John Seccombe

John Seccombe (25 April 1708 – 27 October 1792) was an author, a founder of Chester, Nova Scotia and was “the best-known and most highly respected clergyman in Nova Scotia.”[1][2][3] He was also the author of Father Abbey's Will, which was printed as a poem and a broadsheet over 30 times throughout the 18th century in England and America.

[17] The poem is a 15 stanza nonsense verse, which was turned into a Broadside ballad and published many times.

[24] He left Massachusetts and helped establish Chester, Nova Scotia with Timothy Houghton (1761).

He ordained the first Presbyterian minister in British North America Bruin Romkes Comingo.

[27] In the wake of the American patriot rebellion in the Siege of Fort Cumberland, in 1776, along with other members of St. Matthew's Church, Seccombe was arraigned by the Nova Scotia Council for having American patriot sympathies.

[28] He went on to write the eulogies for the wives of Jonathan Belcher and Benjamin Green.