Rev. Charles Montgomery Tate

Missionary, writer, linguist

Although there are mixed reviews of early missionary work , Rev. Tate’s genuine belief in his calling and his dedicated efforts to bring literacy to the First nation peoples cannot be faulted.

Here is a summary of his life’s work in his own words, quoted from Reflections:

“Gold brought me to British Columbia…. I was eighteen when I came out via Panama to BC [in 1870] to go to the Cariboo goldfields. But on arrival in Victoria it was clear that there was no sense in going to the Caribou; all the miners were returning, some of them starving. I got a job in Nanaimo operating a donkey engine at the coal mine….I became associated with the Wesleyan Methodist church and through them with the Indians. [They} interested me…I got talking to them, spent my evenings with them, started to learn their language, and ultimately suggested that they start a night school among themselves.’But how can we get someone to teach us?’ The problem of getting a teacher was seemingly to them an insurmountable difficulty…..I said, ’I will’. [After a prolonged strike at the coal mines] I applied for my old job and was told I was a young fellow and could look after myself. I was ‘flat broke’. [Coincidentally] the superintendent of Missions from Toronto came along and suggested that a school be started, if a teacher could be found. He was told that there was one who had been teaching voluntarily. [I was hired] and my salary rose from $300 to $500, “ but without traveling allowance and out of which I had to find my own horse, or canoe or steamboat fare and expenses; pretty hard going at times with sugar at 24 cents a pound and other things in proportion”

There is an interesting account of his final test for ordination. He was required to preach before three examiners. He chose to preach at the Indian Church in Victoria in the Ankameenum Indian language, not one word of which his examiners understood. “Next morning, to my astonishment, I listened to a most glorious report upon my preaching given by my examiners and I was ordained”

His writings included a translation of the Gospel of Mark into the Indian tongue and a dictionary of the Chinook language.

In 1932 he [was] the guest of the City of Vancouver at the opening of the Burrard Bridge near the Indian Village where he formerly preached in the potlatch house. Charles Montgomery Tate died in 1933, the year in which St. Andrew’s-Wesley was dedicated.