SILLS, Reverend George: 1773 - 1860
Tile ordered and paid for by Geoffrey Wright of Belleville, Ontario, January 1889
George Sills was the son of Conrad and Margaret Sills (Tile # 2). He was born in Pennsylvania where he lived with his family on their farm on the Susquehanna River until the family was caught up in the American Revolution, and Conrad left to serve with the Loyalist forces in Butler’s Rangers. George is listed with his father, two brothers and sister on a muster roll in a refugee camp in Three Rivers, Quebec in 1780. His mother, Margaret, had died the previous year. Still young near the end of the war, George nevertheless enlisted with Captain Gummersall in the King’s Royal Regiment of New York (KRRNY) in 1783 as did his two elder brothers. A notation beside George’s name states: “He was the second youngest lad to serve in the KRRNY.”(1) He was discharged the same year and subsequently moved with his father, brothers Lawrence and John, and his sister Margaret to Fredericksburgh, Upper Canada and drew land in his own right as a United Empire Loyalist.
In 1793 George married Margaret Bell (1778-1851) the daughter of Loyalist William Bell Sr. Margaret joined the Methodist Episcopal Church soon after they were married. George became a Christian in June 1798 and felt a calling to spread the word of God. He began to pray with his neighbours, then, on May 11, 1805, was awarded a license to preach. This license was renewed in Kingston, Ontario, August 9, 1806. He was probably the first person elected and ordained a local deacon by the Methodist Church in Canada according to a parchment dated Kingston, August 22, 1830. In 1840 he was elected and ordained an elder in the Church of God by the late Bishop Reynolds. He was highly praised in his obituary as a man “born and trained in rural life, a true gentleman, a faithful friend, a good husband, and an honored father. Religion was the stay, the guide and ornament of his Christian character. . . By industry and frugality all his children enjoy a competence of this world’s goods.”(2)
George and Margaret Bell Sills had nine children. A daughter, Mary Peterson Sills, married Daniel Wright and their son Geoffrey Wright sponsored this tile in 1889 to memorialize his grandfather as well as the tile commemorating his great grandfather Conrad Sills (Tile # 2).
George died in April 1860. He is buried with his wife, who predeceased him, and with other family members in the southeast corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard, Fredericksburgh.
1. Ernest A. Cruikshank, King’s Royal Regiment of New York, rev. ed. (Global Heritage Press, 1984), p. 308.
2. “Obituary written by James Gardiner,” in Canada Christian Advocate, May 9, 1860.