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Drumreagh Presbyterian Church Ministers
 Rev.
T Beare
(1838 – 1877) |
The first minister of Drumreagh was the Rev. Thomas Beare who had previously ministered in Ringsend Presbyterian Church, situated between Garvagh and Coleraine. The Rev Beare was installed on 20th February 1838 and he received an annual wage of £40. It was the enormous task of the new minister to build up a congregation, to oversee the completion of the meetinghouse and to found a Kirk Session, committee and other positions of importance necessary for a satisfactory congregational life as set out by the Presbyterian form. Not only did he achieve these aims he also formed a choir and set up classes for the young members of the congregation to prepare them for the sacrament of communion. |
At
this time there was one hundred and seventy four families in the
congregation and one hundred and thirty five communicants with
an average attendance of three hundred every week. By the 1840’s
Drumreagh had become a well established church with a minister
of their own and so the people of Drumreagh were very content.
After thirty-nine years of dedication to
the church and its congregation on the 3rd July 1877 the Rev.
Thomas Beare retired with problems of ill health. He died on January
16th 1892 aged eighty-four. |
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