal of several churches – Fullers Field in 1827; Rio Bueno and Stewart Town in 1828, and Oxford and Cambridge in 1829. In cooperation with Thomas Burchell, Mann served the following churches: Montego Bay, Mt Carey, Shortwood, Crooked Spring, Bethel Town, Gurney’s Mount, Fletcher’s Grove, Watford Hill, Lucea, Fuller’s Field, Falmouth, Rio Bueno, and Stewart Town.

 

In January 1830, Mann left Rio Bueno to visit his fellow missionaries in Spanish Town and Kingston. He covered the journey to Spanish Town in one day and one night. He arrived unwell. However, he managed to preach at Spanish Town and Port Royal. After preaching in Kingston, he visited the Coultarts in Mt Charles, where Mrs. Coultart counselled him to rest and recover. Anxious for the welfare of the churches he served, he returned to the country and preached at Oxford Estate.

 

Soon, he fell seriously ill. His doctors failed in their bid to aid his recovery and he died. John Clarke reports that the members of the Falmouth Church loved Mann dearly and in 1839, they sent his father “a considerable present.”  This gift, he says, “cheered the heart of the aged Christian who, a few weeks after, entered his rest.”

 

One can hardly refrain from asking what would have happened if Mann had lived longer. It is very likely that Baptist witness in Jamaica would have benefited enormously from the Christian commitment and bounding energy of this tireless worker in our Lord’s vineyard.

The Knibb Clan: Fierce Advocacy and Monumental Courage

 

William Knibb

Many are the published literary works that celebrate the contribution of William Knibb and this is as it should be. He was the fifth child, along with his twin sister Ann, of Thomas and Mary Knibb (nee Dexter) of Kettering in the British Midlands. The senior Knibbs had eight children, namely, Thomas, William, Ann, Edward, Frances (Fanny), Mary Anne, Christopher and James.

William Knibb, the best known of the children, made an outstanding contribution to the emancipation of enslaved people in Jamaica, where he spent 21 years, dying in 1845 at the age of 42. What is not sufficiently known is the extent to which Knibb’s relatives came to live and work in Jamaica.

Knibb’s older brother, Thomas Billing Knibb, was the first in the family to come to Jamaica. He was to be a BMS missionary who was a school administrator. When he arrived, he was only 21, and he was assigned to serve at the school attached to East Queen Street Baptist Church. He was also put in charge of the Baptist church in Port Royal. His time in the country was brief – from January 20, 1823, to April 25, 1824, the date of his death. Disappointed, his wife Elizabeth and her infant son, Thomas, returned to England, where Elizabeth passed away in Northampton on January 31, 1825.

William Knibb volunteered to replace his brother in Jamaica. BMS accepted him and he sailed from Blackwell, England, arriving in Morant Bay, Jamaica on February 12, 1824. Few persons who have any knowledge of the history of the church in Jamaica are ignorant of William’s vital work to publicize the inhumanity of slavery and to advocate against it.

William Knibb’s twin sister Ann did not undertake missionary work in Jamaica. However, when, in 1829, she married Samuel Lea in Kettering, England, she did not know that one of her children would follow the example of her brothers, Thomas and William, into missionary service in Jamaica. The union of Samuel and Ann produced four children including Thomas Lea. Arriving in Jamaica in 1858, Thomas Lea worked successively in Stewart Town, Falmouth, Lucea and Spanish Town circuits. Notably, Thomas Lea was the founding pastor of the Gibraltar Baptist Church. Challenges he faced when he was called to succeed James Phillippo in the Spanish Town circuit influenced him to resign and become and Anglican. He returned to England in 1881, after having completed four years as curate at the Anglican cure in Kingston and later at Mile Gully in St Elizabeth. In England, he served as curate at Anglican churches in Northamptonshire.

Yet another member of the Knibb clan who served as a missionary in Jamaica was Benjamin Bull Dexter, Knibb’s cousin. The maiden name of William Knibb’s mother was Mary Dexter. Mary’s brother had a son whom he named Benjamin Bull Dexter. He was a BMS missionary to Jamaica from 1834 to 1853. He served successively in the following churches – Salter’s Hill, Rio Bueno, Stewart Town, the Alps, Crombie and Liberty Vale in south Trelawny. In 1834, after Knibb returned from England, Dexter assisted him in processing a thousand persons for baptism.

While in Jamaica, Benjamin Dexter and his wife had a son whom they gave the name William Knibb Dexter. After his father died suddenly in 1863, William went to live in England with his mother and brother. Later, he became a Baptist minister and served in Bedford in the southeast of England.

Thomas Knibb's "infant son" – Thomas Wilson Knibb, who was born a few weeks before the death of his father – grew up in England and, in 1840, he returned to Jamaica to carry out a teaching ministry in a Baptist-related school, working under his uncle’s superintendence. According to BMS missionary John Clarke, Thomas worked at the Suffield School in Falmouth and conducted services of worship at several BMS mission stations in Jamaica.  

In September 1847, Thomas journeyed to Kingston for his marriage to a Jamaican woman, who was a member of the East Queen Street Baptist Church. He experienced an attack of fever that put an end to his wedding plans. After his three-day illness, he died on September 25, 1847, his last audible words reportedly being “Peace of mind! Peace of mind!” According to the Falmouth Post, Knibb “was esteemed and respected by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance…. [He] was not celebrated for any political conduct but was a mild and unassuming Christian striving to do good among his fellow creatures whenever opportunity presented itself. He was remarkably pious [and] was justly beloved by his numerous pupils, who will feel his loss.”

Edward Knibb, a nephew of William Knibb, came to live and work in Jamaica, but not as a missionary. He came to Jamaica with his family – Elizabeth his wife, and their children – to improve his prospects as a businessman.  He opened a shop in Falmouth where he sold farm produce.  Edward and Elizabeth Knibb had three daughters – Susan, Mary (Polly), and Elizabeth Ann (Lillie)  and two boys – Edward and Thomas. All the children were born in England.

Susan married Rev Caleb E. Randal, became a minister among the Disciples of Christ in Jamaica. Polly and Lily operated a school in Falmouth that was highly rated by the people of the community.

Polly and Lily managed the Misses Knibb Girls’ School in Falmouth where they were also teachers. At one stage, Miss Annie Fray, a granddaughter of William Knibb, also worked as a teacher at the Knibb school.

The Misses Knibb School ceased operation when Polly and Lily refused to accede to the wish of the parents of the schools’ pupils that two Black girls who recently had been admitted to the school should be expelled on account of the colour of their skin. These students were the children of two pastors – one a Presbyterian and the other a Baptist, William Webb who was serving, at that time, as pastor of the Stewart Town Baptist Circuit. Webb went on to open the Manchester School, later named Westwood High School where the daughters of the peasantry in Trelawny and across Jamaica received a gracious welcome.

In December 1848, Edward Knibb died in Trelawny. He was in his 58^th year. Hardly did he fare better in Jamaica than he did in England. He was not known to be a professing or committed Christian, but from they were young, his children were given formative exposure to the church.

William and Mary Knibb faced many disappointments during their time in Jamaica. Most of their nine children died by their fifth year. Anne, Knibb’s second daughter became the wife of Ellis Fray, Sr. of Falmouth. Fray, Sr. trained for the ministry at Calabar College and started his post-College career as pastor of Refuge Baptist Church in Trelawny. Fray was the first Jamaican to serve as chairman (now president) of JBU. Fray, Sr. developed significant work at Rio Bueno and Waldensia and planted a Baptist church in Clark’s Town in 1883. Ellis and Ann Fray had a son whom they named Ellis Fray, Jr. He also became a Baptist minister and served as Secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society for several years. Ellis Fray Jr. also worked as a JBMS missioner in Cuba.

Five of the Knibb children, including their two sons, died in their youthful years. On April 7, 1843, William Knibb addressed a letter to his friend, Dr. James Hoby, long-time supporter of the BMS and minister of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Birmingham. This is what he said:

“Our only boy, our fourth is gone. He was a second William, and in him my heart was bound. I do not think that ever a father lost a more sweet and lovely child. His almost seraphic tones in singing frequently enchanted us. Though not yet six years of age, he was just commencing to play the colophon [a two-stringed musical instrument]. I gazed upon my only son saying, “This same one shall comfort us after our affliction.  Alas! In a few brief hours, from perfect health, he was a corpse. My dear wife in silent submission, bows beneath the stroke, and I hope we can both say, “It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.” I am cut to the heart. All, all is a blank. But still, I do not repine at the dispensations of heaven.”

The loss of so many of their children was a source of distress for the Knibbs; yet they faced their disappointment with monumental courage and kept on serving the Lord in the land to which they believed God had sent them on mission. We thank God for their example of sacrificial Christian service.

The story of the Knibb clan in Jamaica deserves to be popularized among Baptists in Jamaica.

Joshua Tinson: Positive Attitude and Cheerful Spirit

 

                                                         Hanover Street Baptist Church

Joshua Tinson, another Englishman who trained for the mission field at Bristol College, was born at Watledge in Gloucestershire in 1794. His desire was to serve in Asia but, in 1822, BMS accepted him for service in Jamaica. After his ordination at the Eagle Street Church in London, Tinson and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Haines) departed the country of their birth; they landed at Morant Bay, Jamaica, May 31, 1822.

At first, Tinson considered working in St Thomas in the East. However, because George Liele was going to be away in England, the members of the Windward Road Chapel invited Tinson to serve as their pastor in Liele’s absence. Upon Liele’s return, Tinson began to preach at a house on Hanover Street in Kingston where some of his congregants were from Liele’s church. On January 7, 1827, the group of worshippers was constituted as the Hanover Street Baptist Church.

In June 1830, Tinson started ministerial work in Yallahs in the parish of St. David, now a part of St Thomas. With 48 members, this group was constituted as a church on Christmas Day, 1830. Tinson faced stern opposition to his work in St David from the magistrate and the members of the plantocracy. This did not discourage him from espousing a wider vision of his calling to serve the church. Within a few years, Tinson agreed to coordinate the distribution of 40,000 copies of the Bible – a gift from the British and Foreign Bible Society – to the newly emancipated people across Jamaica.

Ever willing to extend himself in ministry, Tinson assumed the role of interim pastor of the East Queen Street Baptist Church in 1836, after the death of the church’s pastor, the BMS missionary, John Shoveller. Shoveller had left his homeland for Jamaica shortly after his wife died when she was only 23. While at East Queen Street, he is known to have purchased the freedom of an enslaved person, for which he endured much criticism especially from the Methodists.

In 1837, Tinson started a church at Mt Atlas in the hills of St Andrew, in the vicinity of Cooper’s Hill and Diamond. Perhaps, this was what is now called Red Hills Baptist Church. Tinson appointed two deacons from the Hanover Street congregation to assist in the work at the church at Mt Atlas.

Meanwhile, ill health prevented Tinson from commencing the operation of a ministerial training programme for prospects for the ministry in the Baptist community in Jamaica. As he had done previously when ill health took its toll on him, Tinson and his wife visited England for recuperation. Upon their return to Jamaica, Tinson commenced his celebrated work in theological education and ministerial formation in Jamaica.

On October 6, 1843, after resigning as pastor of the Hanover Street church, Tinson assumed the role of president and tutor at the newly formed Calabar College near Rio Bueno, Trelawny. The institution began with 8 students. Over a seven-year period, Tinson carried out his duties while battling ill health, including cancer. In October, 1844, when he was in his 57^th year, Tinson fell from a ladder. Complications from the fall led to his death on December 3, 1850. He was buried on the grounds of Calabar in Rio Bueno.

Tinson’s life was a study in perseverance in the work of the Lord, despite ill health. His positive attitude and cheerful spirit during his trials helped prepare his students for the vicissitudes of pastoral ministry. After his death, Mrs. Tinson and her daughter returned to England and later, migrated to Australia where they resided first in Sydney, New South Wales, and then in Hobart, Tasmania. Meanwhile, Jamaica Baptists who visited Tinson’s tomb in Trelawny did so with reverent awe.

As the years passed by, the Hanover Street Baptist Church, which Tinson started, played a major role in the development of what later became the Jamaica Baptist Union Brotherhood and in the formation of Tarrant Baptist Church. 

Remembering Leslie Harris

 

Remembering Leslie G. Harris

Hopie and her two bothers, Horland and Leon, the three children of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Harris faced their “Decembered Grief” for the first time in 2019. While others were celebrating, they experienced a deep sense of loss that threatened to overwhelm the joy they usually experience during the season celebrating God incarnate in Jesus Christ. The reason for this was the passing of their father in October of that year. Although he had lived for 87 years, Leslie Harris' death elicited abundant thankfulness but also enormous grief.

Three years after Pastor Harris’s death, it was fitting that Fritznel Octave dedicated his book, Haiti, Between Pestilence and Hope: The Progressive Ideals from the Revolution in 1804 Set the Pace (Columbus, OH: Gatekeeper Press, 2022) to one who was a courageous servant of God.

Octave wrote: "We pay tribute to the late Pastor Leslie G. Harris, a Jamaican born missionary, who dedicated more than 60 years of his life in the service of people in rural north-western Haiti, notably Môle Saint-Nicholas, Jean-Rebel, Bombardopolis, and Baie-de Henne. Many inhabitants of these regions will always remember Pastor Harris who died at Crève (Bomabardopolis), Haiti, on October 8, 2019. When he arrived in the area in the mid-1950s, he found a population almost totally neglected or ignored by the Haitian government. Through his Mission des Eglises Baptistes Independentes (MEBI), he became one of the most important change agents in socioeconomic development, healthcare and education to the population. A young missionary, Pastor Harris was introduced by American missionary and philanthropist Pastor Wallace Turnbull. Pastor Turnbull, for his part, had pioneered church planting, schools, community and social developments in Haiti for over 70 years.”

Born in Orange Hill, Brown’s Town, At Ann, Leslie Harris received his early spiritual nurture in the Brown's Town Baptist Church under the leadership of Rev John Bee. There, he committed his life to Christ. In his youth, he entertained the thought of becoming both a politician and a minister of religion. He began this pursuit by completing the three-year course of study at the Jamaica Bible College in Mandeville and the one-year training programme offered by the International Missionary Fellowship centre in Alexandria, St. Ann. One Sunday, after listening to a sermon preached at the Brown’s Town Baptist Church by Rev Arthur Groves Wood, who was on furlough from his service as a missionary to Haiti, Harris decided to devote himself to Christian mission in that country.

Arriving in Haiti at the age of twenty-two, he went to serve in the north western section of deep rural Haiti where poverty, Vodoo and witchcraft were strong features of the people’s way of life. Eventually, he married a Haitian, named Leo, the daughter of a witch doctor. Leo became his committed partner in the work of the Lord. 

Many are the stories Harris told of heart-rending experiences, life-threatening challenges and life-changing miracles especially during the early years of his ministry in Haiti. He left his country without sponsorship from any missionary society and he served sacrificially. He was grateful for the constant guidance and unfailing provision that God offers to those who commit to serving in God's mission. Together with Leo, he fulfilled his calling with faithfulness.

 When he died in 2019, Pastor Harris left a remarkable legacy of transformative Christian service and witness that is cherished and celebrated by those who know about his exploits in the following areas of ministry: church planting, establishing schools, building and managing an orphanage, setting up health clinics, training people in subsistence farming, rendering humanitarian aid, and sponsoring agricultural projects that transformed individuals and communities.

Though not well known or celebrated in the land of his birth, Leslie Harris distinguished himself as a Jamaica Baptist missioner to Haiti and his story needs to be told. Of course, the God who made, equipped and sustained him is fully aware of his stewardship. Those who learn about Leslie's work will benefit from reflecting on his example. 

In 2006, during one of his infrequent visits to Jamaica, my wife, Dulcie, interviewed her fellow Brown’s Townian. Harris had words of praise for Nurse Maizie Hall, also a Jamaican missionary to Haiti, born in Sturge Town, St Ann, and serving in Haiti in response to the call of God. She helped Leslie adjust to life in his new country. Leslie also expressed appreciation for the help and financial support he received from Christians in Cuba, Canada, USA and Jamaica. He praised God for the churches, high schools, orphanage, health centres that were introduced under his leadership and for the roads that were built in north-western Haiti and the training in agriculture and in the rearing of goats, cows and chickens that helped change the lives of the people of north western Haiti. 

Leslie promoted the digging of wells and the capping of springs to enable the people to benefit from stable water supply. From the church he started in Crève grew some fifty additional churches that developed under the leadership of Haitian pastors who came under Harris' influence. 

Harris fulfilled his dream of serving as a minister of religion and also a change agent who contributed significantly to community development. Let us celebrate his contribution.