Albert Truax was raised on a farm in Essex County, Ontario, by a strict Methodist father. Sunday afternoons were spent in total silence in the living room with the curtains drawn. The adults read 'good' books and the small children were allowed to play quietly. This life was so repressive that he and his older brother Sam ran away from home, ages 14 and 16. They got jobs on the railroad, and a year or so later Sam fell between the cars and was killed. Albert returned home and went back to school, becoming a Methodist Minister in 1882.
Albert was assigned to several churches during his career, mostly in Norfolk and Haldimand Counties. He became associated with a dissident group of Ministers, known as the Burnsites after their leader, Rev. Nelson Burns. They favoured a less strict church, did not believe in Hell, left people free to believe as they pleased and to deal directly with God according to the dictates of their consciences rather than through a Minister. In June 1893, eight charges were brought by the Church against Albert. All but one were sustained, and he was suspended. He immediately appealed the ruling, and so a second trial was held in November of that same year. However, Albert felt that he had made his point, and declined to attend. Once again, the charges were sustained, and in 1894, Albert was formally expelled from the ministry for heresy. His was only the first of several trials against the Burnsites - Nelson Burns and several others were also expelled, and Rev. Paul Flint resigned in anticipation the outcome of his own trial.
The Rev. Paul Flint, son of George and Mary Rose (Teed) Flint, of Stouffville, Whitchurch Tp., York Co., Ontario, was b. 26 July 1857 at Stouffville, d. 22 May 1940, aged over 82 years, at Beaverlodge, Alberta, of a paralytic stroke, and was buried in Beaverlodge Cemetery. In his youth Paul Flint learned carpentry from his father. He entered the Primitive Methodist Church in 1876 and was ordained in 1880 at the annual conference held at Orangeville, Dufferin Co., Ontario; in which year he was living at 47 Herrick Street, Toronto. He m. 30 Dec. 1880 at Vandeleur, Artemesia Tp., Gray Co., Ontario, Jane Elizabeth Kells, b. 18 July 1856 at Vandeleur, d. 30 Jan. 1940, aged over 83 years, at Beaverlodge, and buried in Beaverlodge Cemetery, daughter of Thomas and Sarah Ann (Dean) Kells, of Vandeleur. In early 1881, probably before they had had time to start their own household, they were living with the family of the widow Julia (Hatchard) Hatchard, whose daughter Ella would marry, some three and a half years later, Paul's younger brother Simeon, the ceremony being performed by Paul himself.
From 1881 to 1874 Paul Flint was stationed at Claremont, Pickering Tp., Ontario Co. (now part of Durham Region), a station of the Pickering Branch of the Markham Circuit, being its last minister before its union with Glasgow in Uxbridge Tp., an Episcopal Methodist Circuit. After the union of the various Methodist sects in 1874, he entered the Toronto Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1884; and was stationed at Singhampton, Osprey Tp., Grey Co., 1884-86; and at Ravenna, Collingwood Tp., Grey Co., 1887-89.
From 1890 to 1892 he was stationed at Zion Church, St. Clair Avenue, Toronto, where he had often served as a lay preacher while when it had been part of a circuit; there he attracted attention as "a preacher of unusual merit and of deep spirituality," and ushered the church into "an extended period of prosperity." His wife was the organist and choral director there. "It was there," writes his daughter Effie, "he had doubts of the mircales and resurrection and started to air his views, whereupon the congregation … dubbed him a heretic; and he was so dubbed in the Toronto Globe." His father, she says, "had been proud to have a minister in the family but turned against him" and (though he eventually forgave him completely) wouldn't speak to him for years."
During this time Flint became a follower of the Rev. Nelson Burns, a Methodist minister, and the founder of the Canadian Holiness Association. Burns, whose teachings stressed simplicity of living, and attendance to personal revelation, had likewise become estranged from the Methodist Church, was tried for heresy, and deposed. He was also rejected by the Holiness movement, whereupon he founded his own organization, the Christian Association of Toronto, better known as the "Burnsites."
Flint lost his station in 1893 and withdrew in 1894, narrowly avoiding expulsion. He moved to 10 Moutray Street, Toronto (next door to his younger brother Ralph) where he lived until 1895; in the summer of which year he moved to Galt, Ontario, where he remained until 1905, and where he became an agent of the Association. In 1896, for example, Burns comissioned him to move Wesley Park House from Victoria Avenue in Toronto to near Niagara-on-the-Lake, where it became the sect's new home. His work for the Association eventually took him back to Toronto, where he lived at Gerard Street in 1909-10. In 1909, believing that a member had heard the voice of God, some members of the Association left for Alberta, settling at Beaver Lodge; the original group including Flint's sons Victor and George.
In 1910 Paul Flint joined them with his wife, and daughter Effie. They homesteaded on NW 19-71-9-W6, but later gave up farming, and moved to the town of Beaver Lodge. He became an assistant to W.D. Albright at his experimental sub-station nearby, and eventually director of the horticultural section, here he worked until 1930. He was a member of the school board of Lower Beaverlodge School, a Commissioner of Oaths, and a member of the Royal Astonomical Society of Canada, Toronto. Photographs of him and his wife are reproduced in Beaverlodge to the Rockies (Beaverlodge, Alberta: Beaverlodge and District Historical Association, 1974), p. 446.
(Major) Clarence Kells Flint, b. 1881 at Claremont, Ontario, killed 28/9 Sept. 1918 in France, dying s.p. and v.p., and buried in Ontario Cemetery at Sains-le-Marquion, France. He m. 17 Aug. 1910, Mercy Elizabeth ("Libbie") Grant, d. s.p. 1960, at Calgary, Alberta, having m. (2) Arnold Christie. Clarence Flint was a teacher in Ontario, later a physical education instructor in Regina schools, and from 1907 to 1915 supervisor of physical education (then including military cadet training) in all Edmonton Schools. Articles in Edmonton newspapers testify to the esteem in which he was held. When World War I broke out he joined the army in 1915 as a major and served overseas with the 56th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, Canadian Infantry, Alberta Regiment. They sailed for England in 1916. He dropped to the rank of lieutenant to serve with his men in France, and was Company Commander at the Battle of Cambrai, where he fell in action in Sept. 1918. He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross. His wife served overseas as a nurse until he was sent to France, and then returned to Canada. After his death she remarried in 1929, and retired to Calgary, where she spent the rest of her life.
Ida Alice Flint, b. 29 May 1883 at Claremont, d. unmarried 12 Dec. 1957 at Toronto. She had moved out of her parents' home by 1909, when she was working as a hairdresser with I. & A. Prendergast, and living at 147 Cumberland St. In 1910 she was working as a stenographer, and living at 258 Gerrard Street E. She later went to Edmonton, where she operated a public stenography business. She returned to Toronto in 1914, and became secretary-treasurer, and later office manager, of the Dearborn Chemical Co., 1914-49. In 1918 she was living at 480 Jarvis Street, and in 1920 rooming at 284 Jarvis with her sister Effie. In 1925 she had rooms at 81 St. Clair Avenue E. She was the author of a valuable account of her branch of the Flint family.
George Vincent Flint, b. 2 May 1887 at Ravenna, Ontario, d. unmarried 13 Jan. 1972, aged over 84 years, at Toronto. Vincent Flint was working as a window-dresser in Wannamaker's department store in New York City when he and his brother Victor learned of the plans of members of the Christian Association to go to Alberta. They met the group in Edmonton in 1909 and decided to accompany them to Beaver Lodge. His father bought him and his brother Victor South African scrips before they came West. In 1915 he became a clerk at I.E. Gaudin's department store, located at Clairmont and later at Beaverlodge. He donated his homestead house to the Burnsites for a permanent meeting-place; it was moved to the hamlet and used continuously until almost the last of the Burnsites died or moved away. On the failure of Gaudin's store in 1933 he returned permanently to Ontario, and became a salesman of office supplies until his death. He was living at Lindsay, Victoria Co., Ontario, in 1940. At the time of his death he was one of only three known Burnsites. A photograph of him with his parents is reproduced in Beaverlodge to the Rockies, p. 446.
Victor Carman Flint, b. 10 Sept. 1889 at Ravenna, Collingwood Tp., Grey Co., Ontario, d. 14 Oct. 1969, aged over 80 years, following a stroke, at Beaverlodge, and buried in Beaverlodge Cemetery. Victor Flint was homesteading at Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, in 1909, when he and his brother George heard of the lans of members of the Christian Association to go to Alberta. They met the group at Edmonton in 1909. In 1911 he met his future wife, a milliner, who was visiting Beaver Lodge with a sister. She returned to Ontario in 1913, but their acquaintance was renewed when he visited her sister in Toronto during the following winter, and they were married and returned to Beaverlodge. He m. 11 Feb. 1915 at Stevensville, Ontario, Frances Melissa Sills, b. 14 March 1888 at Tweed, Hungerford Tp., Hastings Co., Ontario, d. 18 Nov. 1968, aged over 80 years, at Grande Prairie, Alberta, and buried in Beaverlodge Cemetery, daughter of Simeon Wilson and Jane Elizabeth (Clark) Sills, of Tweed. At their farm, "Crescent Grove," they produced butter, berries, and eggs. They were very involved in community and church work. In 1967 the retired to Pioneer Lodge at Grand Prairie, where they lived until their deaths. Both left manuscripts which are now in the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Calgary, Alberta.
Laura Pauline Flint, b. 7 Nov. 1915 at Beaver Lodge, d. unmarried 14 Feb. 1935 at Olds, Alberta, following a sudden illness. She attended Olds Agricultural School in 1934-35.
Madelon Sills Flint, b. 27 June 1917 at Beaverlodge. She studied Domestic Science at the Vermilion Agricultural School before her marriage. She m. 28 Oct. 1939 at Wembley, Alberta, Albert Amos Truax, son of Albert Garnet Truax, of Beaverlodge, by his wife Maude Ethel Sherk. She and her husband took over her parents' farm, which they later sold, reserving a building site on a hill overlooking the farm, where then now live (1989). Their postal address is Box 337, Beaverlodge. She has been Secretary of the Beaverlodge and District Historical Association, and is co-author, with her younger sister Beth, of People of the Pass: A Human Interest Story of the Monkman Pass (1988).
1. Obituary, Grande Prairie Herald-Tribune, 30 May 1940 (from a copy kindly provided by Beth Sheehan).
2. Mrs. R.P. Hopper, Old-Time Primitive Methodism in Canada (Toronto, 1904), p. 304.
4. 1881 Census of Canada, Ontario, York Co., Toronto, St. Patrick's Ward, district 134, subdistrict H, division 2, p. 93; PAC microfilm no. C-13247 [Family History Library microfilmn no. 1,375,883].
5. William Wood, Past Years in Pickering (Toronto, 1911), p. 114.
6. The Rev. George W. Cornish, Cyclopaedia of Methodism in Canada, 2 vols. (Toronto: Methodist Book and Publishing House, 1881, 1903), vol. 2, p. 160. His long sojourn in Grey Co. may account for his having been more familiar than his siblings with their mother's relatives there. His uncle, George Jordan Teed, and his aunt, Charlotte (Teed) Spikings, were living in Euphrasia Tp. during this time, and he was certainly in contact with them.
8. Thomas Edward Champion, The Methodist Churches of Toronto (Toronto: G.M. Rose, 1899), pp. 268, 270.
9. Its magazine, The Expositor of the Christ-Life, was still being published so late as 1967. On Nelson Burns (1834-?) and his movement see Henry James Morgan's Canadian Men and Women of the Time [1st ed.] (Toronto: William Briggs, 1898), pp. 133-4; S.D. Clark, Church and Sect in Canada (Toronto, 1948), p. 378; and Howard Pointen, The Holiness Movement in Canada (B.D. Thesis, Victoria University, 1950), pp. 69-72. Another one of Burns' followers was the Rev. Albert Truax, father of A. Garnet Truax, of whom below.
10. Cornish, loc. cit.; The Expositor of Holiness, vol. 13 (1893), p. 308 (from a copy kindly provided by Beth Sheehan); see also pp. 20-22 of the same volume for a passionate defense of him.
11. The Expositor of the Christ-Life, vol. 65, no. 4, p. 862, where a photograph of the house is reproduced (kindly communicated by Beth Sheehan).
12. For an the interesting account of the trip by Flint's granddaughter, Beth Sheehan, see "The Bull Outfit," contributed to Beaverlodge to the Rockies (Beaverlodge, 1974), pp. 161-7; and reprinted in Pioneers of the Peace (Grande Prairie, Alberta, 1975), pp. 34-5.
13. See Beth Sheehan, "The Flint Family of Beaverlodge," in Beaverlodge to the Rockies, pp. 446-52, and Pioneers of the Peace, pp. 40-5, from which much of the following information on him and his descendants is taken.
14. As the name Carman does not occur in his ancestry, it seems likely that he was named for the Rev. Dr. Albert Carman (1823-1917), General Superintendent of the Methodist Church in Canada. A photograph of Victor Flint and his wife is reproduced in Beaverlodge to the Rockies (Beaverlodge, Alberta: Beaverlodge and District Historical Association, 1974), p. 446.
16. See Union List of Manuscripts in Canadian Repositories, 2 vols. (Ottawa, 1975), 1: 404.
[S259] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1901, Galt (Town/Ville) C-5 Page 3.