From The Scrap Book
January 1996
By Dr. Bill Randall
Two Churches in Harvey
Seventh Day Adventist Church & The United Pentecostal Church
Part I
I would like to share with you some of the information which I am accumulating, relative to the history of some of the younger churches which are presently minister ing in the Harvey area.
This month I will focus on the Seventh Day Adventist Church and the United Pente costal Church.
The one I will start with is the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Lloyd Embleton allowed me to copy from a Church document in part, the following
Record of Meeting: “At a meeting held Sabbath August 24, 1912, in the Gospel Tent
at Lake George, York Co., N.B.; Elder J.A. Strickland presiding, it was decided by unanimous consent that those present be organized into a Church of Seventh Day Adventists. – – – -, Charter members: Elder J.A. Strickland, Deacon Gilbert Graham, Clerk Len Embleton, Robert Embleton, John Embleton, Jane Embleton, Mary Graham, Annie Embleton, Theresa Graham, Ward Embleton, Laura McGee, and Ida Pollock.”
It is interesting to trace the family relationships of these Charter Members. They were related by family ties which I will enlarge upon later.
From word of mouth recollections I can piece together bits of the early history.
In 1910 (circa) an Evangelist, J.A. Strickland came to Harvey and set up a tent for religious meetings at the top of Harvey Hill on the Mowatt place, near where Richard Corey now lives. He expounded his belief that Biblical interpretation directs Christians to celebrate the Sabbath on the seventh day – Saturday. As any different religious concept, the idea was met with opposition. At perhaps the same time a tent was set up in Little Settlement at the junction of the Arnold Little Road and R.R. #3. Again there was an unfavorable reaction and a tent was set up in Lake George behind the old Lawson Store on the Donnelly Settlement Road. This is the site mentioned in the earlier record of meetings. Gilbert Graham’s second wife was the widow of Leonard Lawson. She was Mary Jane Miller Embleton, daughter of George Embleton and his wife Jane Wilson. George and Jane were among the first settlers to Harvey. Jane and Gilbert Graham had four children; one of them was Theressa, named a Charter Member. W. Truman Trott Graham, another son, donated the land in the Village of Harvey where the S.D.N. Church was built in 1952. Now to make the family connections you may look back at an earlier paragraph. Leonard Embleton was a brother to Mary Embleton Lawson Graha, also Robert and John were her brothers, a sister was Annie. Two of Robert’s children were Charter Members, Ward Embleton and Alice Embleton. Laura McGee and Ida Pollock are the two remaining Charter members and I cannot relate them to the Embleton families.
Elwood McGee remembers that his father Hartley often took his children to the SDA picnics, for he at one time lived up on the Lake George road and was good friends with the Embletons.
For forty years the Adventists held their Sabbath services in the homes, until they built their Church in Harvey in 1952.
PART II
The History of the United Pentecostal Church in Harvey is similar to the History of the S.D.A. Church, in that it developed within family relationships: that family was the Cole family.
In the early thirties, Seeley Cole of Waterville, York Co., entered into a business arrangement with Harry Corey which involved Seeley’s commitment to buy the Moody place. Seeley and his wife Nyrtle and their six children came to the Moody place to live;
David b. 1913, Fred b. 1915, Eldon b. 1918, Carl b. 1922, Berley b. 1926 and Nina b. 1930.
Seeley became ill and returned to Waterville. His son Dave who had married Eearl Hagerman in 1932, took over the Moody place. Fred who in 1937 had married Edna Hagerman also set up a pulpwood business in Harvey. Carl, in 1943, married Glenna Henry and he was also engaged as a lumbering contractor.
In the early ’40’s Rev. Quincy Stairs was pastoring the Pentecostal Church in McAdam and began to have tent meetings in Harvey, on the Williams place adjacent to the Cole farm.
Fred and Edna, Dave and Pearl and Burton and Emily Greer (Burton was a cousin to the Coles„ Pearl and Edna were sisters) were going to the McAdam Church. Edna Cole was the first of the family to be baptized in McAdam in 1947. Carl and Glenna Cole soon shared the faith, and when Carl in 1950 built a new garage at his residence in York Mills, they furnished the garage appropriately to be the first meeting place.
As the number of adherents increased it was decided to build a Church, and land was purchased from Melvin Grieve near the top of Harvey hill, where in June 1952 the cellar for the Church was started. The Church was dedicated November 26, 1952. In 1976 a new and larger Church was built on the same site.
Many more interesting and inspiring details are contained in a book written by Darlene Cole, from whom copies are available. It is with her permission and co operation that I have used some of this information. It is with the pleasant co-operation of Carl and Glenna Cole that I have been able to put together the sequence of this story, looking through material prepared by Ella Stairs for a Cole family reunion, and loaned to me by Juanita Cole Pollock.
Source: Rev. Bill Randall’s “From The Scrapbook Vol. One.”
