The First Watch Tower Missionaries

Two young Watch Tower missionaries, Roland Fredette and Harold Wright, from North America, arrived in Port-au-Prince in August 1945. They had studied French at the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, but as they soon discovered, they now had to learn Creole. They became a familiar sight as they moved around, preaching with the aid of testimony cards and phonographs.

Keen on seeing the preaching of the good news become well organized in Haiti, N. H. Knorr and F. W. Franz, respectively president and vice president of the Watch Tower Society at that time, also came to Port-au-Prince, arriving on March 19, 1946. Eleven attended a meeting held in the missionary home that evening for just the Witnesses. After a talk by Brother Franz, Brother Knorr spoke about organizing the preaching work in Haiti. He announced the establishment of the Haiti branch of the Watch Tower Society, with Brother Fredette as branch overseer. Then, at seven o’clock the next evening, a group of 74 assembled in the missionary home to hear Brother Knorr speak on the subject “Be Glad, Ye Nations.”

[Picture on page 120]

Roland Fredette, who arrived in Haiti as a missionary in 1945, became the first branch overseer there