"JOSEPH RUSSELL LITTLE 1812-1880"
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Hard Oiler
N 42° 59.824 W 081° 56.837
17T E 422784 N 4760924
The plaque recognizes Joesph Little, estate manager, tax collector, school teacher and, more successfully than any of these, an itinerant lay preacher.
Waymark Code: WMAMF
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 04/16/2006
Views: 33
Joseph Little came to Warwick Township from Ireland in 1833 to manage the estate of Arthur J Kingstone. Little was honest and hard working but too generous to be a good manager and for 11 years the estate lost money.
Kingstone, on replacing Little, gave him a 200 acre farm, entailed so he could not give it away. Warwick Council hired him as a tax collector however their belief that a man as generous as “Uncle Joe” could collect taxes from the poor was ill-founded and he used up his salary helping the poor pay but was still short with the tax money.
Eventually the farm was sold for taxes with the buyer paying enough extra to clear Uncle Joe’s debt. He ventured into school teaching but again his leniency worked against him. Little was eccentric and witty and had a natural ability in leading song and prayer. He took to wandering about the county on a small pony visiting cabins and preaching. As an itinerant lay preacher, he helped establish many Methodist congregations in Lambton County and, after 1871, in backwoods communities in eastern Ontario. When friends of "Uncle Joe" heard of his death on Anticosti Island, they collected money to have him returned to Warwick for burial. His grave is in the cemetery just south of the plaque.
