Roger Viets was one of the well-educated clergy who came to Maritime Canada in the wake of the American Revolution and contributed significantly to the cultural and spiritual development of late-eighteenth-century Nova Scotia. He made a respectable contribution to the sermon literature of his day, but his place in Canadian literary history arises from the fact that in 1788 he published the first separate work of poetry (Annapolis Royal) to appear in what is now Canada.

Viets came from a respected Connecticut family. The second child of John and Lois Phelps Viets, he was born at Simsbury (later called Granby) on 9 March 1738. After graduation from Yale in 1758, he assisted the local Church of England clergyman at Simsbury as a lay reader for several years before sailing to London to complete his theological training. Viets was ordained on 17 April 1763 and appointed Church of England missionary at Simsbury. He married Hester...