Person

Rand, Silas Tertius, 1810-1889

1810-1889

Silas Tertius Rand was born on May 18, 1810, in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia.

He was a Canadian Baptist clergyman, missionary, ethnologist, linguist, and translator. His father taught him to read and later sent him to school, which he attended until the age of eleven. He then took up bricklaying with his father. At age nineteen, Rand was introduced to English grammar and by the age of twenty-one, he began teaching it. In 1833, he was baptized and decided to devote his life to God. In 1834, he was ordained a Baptist minister and he took a position in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Rand was later a pastor in Windsor, Nova Scotia and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. In 1846, he began to work among the Mi'kmaq and helped found the Micmac Missionary Society in 1849. He travelled widely among Mi'kmaq communities, spreading the faith, learning the language, and recording examples of the Mi'kmaq oral tradition. He mastered many languages including Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Mohawk, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Latin, and modern Greek. He compiled a Mi'kmaq dictionary, collected numerous legends and he translated the whole New Testament and the Old Testament books of Genesis, Exodus and Psalms into Mi'kmaq. For his work with the Mi'kmaq, he received honorary degrees from Queen's University (L.L.D., 1886), Acadia College (D.D, 1886), and King's College (D.C.L.).

In 1838, he married Jane Elizabeth McNutt (1817–1884). He died on October 4, 1889, in Hantsport, Nova Scotia.