W. O. Raymond
1853-1923
Reverend William Odber Raymond (Church of England clergyman and historian) was born 3 February 1853 in Lower Woodstock, New Brunswick. After graduating in mathematics and science in 1876 with the University of New Brunswick’s first honours BA (an earned MA would follow in 1891), he commenced theological study and was ordained a deacon at the end of 1877 and priest in 1878. Raymond passed the first six years of his ministry at Stanley, NB. In 1884 he took charge of St Mary’s Church in Saint John, where he served for more than three decades. His first publications were sketches of the loyalist settlements of Kingston (1889) and Woodstock (1891), produced for Anglican parish centennials. He wrote hundreds of articles for the press and wrote essays for the Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society and Acadiensis, among others. He wrote on pre-loyalist settlement and townships of Saint John, on Alexander McNutt and Planter settlement in peninsular Nova Scotia and on loyalist regiments in the revolution, on Benjamin Marston and the founding of loyalist Port Roseway (Shelburne, N.S.) and on Thomas Carleton. He collected some of his newspaper articles into a volume on Saint John Valley history in 1905, revised and reissued as The River St. John (1910). He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1906. Raymond died 23 November 1923 in Toronto, Ontario.
D. G. Bell, “Raymond, William Odber.” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed April 20, 2023.
Predominant New Brunswick Residences:
Woodstock
Archival Material
In addition to the material listed below, the L. P. Fisher Library and Woodstock, NB also has a W.O. Raymond collection.
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W.O. Raymond Collection
⌄LocationProvincial Archives of New BrunswickWebsite/Catalogue RecordRetrieval NumberMC369Date Range of Material1827-1983Extent
60 cm of textual records and 4 reels of microfilm
Scope and Content NoteFour scrapbooks on microfilm (1884-1916) were donated to the Provincial Archives by the Free Public Library of Saint John before 1983. Another scrapbook (1920) was prepared by Marion Lindsay, Librarian (Woodstock, NB?) and assistants Ann Elles and Catherine Fox as a centennial project in 1967. It was indexed and later a photocopy was donated to the Archives by R. Wallace Hale in 1983. The genealogy was donated by Raymond's grandson, C.W.Raymond in 1981. Additional material was transferred from the L. P. Fisher Library in 2015.
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William Odber Raymond fonds
⌄LocationNew Brunswick MuseumWebsite/Catalogue RecordRetrieval NumberF1-F4-F6-F7-F19-F26-S98-S386-S387Date Range of Material1837-1917Extent
1.5 m of textual records
Scope and Content NoteThis fonds consists of: Correspondence with Dr. William F. Ganong, A.R. Hay, Victor R. Paltsits, Tappan Adney, Samuel Leonard Tilley, J. Vroom. Notes re Acadia, Loyalists, New Brunswick settlements, Elias Hardy, Dr. Peter Huggeford, Dr. John Caleff, William Fisher, Charles Rainsford; Manuscript copies of Old Times in New Brunswick; Religious material including transcriptions of: the Parish register Aukpaque (Aucpaque) kept by Charles Francois Bailly, 1767-1768; letters of Rev. L. Claire; register of baptisms kept by Rev. John Beardsley on a missionary tour between Maugerville and Woodstock, 1789; There are also letters from Bishop Medley and his wife Margaret and notes on St. John's Church (Stone) and Rev. N.A. Coster.
W.O. Raymond
"Raymond, William Odber." 1876 Encaenia Photo, UNB Class Composite & Group Photographs, 2023. Accessed 8 June 2023.