Patrick O’Meally: Sincere Service Appreciated and Remembered

 

 Patrick O’Meally

 

Plaque at Ulster Spring Church

Only those who are conversant with the history of Baptists in Jamaica can truly appreciate the significant contribution of the historic Jericho Baptist Church. Patrick Mitchell O’Meally, 1818-1904, was one of the persons whom the Jericho Church helped to form for Baptist ministry in Jamaica.

Born in Spanish Town in 1818, O’Meally, aged 35, was admitted to Calabar College near Rio Bueno. While in College, he began to show his giftedness from the early stages of his studies. All students attending the College were required to participate in the annual oral examination conducted by the Calabar Committee. At the end of his very first year at Calabar, O’Meally distinguished himself when he presented to the outstanding panel of external examiners an excellent essay on effectual prayer.

When he completed the course of preparation at Calabar, he answered the call to serve as pastor of the church at Coultart Grove, near Claremont in St Ann. This church had been in the St Ann’s Bay circuit under the pastoral care of BMS missionary Benjamin Millard who became JBU Secretary (later, General Secretary) in the 1860s and 1870s.

O’Meally’s gifts had commended him as a suitable person to serve at Coultart Grove, which was set in a community without enormous financial resources. When he arrived there, O’Meally found the Coultart Grove church building and mission house in a dilapidated state. However, he noted two signs of hope: the Sunday School population was 160 children and the church operated a day school that enjoyed an average attendance of 97 students.

O’Meally’s stay at Coultart Grove was not to last long. After a year there, he moved on to serve the churches associated with the Alps Baptist Church in the Cockpit Country in Trelawny, namely, Warsop, Albert Town and Crombie, which was eight miles inland from Alps – churches that are now in the Ulster Spring, Warsop and Spring Garden circuits.

Alps, the centre of O'Meally’s circuit, was a “free village,” established by William Bull Dexter, who was one of William Knibb’s close relatives who served the Baptist cause in Jamaica. The son of the sister of Mary Knibb, William Knibb’s wife, Dexter was a missionary to Jamaica from 1834 to 1853.  

Ulster Spring Baptist Church

With the help of William Knibb, Dexter established New Birmingham, later named Alps, as a free village. in the community, he set aside land on which the Baptist church was erected.

 O’Meally was joined in matrimony to Margaret Eliza Sicard in August 1861 and theirs was a crowded home – six daughters and four sons.

So impactful was O’Meally’s ministry that, on September 21, 1919, fifteen years after his death, a special gathering took place in the Ulster Spring Church to raise funds for the erection of a special tablet in honour of the beloved former minister. Addressing the people, Rev J. T. Dillon of First  (now Burchell) Baptist Church, Montego Bay, used Judges 1: 12 as his text. Dillon challenged the people to follow O’Meally’s example and be the Othniel who will “storm the Kirjath Sepher of Upper Trelawny.”

Pointing to O’Meally’s example, Dillon said this; “He laboured here for 40 years and when he came there, conditions were just revolting and means of communication with the outside world almost nil. These parts were then giant mountain fastnesses, tenanted by wild boars and a fairly large human population who had emigrated from lower Trelawny and St. Ann to these fertile slopes and glades so well-known in Upper Trelawny for their proverbial productiveness.

"From a situation where civilised life was practically non-existent, there arose the dawn of a new era, heralded by Patrick O’Meally of revered memory. He was not afraid of difficulties, privations and dangers. His encounters with wild boars would make thrilling reading if the story of them all were written. He became at once to the poor ignorant people, father, minister, teacher, doctor, advocate and judge; he led the way and called them upward; he bore the lion's share in helping to establish the present order of things—from good roads, spacious and neat churches, schools, and commodious cottages, a post office, etc., and that was why his name would always live in the hearts of the people of Upper Trelawny.”

The people’s response was splendid and the tablet they erected is still to be found today in the Ulster Spring Baptist Church, where it reminds the current members of two faithful Christian workers in the early life of the church – Patrick and Margaret Eliza O’Meally.  

At 87 years of age, Patrick O’Meally died in Kingston on January 23,1904. Cause of death is listed as old age.