A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BAHA'I COMMUNITY IN THE FREDERICTON AREA
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

As many of you know, the Baha'i Faith is the newest independent world religion, founded in the Middle East in 1863 by Baha'u'llah, whose name translates as "the Glory of God". Baha'u'llah suffered forty years of banishment and imprisonment in the Middle East solely as a result of His progressive social teachings. Today, there are some 6 million of His followers spread across the globe and the Baha'i Faith is now recognized as the second-most widespread religion on the planet.

The famed Persian scholar, Mirza Abdu'l Gulpagani, is said to be the first Baha'i to pass through this region, having traveled up the Saint John River from Saint John to Woodstock as early as 1920. In the late 1920s or early 1930s, May Maxwell, who spearheaded the establishment of the first permanent Baha'i community in Canada, traveled from her home in Montreal through the Maritimes, visiting Fredericton along the way. May's well-known husband, Sutherland, was an accomplished architect who designed some of the more beautiful houses in St. Andrews, where the couple also had a summer home.

Perhaps rather typically, the first Baha'is to live in Fredericton came from those segments of society that were most sensitive to the call of a new religion; namely artists, craftspeople, and students. The first resident Baha'i was Celia Bolton, who attended the Fredericton Craft School from 1951 to 1953. The second to accept this new religion, in May or June 1956, was Theophilus Okonkwo, a student who hailed from Nigeria. It was about this time that these very few Baha'is organized their first public meeting in Fredericton exactly one person showed up!

In the late 1950s, we find Ann Chisholm attending the Normal School in Fredericton on Queen Street. Ms Chisholm became an inveterate teacher of the Baha'i Cause until a brutal attack eventually led to her death in 1998. 1960 saw Ron Nablo, a Baha'i from Saskatchewan, graduate with his M.A. in Sociology from the University of New Brunswick -- the first person to receive a graduate degree in that discipline from U.N.B.

However, it was not until the arrival of Keith and Janet Eldridge in June 1963 (exactly 100 years after the religion's inception) that the Baha'i Faith took on a more permanent presence in this city. Keith, as many in this audience will know, was a noted artist who, along with Janet, took an active interest in the artistic talents of aboriginal youth. Keith saw his art as a means of attracting people to his Faith. Seeing the potential of bringing the new religion to students, they spared no effort in encouraging Baha'i youth to enroll at the University of New Brunswick. Out of those efforts came, in 1967, artist Helen Charters of Grand Manan.

The other result, also in 1967, was Will van den Hoonaard, then a young man who had recently emigrated from Holland. He is now a Professor at UNB in Sociology and he also recently published a book on the history of the Baha'i Faith entitled "The Origins of the Baha'i Community in Canada, 1898 - 1948" There are now many Baha'i students attending UNB and St. Thomas at all levels.

The Baha'i Campus Club at UNB was started on December 11, 1967; at that time it was only the 2nd such club in Canada . On January 1st, 1969, the Fredericton Baha'i community became a registered charitable organization, with only 4 members. On January 19 , 1969 , the Mayor of Fredericton proclaimed "World Religion Day" in recognition of the work of this same very small group of Baha'is.

After 1970, the Baha'i community of Fredericton began to grow steadily , primarily by the movement of people drawn to study at the university. By August of 1971, there were 7 adults and 6 youth in the Baha'i community. From their teaching efforts, the first Frederictonian to become a Baha'i, Bonnie Ellis, joined the growing community in August 1974.

However, there were so many Baha'is coming from elsewhere that it was possible to form, on March 28, 1973, the first Baha'i local governing council of Fredericton (known as a Local Spiritual Assembly), which requires 9 adult Baha'is to live in the same locality before it can be elected . Fredericton was the last provincial capital in Canada to reach this milestone.

The community eventually grew to such an extent that the annual Baha'i National Convention was successfully organized and hosted by the Baha'is of Fredericton in May 1978. This event may have symbolically marked the maturation of the Baha'i Community of Fredericton, and it has never looked back since! There are now about 80 Baha'is in the city of Fredericton along with the surrounding communities of Douglas, New Maryland Village and New Maryland Parish, each of which boasts a Baha'i community that has been actively striving to put into practice those progressive social teachings revealed by Baha'u'llah 135 years ago.


The above was presented on the Occasion of the Interfaith Commemoration,
"The Presence of Religion in Fredericton",
Marking the 150th Anniversary of the City of Fredericton, 15 October 1998

By
Will C. van den Hoonaard
Department of Sociology
University of New Brunswick
Fredericton, N.B.

Edited by Judah Bunin

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