Rev. Woolsey was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire,
England on January 27th, 1819. Canada was his third choice for
missionary work. He planned at first to go to Australia, but cancelled
the trip only to discover, afterwards, that the ship that he had planned
to sail on sank with no survivors. His second goal was South Africa, but
again, he missed going. That boat crashed off shore and the passengers
lost all their belongings. Around 1852 he made it to Canada.
Woolsey and Henry B. Steinhauer came out west together,
to work their separate missions. Woolsey was sent to Fort Edmonton, where he found that
the mission buildings had been given over to the Catholics and his place
there was as a guest only. He went to the Woodville
mission at Pigeon Lake, which had been established by Benjamin Sinclair
and then abandoned. He spent as much time there as he could, but was
forced to spend his winters in Edmonton for lack of supplies.
Around 1861 Woolsey started his own mission near Smoking
Lake. George McDougall came and choose to move the mission down to the
river, and name it Victoria. George left his son there with Woolsey, and
the two fought about what type of house should be built. Much of John
McDougall's writing is critical of Woolsey, although the reason for that
is somewhat unknown. John McDougall was, after all, a very physically
active 19 year old, and Woolsey was a somewhat overweight ill older
man.
In 1864 Woolsey left the Smoking Lake area to return to
the East and to England as a fundraising tour. In England, he met
Sarah Wolverson, sister-in-law of Robert Rundle and fell in love. He
returned to Canada, found that he would not be permitted back to his
missions among the natives, and so Sarah came across the ocean and
married him. Two of their four daughters died in childhood and Woolsey
himself died in 1894.