| Background: |
Roger Viets was born in Simsbury, Connecticut, attended Yale College, and was ordained an Anglican priest in London, England, in 1763. He was appointed to Simsbury, Connecticut, as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In 1776 he was jailed in Hartford, Connecticut, for his Loyalist sympathies, but managed to retain his position in Simsbury throughout the war. When the SPG withdrew its support from the former American colonies after the Revolution and offered salaries to clergymen willing to relocate in the British North American colonies, Roger Viets applied for a post and was appointed to Digby, Nova Scotia, where he began his ministry in 1786.Trinity Church in Digby was built in 1791. Viets served a huge mission which included the area from Clementsport to Yarmouth and around Digby Neck. He died on 15 August 1811 and was buried in Trinity churchyard. Rev. Roger Viets was a popular preacher and a writer of some note who published several of his sermons, as well as the poem, Annapolis Royal, the first in British North America with its own imprint. Roger Viets was succeeded at Trinity by his son, Roger Moore Viets. |
