Joseph Lofthouse

Reverend Joseph J. Lofthouse was a Canadian bishop.

The Hudson's Bay Company had traditionally neglected the spiritual welfare of its employees and the surrounding natives. In 1882 Rev. Lofthouse was sent out to found a proper church in Churchill, Manitoba. After a while he wrote back to friends in England describing his adventures. He mentioned that one of the things that made it difficult to establish a proper parish was the fact that he did not have a wife. He then said, in effect, "Do you know a girl who would like to travel 4,000 miles across the ocean, marry a man she has never seen before, live in a place where it gets to be forty degrees below zero and be the only white woman within 200 miles?" They wrote back saying, in effect "Why yes, we know a girl exactly like that. If she says yes we'll send her out on the next boat." Reverend Lofthouse wrote out a letter of proposal and put it on the boat for England. Next spring, her affirmative answer arrived on the dog sled from Winnipeg. Since he was not in Churchill, he had to walk for eight days up the coast through roadless country. When the ship arrived (it was a month late), he found that the girl had missed the boat. Since the ship had no proper accommodations for a lady, she had been refused passage. There being no more sailings that year, he had to wait until next year after the ice broke up. The next year, he made another nine-day walk up the coast. The ship arrived on the last day of August and the lady (Betsy Fallding) was introduced to her future husband. The next day she realized something that she had not thought of before. If there was to be a wedding, there would have to be a minister and Rev. Lofthouse was the only preacher around. Since he could not conduct his own marriage ceremony, the marriage was impossible and she would have to go back to England. The captain of a Canadian government ship, which happened to be in port, pointed out that he was a magistrate, and, as such, had the power to conduct the ceremony. They were married on September 4, 1884 and presumably lived happily ever after.

Rev. and Mrs. Lofthouse built, mostly with their own hands, the Anglican church which is still in use in Churchill. Rev. Lofthouse made a number of difficult trips into the interior to preach to the Eskimos. He ended his career as bishop of Keewatin.

References

*MacIver, Angus & Bernice, "Churchill on Hudson Bay", second edition, 2006, ISBN 0-9780757-3-0