As Barrie grew, Samuel Ardagh thought many times of moving his family into the town. He had no dislike for Shanty Bay but he began to feel that he might be better able to serve the people if could be present in Barrie full time.
As Rector of the Anglican Church in Barrie, he now had three full services to hold every Sunday, and several others during the week days which he conducted in the outlying areas of Simcoe County. The area, which he alone covered in those early days, was massive and was eventually divided into twelve separate parishes by the mid 1870s.
Money held him back. Samuel had spent everything he had on his little cabin in the woods and had nothing left to pay for a house in Barrie. The Anglican church in town had begun to lease the better situated pews to raise funds, but the proceeds always ended up being needed for painting or repairs to that building. A move to Barrie would have to wait.
As difficult as it was sometimes to travel these six miles from Shanty Bay to Barrie, Samuel did have a special connection to the woodland place where he had first brought his family. It was there that his beloved wife, Martha, passed away in 1848. It was also to the tiny parsonage that he brought the two orphaned sons of Martha’s brother, a minister who had died while serving the fever-stricken immigrants at Grosse Isle, Que.
Eventually, the question of moving to Barrie was removed entirely from his control. The tiny fund that supported the Shanty Bay mission, and may have one day allowed Samuel to relocate, was lost when the Bank of Upper Canada collapsed.
The hardy pastor continued on, seemingly capable of being two places at once. As if his church duties were not enough, Samuel Ardagh was most interested in the subject of local education too. When he first arrived in Canada, he had been aghast at the state of local religious affairs and also with the poor education the children were receiving. He set out to change these things.
Barrie Anglicans, being without a preacher of their own for a number of years, had begun attending other Protestant denomination services. Samuel saw to it that they returned to their Anglican flock. Next, he turned his attention to the children.
The Glebe Block, which was Anglican Church land, was a wedge bordered by Bayfield, Dunlop and Marks Streets. Seeing a desperate need, Samuel had a Sunday school built on Marks Street, near Bayfield Street, to save the children of Anglican parents from “corrupting influences.” For quite a few years, this school was the main place of worship during the winter months as icy roads made climbing to the church on the Berczy Street hill nearly impossible.
In time, Samuel Ardagh became Chairman of the Board of Grammar School Trustees. He held this position until his death.
In 1859, some 12 years after Martha’s death, Samuel married a second time. He married Helena Durie, daughter of William Durie who was connected to the Gables Estate in Tollendale.
By the time of his second marriage, Samuel had already begun to suffer remitting bouts of illness that may have been some kind of rheumatoid arthritis. He twice returned to the British Isles to see if his health would be improved by a change, and it was, if only for a time.
By the early 1860s, his poor health finally began to slow him down. It frustrated Samuel to be idle, as his mind and will were as eager as ever, but he was forced to rest more to save his strength for ministerial duties. He leaned more and more on the support of his great friend, Rev. Morgan.
In 1867, Samuel was made Rural Dean of Simcoe by the Bishop for his extreme “zeal and activity” in that district. His commitment to his work had not gone unnoticed. In fact, a recollection by fellow Anglican clergyman, Dr. O’Meara, was filled with amazement.
“I have the most pleasant memory of a missionary expedition that Mr. A and I made some years ago to the Muskoka territory. He was at that time in very bad health and the weather was more than usually inclement. Many younger men would have pleaded ill health as a reason for not fulfilling the arduous duties which the Diocese had laid on him; but he refused to avail himself of that plea and completed the whole programme of meetings and services, preaching and speaking with all the fervour and earnestness that had marked him when a much younger and quite healthy man.”
Rev. Samuel Ardagh passed away, surrounded by much of his family, in the little cabin in the Shanty Bay woods, in October of 1869. Rest at last.
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