VALENTINE EMBURY

Daily British Whig May 29 1880

The late venerable Father Embury, who died in the village of Myersburg on the 29th of February, 1880, was of the Embury family who introduced Methodism into America, the late Valentine Embury being the grandson of a brother of the Rev. Philip Embury, who laid the foundation of Methodism in the city of New York. The two brothers, Philip and the grandfather of the deceased Valentine Embury, labored together in building the John Street Church. At the time of the revolutionary war, the war of independence in the United States, the Emburys took sides with the British, and immediately afterwards the grandfather of the late Valentine Embury and his two sons, Samuel and John Edward, moved to Canada, and settled on the shore of the Bay of Quinte, in the township of Fredericksburgh, where the old gentleman and his two sons above named aided with their own hands in building the Methodist church of Adolphustown - thought to be the first Methodist church in Canada. Valentine Embury, of whom we are now writing, was the son of John Edward Embury, and was therefore grand nephew of Philip Embury, of New York, and was born in Fredericksburgh on the 24th August, 1791, as was therefore in the 89th year at the time of his death. When quite young, his uncle John Detlor, taking a fancy to him, he got permission of his father to go and live with this uncle, Lieutenant Detlor, in the town of York (now Toronto), where he obtained a somewhat liberal education for that early day. In the war of 1812, Lieutenant Detlor was killed, and young Valentine Embury was appointed clerk in the barracks of the city of Kingston. At the close of the war, his father, John Edward Embury, offered Valentine, as he was his youngest son, the homestead, if he would leave the city and come and live with him, which offer he accepted in the year 1825. Not long after this his father sold the homestead, and bought a farm in the township of Richmond, near Napanee, where the old gentleman died in 1848.

Father Valentine Embury, in his old age, made his home with his son-in-law, Mr. William Wynne, of Myersburg, as above stated, and where he died, full of joy as well as full of years. - Christian Guardian.