Rev John Mann, Teachers’ Loyalist Pioneer Ancestor 

Although the 1760 New England Planter immigrants were the first under the British repopulation plan for the vacant Acadian lands, they were soon followed, and to some extent eclipsed, by the Loyalist immigration following Britain’s loss in the American Revolution. One of the noteworthy Loyalist immigrants for what is now Upper Burlington in the Planter township of Newport was Rev John Mann and his family.

John Mann was born in New York City in 1743. His father died young, so John and family were raised by his widowed mother. At age 21 he married Jane Ann Marschalk. John became a businessman, but experiencing hard times he moved for a while to Philadelphia, where he heard the sermons of a Methodist minister and was deeply moved. Upon his return to New York he joined the Methodist Society, and soon was preaching at the John Street chapel, continuing to do so when the Revolutionary War broke out.

“In the beginning of the Revolutionary war, the Methodist preachers left the city of New-York, and shortly afterward returned to England. Mr. Mann was desired by the trustees and leaders of the Society to keep the chapel open in New York, which he accordingly did for a considerable time. When Philadelphia was taken by the British troops, a way was open for Samuel Spraggs, a traveling preacher in the connection, to come to New York, into whose hands Mr. Mann delivered up the charge of the society. He continued, however, to preach once a week in the chapel, unless duty called him to labor in some part of the country on the Lord's day. He at the same time attended to his temporal interests, and was greatly blessed in this respect while ministering to the spiritual wants of others. Mr. Mann must have been very useful to the little flock during the time that tried men's souls. He was class-leader, trustee, and treasurer of the board all through the Revolutionary War, for his name as such appears on every page of the " old book," during those never-to-be-forgotten years. Then, when the regular ministers left he took charge of the society, preaching in their pulpit till Mr. Spraggs arrived, and then was his assistant, for he continued to preach once a week in the chapel.

At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, severe threats having been thrown out against the loyalists who had taken refuge within the British lines, Mr. Mann thought it his duty to embark, with a considerable number of the society, for the wilds of Nova Scotia.”*

The prominent role of Rev John Mann in New York City during the Revolutionary War requires some context to appreciate. “A most disastrous fire, occurred the 20th September, 1776. The fire commenced at the wharf, near Whitehall, and continued to burn till one quarter of the city was destroyed. Trinity Church and the Lutheran Church were consumed. “* In addition to that loss of religious facilities from the fire, the British closed many churches, suspecting the preachers were advocating revolt. They took over the buildings for soldiers’ barracks, for storehouses, and even as stables for their horses. These events greatly boosted attendance at the John Street Chapel services, it being one of the few churches still operating..

According to Society records Rev Mann, as a layperson at that time, received little remuneration from  the Methodist Society, although when the ordained minister arrived from Philadelphia, that person was paid far above the usual rates, made possible from the elevated contributions received from the officers and others attending the John Street Chapel.

At the end of the War in 1783 when the British evacuated New York, the Manns joined the 13,000 person exodus by sailing ship to Port Roseway (Shelburne) in Nova Scotia. Due to privation conditions in Shelburne about 1786 he moved to Liverpool, and briefly returned to Philadelphia with brother James to become ordained Methodist ministers. He moved in 1792 to the Newport area where he had earlier become acquainted with Yorkshire immigrant John Smith, a foremost promoter of Methodism in the area, at Oakland Farm.

That move was likely by water rather than land as roads were still very primitive in Nova Scotia at the time, with few able to accept carriages, and with no bridges over most rivers. The Kennetcook River had no bridge before 1796 when a wooden one was built where the concrete Scotch Village Bridge stands today.

On the north bank of the Kennetcook River adjacent the Great Kennetcook Dyke, previously the site of an Acadian village named L’Aigle (Eagle), Rev Mann bought five of the six-acre cleared “village lots” laid out thirty years earlier for the Planter land grants, and three acres of adjacent marsh land. The “village lots” had been granted to Planter settlers, along with their primary grants of woodlots and marshlands. Subsequently many were sold to settlers within a reasonable distance that allowed working them as well as their main lot.

Here Rev. John established the family home where he lived with his wife until his death in 1817 in his 74^th year. He was buried in a cemetery on the property, joined in it by his wife in 1826. Later a monument was placed there to honor Rev John, his wife, and son Captain John Mann who was lost at sea off Cape Blomidon in December 1821. Many of Rev Mann’s contemporaries in New York and New England had much larger monuments erected in their honour so perhaps the family considered it his due to be similarly acknowledged.

Captain John and his brother James had inherited the family property which they sold by 1819, except for the quarter acre reserved for the burial place. Rev Mann’s original headstone remains at the grave site.

Rev. John Mann had preached for 49 years, and right up to his old age traveled on horseback from his home here in Burlington (at that timed called Lower Kennetcook) to preach throughout the townships of Newport, Windsor, Kempt, and Douglas, as well as in East Hants to the veterans of the Revolutionary War who had been granted land there. The standard wage for itinerant ministers, often called a “saddle bags man”, at that time was sixteen dollars each quarter, so obviously Rev Mann needed to operate his small farm to augment his salary and to feed his family.

Rev Mann was a pioneer both on the land and in his Church. In addition to working the newly settled land, and being the first to minister to his church circuit, his efforts were acknowledged by a letter from the founder of Methodism himself, John Wesley, in England, following commendation by N.S. Methodist elder Freeborn Garretson of Mann’s success in ministering at Liverpool.

The following extract is from a letter to Rev. Mann found in Mr. Wesley's Works: vol. vii, p. 257:

" London, June 30,1788.

My Dear Bother, I am greatly concerned for the prosperity of the work of God in Nova Scotia. It seems some way to lie nearer my heart that even that in the United States… but I look upon those in the northern provinces to be younger, and tender children, and consequently to stand in need of our most anxious care. I hope all of you that watch over, them are exactly of one mind, and of one judgment; that you take care always to speak the same things, and to watch over one another in love….

Your affectionate friend and brother,
John Wesley."

John Mann had been loyal to the King and faithful to his religion, while enduring the pioneer conditions in his adopted Nova Scotia. His twelve grandchildren and their descendants became true Nova Scotians.

His original church back in New York City is still operating, as the John Street Methodist Church, the oldest congregation of that church in North America. The present pastor, Rev. Jason Radmacher, is #161 in its list of pastors, on which Rev. John Man stands as #12. The present church building dating from 1841, is the third on the site  at 44 John Street in Lower Manhattan. It is 1.5 blocks east of Broadway between Nassau and William Streets, two blocks from Ground Zero. Among its weekly programs is a Wednesday noon session “Wonderful Wall Street Wednesday”, an indication that its work continues in a neighbourhood with global influence..

Plaque on John Street Church in Lower Manhattan

Mural on John Street Church Showing Its Surroundings in 1768

Poster in John Street Church Museum Recalling Bloody Pre-Revolution Incident 

The 1768 mural and recount of the bloody 1770 incident show the neighbourhood context of the John Street Methodist Church when John Mann, later of Upper Burlington, was a member and local resident. His church experienced recent trauma when the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center occurred just two blocks away.    

Rev John Mann’s John Street Church in 2010, Surrounded by Skyscrapers

Lower Manhattan Skyscrapers Tower over John Mann’s Methodist Church

The John Street Methodist Church’s history states, “In nearly two and a half centuries of ministry we have served soldiers wounded in the American Revolution, investors who lost everything in the Great Depression, and a neighborhood devastated by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.” To think one of its earliest members and leaders from its most momentous days, almost entirely forgotten himself for over 150 years, lies in a tiny, secluded plot, well back and hidden from the highway, shaded by spruce trees, just as he has been shaded from local acknowledgement, and from history itself. 

Cemetery Plot of Rev John Mann Family in Upper Burlington

His original sandstone grave marker has weathered to near-illegibility. It and the later granite monument to him and his sea-captain son, had fallen over, and were nearly buried in the soil of the farm he tilled over two centuries ago, under a tangle of thorns that invoke images of his personal creed.

Original Gravestone of Rev. John Mann

One Face of the Monument to Rev John and  his son Capt John Mann, before Restoration

Thorns Entangled the Fallen Monument and Grave Marker of Rev. John Mann
 

In August 2010 the gravestone of Rev Mann, and the monument to him, his wife Ann, and his son Capt. John Mann were restored, and now stand in a little glade in the small cemetery overlooking the Kennetcook River. 

 Restored Mann Monument and Gravestone of Loyalist Pioneer  Rev John Mann

Mann descendants did settle in nearby Centre Burlington where “The Mann House”, built by two decendents of Rev. John, remains a well-known landmark. Two 1950’s teachers in Upper Burlington’s Kennetcook Dyke School , Beatrice Hoyt and Rhoda Pineo were descendants of Rev Mann. Rhoda’s mother, Doris Mann, was the final teacher who, in 1963,  taught in the school overlooking the farm of that long ago Loyalist pioneer and itinerant Methodist preacher. 

-Adapted from an article by Mrs. Nellie (Green) Fox of Hantsport, in the Nova Scotia Historical Review, vol 4, number 2, 1984.

with additional material from 

*“Lost Chapters, The Early History of American Methodism” by Rev. J.B. Wakeley, Carleton and Porter, New York, 1858 

Wesley quote and pictures from “Illustrated History of Methodism” by W.H. Daniels, Methodist Book Concern, New York, 1880

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