Summary
At the period of our arrival, no church had been as yet erected at Port Sorell, and the roads of the district were so impassable from bogs, for nine months of the twelve, that had there been one, no congregation could have met oftener than ten or twelve Sundays in the year. Still, the absence of all semblance of a place of public worship for members of the Church of England (whilst, even in a yet poorer neighbouring settlement, an Independent chapel and minister were maintained, chiefly by poor sawyers) became too glaring to continue; and it was proposed to erect a cheap wooden building by means of subscriptions. This design, after considerable delay, was carried out: one person subscribing so many “slabs;” another, a certain quantity of weather-boards; a third, the requisite “sawed stuff;” a fourth, the shingles; a fifth, the blacksmith's work; a sixth, the “lend” of a bullock-team, and so on; very few payments being made in money. Unfortunately, instead of being placed on the township, in the centre of the population, where a glebe and burial-ground might have been obtained from the Government, the little building was set up on a private property, too much encumbered with mortgages for the requisite gift of the site to be legally made without considerable expense, and consequently the consecration could not take place; but when merely the rough shell was set up, our energetic and accomplished Bishop came down and assisted at the first celebration of Divine service, before a larger congregation than could have been expected in such a place.
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- My Home in TasmaniaDuring a Residence of Nine Years, pp. 185 - 193Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1852