Rev. George Oxley Huestis [H134] (1821 - 1905) m. Margaret Williams

• Albert Huestis [H1341] (1854 - 1898 ) m. Maud Baddos no issue recorded
• Elizabeth Huestis [H1342] (1858 - 1907 ) surname recorded as Troop at time of her death
• Ephraim E. Huestis [H1343] (1861 - ) builder, living in New York at 1900 census
• Theodore Brunswick Huestis [H1344] 1863 - ) also builder, living in New York at 1900 census
• Frederick W. Huestis [H1345] (1866 - ) mariner, lost at sea after 1904
• Margaret Huestis [H1346] (1870 - ) m. Henry Reinhardt in August 1889
• Mary Melinda Huestis [H1347] (1855 - ) m. Benjamin Balderston in November, 1877
• George Alexander Huestis [H1348] (1852 - 1887) m. Alice Dowling

I have no idea where any of George Oxley Huestis' descendants might be. Thanks to Pat Chefalo and Jim Wilman for some of these details. Alan (October '07)

George Oxley Huestis was a prominent Methodist minister in the Maritime provinces. He lived a long and interesting life. I have a number of obituaries and eulogies that were printed in the major papers of the day, as well as in the Wesleyan, the paper of the Methodist denomination. These reports seem to tell most of his story.

My initial thought was that Rev. G.O. would have been a hard man to like. I am sure that he was very much a man of his times, and those times would have been the 1840's and 1850's. George O. Huestis was a Methodist minister, and Methodism was a harsh and unforgiving religion in those days. A note in Martin B. Huestis's essay on his grandfather (Thomas) says that his grandfather would occasionally lead the service at the Methodist church in Wallace but that the church elders did not often permit this as Thomas Huestis was a kind man who did not believe in eternal damnation, but this was a staple of Methodist preaching. In addition, George Oxley Huestis was a strong and active member of the Sons of Temperance, and worked most of his life to stamp out the use of the "demon rum". There are some fascinating stories about this online, and I will link to them as I go. For all that, he seems to have been universally liked in the congreations he served, and there were many children born in those years with Huestis for a middle name, including Dr Herbert Huestis Best of Cornwallis, NS, father of Dr Charles Herbert Best, co-discoverer of insulin.

This photo of Rev George shows him wearing a chinstrap beard, which was very fashionable in the middle and late 1900's. Abraham Lincoln wore a version of this beard, as did Henry David Thoreau.

A newspaper report: Halifax Herald or Star 1905

Lunenburg, Sept 4. Rev G.O. Huestis, Lunenburg's grand old man, died suddenly this afternoon in his study. Mr Huestis has been associated for years with the Methodist church in this town.

Rev G.O. Huestis was born in Wallace in 1821, of Loyalist parentage. His mother's ancestors came out from France with the Hughenots. As a boy he was a great student of the Bible and had read it through by the time he was 10 years old, and sixty-nine times since then. He was converted in the Wesleyan chapel at Wallace under Rev James Buckley, and later on became a local preacher for the Methodists for two years until 1846 when he was accepted as a local candidate for the ministry. He never attended college and did not spend more than two years at school. During his long career he travelled on seventeen circuits, three of them during probation and fourteen after ordination. His first circuit was Shelburne, then he was two years at Maitland, and finally, as a probationer, at Cornwallis. He was ordained by Dr Evans in 1851, and was married in the Brunswick Street Church at Halifax four months later, again by Dr Evans.

After ordination he was on the following circuits: Bedeque, PEI, Truro, Goldsboro, Sydney, Fredericton, St John, Lunenburg, Canning, Cornwall, PEI, Maitland, Burlington, Hantsport, Ritcey's Cove and Mill Village, where he closed his itinerant work.

Mr Huestis had four hundred sermons on hand, three-quarters of which were written in full. He was elected chairman of district seven times and had also been both president and financial secretary of the conference. He always led the singing of the ministerial gathering, including that of the general conference in Montreal in 1878. In 1848 he became a member of the Sons of Temperance division at Walton, and has, at different times, occupied about every office in the gift of the general division. He was also the author of "Memoirs of Missionaries" and of the "Manual of Methodism". He became a supernumerary and retired to Morden in 1889, but after a few years went to Lunenburg, where he died.

From the Truro Daily News 6 September 1905

REV. G.O. HUESTIS DEAD

Father of the Methodist Church
Died on the 5th.

The venerable Rev G.O. Huestis, one of the aged Methodist ministers of the Maritime Provinces, died suddenly from heart troubles in Lunenburg on the afternoon of the 5th, aged 85 years. Mr Huestis had been in his usual good health up to the hour of his death. He expired in his chair after he had returned from his usual walk to the Post Office for his mail.

Mr Huestis was born in Wallace, Cumberland County.

He was more than 15 years in the ministry, but retired from active work 15 years ago. He was an ex-President of the Methodist Conference. He was a life-long temperance worker, and had held the highest offices in that Order.

Mr Huestis was a man of fine literary tastes, and was a good writer, both prose and poetic, and was a forceful and pleasing speaker.

His wife predeceased him about a year ago.

Truro, Maitland, Burlington and Hantsport were among the places at which he was stationed during his long and faithful pastorate of over half a century.

The deceased is an uncle of G.O. Fulton, stationer, of this town, being a brother of Mrs William Fulton, Queen Street.

Obituary of Mrs Margaret Huestis from The Register, Berwick, Kings County

April 11, 1904 - MRS. G.O. HUESTIS.

The wife of Rev. G. O. Huestis, of Lunenburg, passed away on Thursday, August 4th. Of the family of eight children six still survive her, three sons: E. E. Huestis and Theodore Huestis, contractors, of New York, and F. W. Huestis, captain on a vessel from New York and now in Australia; and three daughters, Mrs. B. Balderston, of Charlottetown, wife of the provincial auditor for P. E. I.; Mrs. H. M. Reinhardt, wife of the Custom officer at LaHave, and the unmarried daughter, Elizabeth, who are all at home at present. Rev. G. O. and Mrs. Huestis were married in the Brunswick St. Methodist church, Halifax, in 1851.

Copied without permission. Thanks to Phil Vogler.

Albert Huestis

News items, from the Liverpool, NS Advance. Thanks to David Ackman.

Liverpool Advance, 4 Nov 1891 Mill Village item:

An event, not of everyday occurrence in our village, took place on Sat. last. Miss Maud Baddos, and Mr. Albert Huestis, son of the Rev. G.O. Huestis, now of Aylesford, were joined in "the holy bonds of matrimony". The officiating clergyman was the Rev. J. Lockwood, of Port Medway, and the service of the Church of England was read at the residence of Mrs. John Campbell, grandmother of the bride. After the ceremony, the happy couple left for Aylesford via Bridgewater, from whence they go to New York, where Mr. Huestis has a situation awaiting him.

Liverpool Advance, April 10, 1895

Mr Albert Huestis, assisted by his wife (fomerly Miss Maud Baddos, of Mill Village), is teaching school at Lower Woods Harbour, in a fine large schoolhouse lately built and most pleasantly situated. The people speak highly of their work. Mr Huestis has been laid up for a week with an attacke of la grippe, but is now recovering and will resume his duties in a few days.

Liverpool Advance, Jan 12 1898: Obituary

The death of A.E. Huestis, teacher at Lower Woods Harbour, occurred on Friday. A severe cold terminated in pneumonia, which despite medical skill and the best of care, proved fatal in a few days. Mr Huestis was a son of Rev. G.O. Huestis, of Kings County. He has been principal of the Woods Harbour school for five years continually and was highly esteemed as a gentleman and a scholar. Under his careful tuition his classes had made substantial progress, and his death is a real loss to the community. His wife, who had been hastily summoned from her home in Kings County, and his father were present when he passed away. The funeral took place at Lower Woods Harbour on Sunday and was largely attended.

Elizabeth Huestis

Liverpool Advance May 8, 1907: Death

At Charlottetown, P.E.I., April 24th, of typhoid fever, Elizabeth Troop, aged 49 years, daughter of Rev. G.O. Huestis.

Ephraim & Theodore Huestis

These two men seem to have bounced back and forth between New York and Nova Scotia in the late 1890's and early 1900's. However, they seem to have settled in the USA.

The 1900 US Census shows Theodore Huestis living in the Bronx in a rented house. He was age 35, born in New Brunswick, emigrated to USA in 1899, not naturalised, occupation was builder. His wife Manvilla was 29 years old, born in Nova Scotia, emigrated in 1890. Their children were Mary L.G. Huestis, born April 1892 in New York; George O. Huestis, born June 1893 in New York; Hattie R. Huestis, born November 1894 in Nova Scotia.

The same census shows Ephraim living nearby. He was also living in a rented house. He was born in Nova Scotia; married 17 years; emigrated in 1878; occupation was also builder. His wife, Annie P. Huestis, was born in September 1859 in New Brunswick. They had four children in 1900, all of whom had been born in New York: Frederick W. Huestis born August 1884; Edith Huestis, born September 1888; Gertrude Huestis, born September 1893; Albert Huestis, born September 1899. (Note that Ephraim's older brother Albert had died the previous year.) Thanks to Pat Chefalo for the census data as jpegs.

Frederic Huestis

Jim Wilman advises that he has found an entry on a US genealogy board that advises that Frederic Huestis was lost at sea sometime after 1904. His widow, Alice Orpin Huestis, passed away in Cambridge, Kings County in 1945, age 80. Her occupation was shown as "nurse" in the data recording one of her entries into the USA. I have no reports of any issue.

Margaret Huestis

Liverpool Advance Aug. 28 1889: Marriage

At Morden, Kings County, on the 14th inst. by Rev. G.O. Huestis, Mr Henry N. Reinhardt, Collector of Customs, LaHave, to miss Maggie M. Huestis, youngest daughter of the officiating clergyman.

Mary M. Huestis

The NS Vital Statistics Online shows the marriage on 12 November 1877 of Mary Melinda Huestis, age 22, spinster, born in Truro, home in Maitland; to Benjamin Balderston, 34, bachelor, merchant in Charlottetown, PEI. In the census of 1901 the family is shown as Benjamin, Mary, Theodore (born 1886), Alice (1887), and Cedrick (1890).

George Alexander Huestis

I missed this son the first time through as he was born in Price Edward Island and died in the USA so he did not show up in my data.

Fellow researcher Janet Lovekin had this to say (in 2019):
Hello Alan,

I found your Thomas Huestis website this evening and was interested in the information that is available on Rev. George O Huestis, including a very nice photo. Thank you for making all this information available on the web. I was a little surprised that one of George O's children is not listed - George Alexander Huestis who was born in Bedeque, PEI on 20 June, 1852. He married an ancestor of mine Alice Dowling on Jan 1, 1879 in Lunenburg, N.S. They moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts shortly after their marriage but George died quite young on Feb 13, 1887 of tuberculosis. There were three children Winifred Flora b. 1880 in Lunenburg, Walter b. 1884 in Mass., and Georgie Scott b. 1887 in Mass. I don't believe that Walter ever married although I did find that he took out a marriage licence. Winifred married Charles Fiske but they had no children. Georgie married Winthrop Souther Knox Sr., quite a mouthful!, and there were children from that marriage who live in the Boston area.

On the Kings County GenWeb site there is an engaging collection of Letters to the Editor written by G.O. Huestis and published in a Kings County, NS newspaper. The entry for March 6th 1902 is especially good, as it details the uproar in Lunenburg after a local hotelier held a fancy-dress ball, with alcohol served! This letter is written by son Theodore Huestis but I suspect that he learned his temperance values at his father's knee . . .