John Reynolds was a Methodist circuit rider.
Reynolds was born in Oxford Township, Upper Canada. In 1808, he was assigned to the Augusta Circuit in Upper Canada, where he served as an assistant to Daniel Pickett.[1] In 1809, he was assigned to the Yonge Street Circuit. The Circuit say an additional 50 people join the Methodist Church.[2] In 1810, Reynolds was assigned to the Smith's Creek Circuit, where he saw a small decrease in church membership.[3] In 1811, he was moved to the Augusta Circuit, where he worked alongside John Rhodes.[4] In 1812 he was assigned to the Bay of Quinte Circuit, where he rode alongside Isaac B. Smith.[5]
Reynolds struggled to continue on circuit riding during the War of 1812. He was located by 1814, having been ordained a deacon but not an elder.[6] Reynolds was located in Sidney Township, and took up schoolteaching near the house of his father in law, Caleb Gilbert. He later worked as a fur trader, and a merchant in Belleville. In this last profession he was quite successful. There he served as the Recording Stewart of the Circuit until the local preachers formed a separate church, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, which he served as the first bishop of.[7]
- ^ Carroll, John (1867). Case and his cotemporaries, or, The Canadian itinerants' memorial constituting a biographical history of Methodism in Canada, from its introduction into the Province, till the death of the Rev. Wm. Case in 1855. Vol. I. Toronto: Wesleyan Conference Office. p. 158.
- ^ Carroll, volume I, page 179
- ^ Carroll, volume I, page 225
- ^ Carroll, volume I, page 239
- ^ Carroll, volume I, page 259
- ^ Carroll, volume I, page 262
- ^ Carroll, volume I, page 263