author
Thomas Crosby
1840–1914
A Methodist missionary and writer, he spent decades on the coast of British Columbia and became widely known for his accounts of mission work among Indigenous communities. His books offer a vivid window into religious life, travel, and colonial-era encounters on the Pacific coast.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Pickering, England, on June 21, 1840, he moved with his family to Upper Canada as a teenager and later went west to British Columbia. After joining the Wesleyan Methodist Church, he began work that led him into missionary service among First Nations communities on the coast.
He became especially associated with Methodist missions at places including Fort Simpson and worked for many years in coastal British Columbia. Reference sources describe him as an influential Methodist missionary in the region, and his published works include Among the An-ko-me-nums, or Flathead tribes of Indians of the Pacific coast and Up and Down the North Pacific Coast by Canoe and Mission Ship.
He died in Vancouver on January 13, 1914. Today he is remembered both as a major figure in Canadian Methodist mission history and as a writer whose books preserve a firsthand record of the attitudes, travel, and missionary culture of his time.