Fellowship Archives Blog

Three Greenhorn Englishmen

In 1862, John Morton landed at English Bay accompanied by two other partners. The three became known as the three Greenhorn Englishmen when they purchased 550 acres of “useless land in the middle of nowhere” for the sum of $550.[i] That “useless land” would become the west end of the city of Vancouver.

John Morton made his fortune in British Columbia. But as far as Baptist history is concerned Morton’s money is only a part of the greatest legacy he left behind.

He was not the first Baptist to settle in British Columbia. That honour belongs to black immigrants from California who settled in Victoria, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. But Morton would become a key lay leader in the establishing of Baptist churches in British Columbia.  Dr. John Pickford writes: “Morton became a man of considerable wealth, donated large sums to the Baptist cause, and became prominent as one of the Baptist pioneers in British Columbia.”[ii]

In 1884, Ruth Morton arrived in Vancouver to join her husband. John’s first wife, Jane, had died in childbirth in 1881. As his fortune was made, Morton contributed money to the establishing of the First Baptist Church. When he died in 1912, he left $700,000 from his estate to fund the building of a church to be named after his beloved wife.  Ruth laid the cornerstone of the new church and attended there until her death in 1939. In 2015, the Ruth Morton Memorial Baptist Church joined with the 19th Avenue Christian Fellowship to become the Mountainview Christian Fellowship.[iii]

A fuller story of John Morton, and the unusual connection the church he helped establish has with Terry Fox, is told in Bruce A. Woods’ book, The Legacy of Terry Fox and John Morton: Solving the Mystery on How They Met.[iv]

 


[i] https://www.placesthatmatter.ca/location/ruth-morton-church

[ii] Dr. John H. Pickford, What God Hath Wrought, (Vancouver BC, The Baptist Foundation of BC, 1987), 2

[iii] https://www.placesthatmatter.ca/location/ruth-morton-church

[iv] https://www.amazon.ca/Legacy-Terry-Fox-John-Morton/dp/1525522647