John MacCormac, (24 March 1791,

Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh. Lurgan is about south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a population ...

20 March 1865) was a distinguished

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timber merchant who pioneered the

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, w ...

trade in the Colony of

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

. John MacCormac was also the founder of the first

Free Will Baptist Free Will Baptists are a group of General Baptist denominations of Christianity that teach free grace, free salvation and free will. The movement can be traced back to the 1600s with the development of General Baptism in England. Its formal est ...

church in Sierra Leone and served as a member of His Majesty's Colonial Council and was styled with the title of 'Honorable'. MacCormac was the grandfather and namesake of Dr

John Farrell Easmon John Farrell Easmon, MRCS, LM, LKQCP, MD, CMO (30 June 1856 – 9 June 1900), was a prominent Sierra Leonean Sierra Leone Creole people, Creole doctor in the British Gold Coast who served as Chief Medical Officer during the 1890s. Easmon ...

, the Chief Medical Officer of the Gold Coast Colony who coined the term ' Blackwater Fever' and wrote the first English-based clinical diagnosis of Blackwater fever.

Background

John MacCormac was born on 24 March 1791 in

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...

in Northern Ireland to John MacCormac, a wealthy linen merchant and Ann MacCormac, née Hall, a daughter of Colonel or General Joseph Hall Jr., a wealthy distiller and proprietor of Hall Place, in Lurgan, Northern Ireland. MacCormac was the paternal grandson of Cornelius MacCormac, a high-ranking British

naval officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent contex ...

who died in England during the process of trying to recover his gold-laced hat. John MacCormac was born to the MacCormac family of County, Armagh and was the elder brother of Henry MacCormac, a lecturer at

Queen's University, Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. MacCormac was the paternal uncle of Sir William MacCormac, a lecturer at St Thomas Hospital and a senior physician to King

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and ...

of the United Kingdom.

Business

MacCormac first arrived in West Africa by the age of eighteen and originally settled in the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

. MacCormac settled permanently in Sierra Leone in 1814 and by 1816 he introduced the timber trade to Sierra Leone by shipping a type of timber called

African Teak African teak is a common name for several plants and may refer to: *''Baikiaea plurijuga'', native to the northern Kalahari *'' Milicia excelsa'', also known as iroko, native to Africa from the Ivory Coast to Ethiopia and south to Angola and Mozam ...

, which was really African Oak, from the estuary of the

Rokel River The Rokel River (also Seli River; previously Pamoronkoh River) is the largest river in the Republic of Sierra Leone in West Africa. The river basin measures in size, with the drainage divided by the Gbengbe and Kabala hills and the Sula Mountains ...

to England. He built himself a home and a timber yard on Timbo Island. He contracted a workforce of Temne labourers as well as Black colonists from the Sierra Leone some of whom also acted as overseers of the timber production process. He also built a large stone house in the Sierra Leone hinterland and a spacious mansion worth £10,000 on the corner of Rawdon and Oxford Streets. MacCormac was financially ruined by the late 1830s and he retired to

Liverpool, England Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

alongside his brother and business partner, Hamilton Edmund MacCormac. MacCormac returned to Sierra Leone after declaring bankruptcy but was allowed to keep his commodious mansion by his creditors. He subsequently undertook a number of government appointments.

Political career and colonial appointments

MacCormac was one of the wealthiest merchants in Sierra Leone and he was appointed by His Majesty's Colonial Council of Sierra Leone in the 1820s. MacCormac was a contemporary of Honorable Kenneth Macaulay, a Scottish merchant and colonial official in Sierra Leone, who served on the Colonial Council of Sierra Leone. MacCormac also served on the Colonial Council alongside Benjamin Campbell, a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

merchant of Scottish descent who served as the first Consul-General to the

Lagos Colony Lagos Colony was a British colonial possession centred on the port of Lagos in what is now southern Nigeria. Lagos was annexed on 6 August 1861 under the threat of force by Commander Beddingfield of HMS Prometheus who was accompanied by the Ac ...

. MacCormac and Campbell entered into a treaty with the Koya Temne on behalf of Governor Alexander Findlay the representative of the Crown colonial government. MacCormac served in various positions of responsibility within the colonial government and civil service.Sibthorpe, Aaron Belisarius Cosimo, ''The History of Sierra Leone'', (1868. 1906. Reprint: United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 1970) MacCormac served as a Justice of Peace and was subsequently appointed as an Assistant

Police Magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

for the Colony of Sierra Leone. MacCormac was eventually appointed as the Police Magistrate of the Colony of Sierra Leone in the mid-nineteenth century. MacCormac's former extensive business interests with the Koya Temne allowed the colonial council to appoint MacCormac as an unofficial envoy or ambassador for the Colony of Sierra Leone and the neighbouring indigenous ethnic groups. MacCormac undertook trade missions and engaged treaties on behalf of the colonial government of Sierra Leone. MacCormac was eager for the Temne to reject Islam and accept Christianity and some historians have stated that this bias is reflected in MacCormac's decisions as a representative of the Crown Colonial Government of Sierra Leone.

Ministry

After suffering financial ruin, MacCormac became a pious convert to Christianity and became a

. MacCormac was the founder and first pastor of Church of God, Regent Road, which was initially located at MacCormac's mansion at the corner of Rawdon and Oxford Streets. MacCormac left an endowment for the church in his will and the church was subsequently established at Regent Road, Freetown and has an active congregation in Freetown, Sierra Leone. MacCormac was succeeded as the first pastor of the Church of God by his adopted son or ward, Thomas George Lawson, a Popo prince who served in the senior civil service of Sierra Leone.

Parliamentary testimony

John MacCormac was one of several

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an residents called to testify before the British

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

in 1830 regarding the governance of Sierra Leone and the effectiveness of maintaining the Colony. MacCormac attributed his longevity to eating the local diet of rice, fish, and other African-based foods.

Death

After suffering from a bout of illness, John MacCormac left Sierra Leone permanently on 21 June 1864 and settled in

Barnsbury Barnsbury is an area of north London in the London Borough of Islington, within the N1 and N7 postal districts. The name is a syncopated form of ''Bernersbury'' (1274), being so called after the Berners family: powerful medieval manorial ...

Islington, London Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...

. He died in Barsnbury on 20 March 1865 and his obituary was recorded in the ''Law Magazine and Law Review'' and the ''Solicitors' Journal & Reporter''. MacCormac was one of the oldest and longest European residents of Sierra Leone and he lived in

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

for over fifty years. He left a fortune of £4,000 to his grandchildren and other benefactors. MacCormac's grandson and namesake,

, received a £400 inheritance at the age of eighteen or nineteen years old and used the inheritance from his grandfather's estate to fund his medical studies.

Descendants

John MacCormac possibly had a relationship with Hannah Cuthbert, a daughter of

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

from

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later t ...

Freetown Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and po ...

and had at least one daughter, Catherine MacCormac, who regularly visited her uncle, Dr Henry MacCormac in Belfast, Northern Ireland. John MacCormac was the maternal grandfather of Dr

and the paternal great grandfather of Dr McCormack Easmon.

Charles Odamtten Easmon Charles Odamtten Easmon or C. O. Easmon, popularly known as Charlie Easmon, (22 September 1913 – 19 May 1994) was a medical doctor and academic who became the first Ghanaian to formally qualify as a surgeon specialist and the first Dean of t ...

, a

Ghanaian Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

surgical consultant, was a great-great grandson of John MacCormac.