Methodist Missionary, Thomas Crosby, a native of Ontario, evangelised and ministered the gospel up and down the west coast of British Columbia. God visited the First Nations people of Port Simpson, near the Alaska border, with revival in 1880. Many hundreds were converted and Biblical worship was established. The individual testimonies of converts prove the power of the gospel among a people who had previously been ignorant of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the winter of 1873–74 Crosby toured Ontario to raise funds for missions. During that tour he married Emma Jane Douse and was informed of his appointment as missionary to the Tsimshian Indians at Fort Simpson (from 1880, Port Simpson), a scant 15 miles from William Duncan’s already famous Anglican establishment at Metlakatla. Fort Simpson, the mission on which Crosby’s reputation would be built, was his home till 1897.