William Duncan

William Duncan (3 April 1832 – 30 August 1918) was an English-born Anglican missionary who founded the Tsimshian communities of Metlakatla, British Columbia, in Canada, and Metlakatla, Alaska, in the United States. Although sometimes referred to as "Father Duncan" in subsequent reports, he was never ordained. Early years Duncan was born in the hamlet of Bishop Burton, Yorkshire, England, the illegitimate son of Maria Duncan, a teenaged servant. He was raised by his mother's parents, William and Elizabeth Duncan. In the 1841 census he is recorded as living with his father and his sister Mary Duncan on Lairgate in Beverley. In 1851 he was lodging with William Botterill, a tailor, and Mary Botterill in Keldgate, Beverley and his occupation is described as book-keeper. Duncan later worked in his grandfather/adoptive father's trade as a tanner. Duncan became the only churchgoer in his impoverished family. In 1854 he joined the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and attended the Church Missionary Society College, Islington. Arrival in Canada In 1856 the CMS sent Duncan to the North Pacific coast of Canada, and in 1857 he arrived at the remote Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fort settlement at Lax Kw'alaams, British Columbia, then part of HBC's New Caledonia district and known as Fort Simpson or Port Simpson. He proselytized among the Tsimshians and learned to speak Tsimshian from Arthur Wellington Clah, a Tsimshian lineage head and HBC employee. Clah was to later save Duncan's life when the village's leading chief, Paul Legaic, threatened Duncan at gunpoint for ringing churchbells on the day of Legaic's daughter's initiation into a secret society. Legaic eventually became a key convert of Duncan's.