Person:Guillaume Demorest (1)

Excerpt from Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte

Guilliame Demorest born Feb. 16th, 1769, in Orange County, lived in Dutchess County till 1790, whence he emigrated to Canada. He came by way of the Mohawk Valley and crossed the lake in a small sailing craft to Adolphustown, where he taught school for two years, and where, in 1793, he married Jane Davis, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Davis, of Adolphustown. The newly wedded couple moved to Prince Edward County in the spring of 1794, having purchased the previous year, from the Government, lots 38 and 39, 1st concession, of Sophiasburg. Here a village soon sprang up and was named after its founder, Demorestville.

Here our Pioneer in due course of time built a grist mill, a sawmill, a linseed oil mill and a church. Although his family thoroughly indoctrinated in the Presbyterian faith by a long line of Huguenot ancestors still held by the church for which they had given up home and fortune, Guilliame Demorest presented the church and the lot on which it stood to the Methodists, who were then, as now, numerically the strongest body in Sophiasburg.

Later on, the pioneer was admitted into that body, and for many years before his death, was one of the ablest local preachers in Prince Edward County. He received a magistrate's commission, and 'Squire Demorest was in the beginning of the last century the leading man in the most progressive settlement on the Bay of Quinte. A detailed story of his life would be the history of the early settlement of Sophiasburg.

His first wife, Elizabeth [sic, Janet] Davis, bore him five children. The eldest of these was Catharine, born 1794, who married an educated young Englishman of good family, Eratus Howard a union that blending as it did the best blood of England and France gave a long list of distinguished names to the learned professions in Canada. This family not only furnished to Methodism a fine church edifice, but many clergymen as well: Thomas Demorest, Nathan H., Howard and his brother Eratus S.; Thompson Howard and his brother E. E. Howard, and Fred Howard, a son of the latter; Valentine Rightmeyer, and Dr. E. Badgley ; and Miss Althea (Dolly) Howard, who is engaged in evangelistic work.

Nor has Methodism alone drawn from this rich stock of talent. The English Church, the Bar of two provinces, the Bench of the State of Iowa (Judge Thomas Giverson), the medical and teaching professions have all been enriched by the broad culture and tolerant spirit of many descendants of the truth-loving old Huguenot professor, John de Morest. After the death of his first wife, in 1813, Guilliame Demorest married Hannah Burdette, of Kingston, a lady also of noble Huguenot descent, who bore him David, Mary Ann, Margaret and Rachel. Our Pioneer died at Demorestville in 1849 [sic].