| Summary: | This fonds is comprised of the journals of Reverend John Lewis, a Methodist minister who spent six years (1814-1819) in Newfoundland as an itinerant missionary, stationed in a settlement but with responsibility for a number of other communities in the surrounding area. He spent approximately one year each in (Lower) Island Cove, Old Perlican, Hant's Harbour and Port de Grave. He was then assigned to a new charge based at Burin, the furthest west a missionary had been sent. The journals provide very detailed accounts of Lewis' experiences and of the people he meets in the course of his work, and should be of value to those interested in the communities where he served and the people who lived there; genealogists should be able to obtain much useful family history. His journals should also prove to be of interest to those researching early church history and missionary work in Newfoundland, and should be of particular interest to linguists, as Lewis seems to have created or developed his own system of spelling words, often phonetically.
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