HomeMy WebLinkAboutX2023-013-048MEETI\GS IN ('-E\TRAL UPPER CANADA c)<,
CJllcesslon.s in the latter directioIi were ever made in the con-
struction of the Quaker meeting; houses of this period. The
cemetery adjoining the meeting house on what was long known
as "Quaker Hill,", ,c g was for cars used as �i ` ellel•al burying
ground for tide district, and i�oids the dust of many of its first
pioneers.
Pickerin.a
Amonc tine earliest settlers of Pickering Township were
several who hay first gone toY once Street, most prominent
amon^ triese mein_- Timoth,- I;,ogers, who was. therefore, the
pioneer of two important h►uaker settlements in Upper Canada.
gout 180�) '1 imothy removed with his f amil-- from Y onge
Street to DufTin's Creel,, -where he operated what was probabl:-
the first grist and saw mill in the township. It was built, lie
tells us, "so that a boat could come three miles iron: the
Lake, and land goods at my mill door". He also mentions the
fine salmon which were caught near the mouth of the. creek,
`- averaging seven to ten pounds, and some, he assures us. even
twenty pounds. In 1809 and 1810 the settlements at Y onge
Street and in Pickering Township were swept by an epidemic
of sickness which took hells-; - toll of tiieir inhabitants. Five
daughters of Timothy- Rogers —all married —died within a
short, time of each other; and two sons —the one eighteen and
the youngest nine --besides his son-in-law, Rufus Rogers,
were also taker:. In addition Timothy Rogers mentions the
fact that thirty friends who were personally* known to him,
died about this time. He says of the epidemic, "that first it
was called typhus fever, but iatterly we have had the measles,
by which some have departed this life; but mostly it has been
such an uncommon Disorder that it seems to baffle the skill
of the wisest and best physicians". In 1810 Timothy Rogers
went. back to the United States and returned with another
company of settlers who were settled in Pickering Township,
east of Duffin's Creek. For his services Timothy Rogers
received a grant of several hundred acres of land near the
100 TIIP: QUAI{rRS IN CAJiADA, A HISTORY
present village of Pickering.* In 1812 Timothy Rogers moved
into a new house on his property near the village of Pickering.
But this was a sad occasion, since just a short time before, his
wife had been taken suddenly ill and had (lied at a friend's
house. They had been journeying to York to buy some fur-
nishings for the new home in which Sarah Rogers had hoped
to spend in peace and comfort her declining years when death
overtook her, leaving her husband with four young children.
The Friends in Pickering Township first made a request
for the privilege of holding a meeting for worship on First and
Fourth Days, in 1810. Before granting this request a com-
mittee was appointed by Yonge Street _Monthly Meeting
which after visiting a number of the families, reported it as
their judgment that "there was not yet a sufficient concern
of mind amongst them to enable them to hold a meeting".
In 1812 Yonge Street _Monthly _Meeting allowed an indulged
meeting to be held at the house of .John Haight which was
situated near the edge of what is now the village of Pickering.
In 1814 Timothy Rogers gave Friends about seven acres of
land for a meeting house and yard, being in lot number 13 in
the fifth concession of Pickering Township. The first trustees
of this property on behalf of the _Monthly Meeting were Wat-
son Playter, Thomas Linville, Asa Rogers, -Nicholas Brown
and James Varney. In the year 1819 a regular meeting for
worship and a Preparative fleeting were established at
Pickering, and in the same year the first meeting house was
built. This building was used until 1833-4, when a new two
story frame house, ;with galleries fifty feet by twenty-six feet,
was begun. This structure was used until 1866-67, when it was
replaced by a commodious red brick building which, in 1867, was
the scene of the first independent Yearly Meeting of Orthodox
Friends in Canada. In this way was fulfilled the prophetic
vision of Timothy Rogers when, writing in 1809, he said:
* W. R. Wood, Past Years in Pickering, pp. 15-19. _among the family
names of the earliest Quaker pioneers in Pickering Township were :
Rogers, Brown, Haight, Wright, Reason, Cornell, Taylor, Dale, Boone,
Betts, Richardson, Hughes.
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MEETINGS IN CENTRAI. UPPER CANAnA 101
"This place, although very new, is about the centre of
Friends in Upper Canada. I believe in time it will produce a
Yearly Meeting within ten miles of this spot where I live on
Dufiin's Creek."*
Canada Half ]rear's Meeting
By the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century
the Society of Friends was firmly established in the western,
central and eastern districts of Upper Canada, where, as we
have seen, three Monthly Meetings had grown up of Pelham,
Adolphustown and Yonge Street. Evidence of the growing
strength and confidence of the Society in Canada was the
demand in 1808 to unite these three Monthly Meetings under
a superior meeting of discipline in Canada, having the powers
of a Quarterly 'Meeting. Friends in the last established
Monthly Meeting at Yonge Street appear to have been
especially active in promoting this change. As a result of
this feeling, the mother Yearly Meetings of Philadelphia and
of New York appointed a joint committee to visit the three
Monthly Meetings in Canada to enquire into the situation.
In 1809 this committee reported:
"That seven of our members had visited all the meetings
which constitute the three Monthly Meetings, except a small
indulged meeting at Buff alow in the State of New York, and
attended all the Monthly Meetings from whose accounts of
their situations our sympathy was excited ; and although
they appear to be in an infant state and the Monthly Meetings
widely separated, yet we believe it would promote their
religious improvement to grant them such a meeting as it
requested, to be held alternately at West Lake, a branch of
Adolphus and at Yonge Street .... to become a branch of
the Yearly Meeting of New York, as the members of the three
Monthly 'Meetings judge it best they should belong thereto.
The Monthly Meeting of Adolphus is composed of three
Preparatives, Kingston, Adolphus and West Lake ; Yonge
Street of Queen Street and White Church ; Pelham of two
Preparatives, viz., Black Creek and Pelham. The families
and parts of families are in the whole rather upward of two
Timothy Rogers' Journal.
b—
146 THE QUAKERS IN CANADA. A HISTORY
and Saviour Jesus Christ, his mediation and intercession foi us
with tht Father, in the propitiatory sacrifice which he made
on the cross when through the eternal spirit he offered himself
without spot to God for the redemption of mankind. The
disorganizing effect of these anti-Christian opinions have been
sorrowfully manifested amongst us producing insubordination
to our excellent discipline, and many of those who havr. been
unhappily ensnared by these delusive strategems of the
enemy have been gradually led on from one degree of disorder
to another until at length they have openly gone out from
our Society and set up meetings of their own contrary to the
good order and discipline established amongst us in the
wisdom of truth.
Aside from the controversial character of the above
statement itself and the aspersions it cast upon many promi-
nent leaders in the Society, the Hicksite sympathizers in
Pickering Meeting refused to recognize the authority of that
section of the Yearly Meeting which had issued the statement.
The Orthodox party, therefore, on the ground that the pre-
siding Clerk (Nicholas Austin) and his supporters were
"rejecting the authority of our discipline and casting off the
subordination and restraint which is due that body" (namely,
the "Orthodox" New York Yearly Meeting), took matters
into their own hands and appointed a new Clerk of the
Preparative Meeting in the person of William Wright. t
At a subsequent Preparative Meeting held at Pickering
in Ninth Month, 1828, the Orthodox party disowned Nicholas
: Minutes of Pickering Preparative Meeting, 7/8/1828.
t "A considerable number of the members of this Preparative Meet-
ing have united themselves in principle to those who have thus separated
from our religious society and identified themselves with them at Pickering
Preparative Meeting, Seventh Day of the Eighth Month, 1828, by refusing
to have the minute of advice and direction from our late Yearly Meeting
of Friends held in New York read or to acknowledge its committee, therebv
rejecting the authority of our discipline and casting off the subordination
and respect which is due that body. And the Clerk of this Preparative
Meeting having joined in these irregular and disorderly letters, it became
the duty of those Friends who remained attached to the ancient doctrines
and discipline of our religious society, after testifying against these pro-
ceedings, to appoint a Clerk and maintain Pickering preparative Meetingi
according to the original design of its establishment (to wt) as a Pre -
Friends,
Meeting of the religious Society of Friends, and part of and subordinate to the aforesaid regulacomponent
r and ancient Yearly Meet-
ing of New York." —Minutes of Pickering Preparative Meeting, 7/8/1828.
SEPARAT
Brown, an acknowledg
been prominent in the
New York Yearly M(
several years previous t
Elias Hicks.* As prey
Brown who had, in all
Shillitoe at Yonge Stre(
1827. Soon after the 4
fifteen outstanding Hi(
against and eventually
Faction and party
whole Society in Can,
occurred comparable i
Meetings, it was a suff
divided against itself.
hold their Preparative
ering, Nicholas Bron,
admittance to the buil(
to retire to "the sch(
Timothy Rogers ", an
season. Eventuallv U.
of the building and gr(
were compelled to ac(
about two miles furth
where a substantial brie
Trouble seems to
Monthly Meeting, whit
1828. The same threw
Yearly Meeting (Orth(
also present at Bloom
"Janney, History of Fr
Vol. iv, p. 247.
t Joel Hughes, James
Joseph Brown, Silas Orvis,
James Webster, Roland Br
Aaron Bunnel.—Minutes o
$ Thomas Linville, Me
the minutes (Orthodox) rep
Friends." —West Lake Moi
jLPARATION OF 1828 IN C:LiVl�DA i4 7
�3rown, an acknowledged minister of this meetin who had
-- been prominent in the separation which had taken place in
New York Yearly Meeting in Fifth Month, and who for
several years previous to tills had been closely associated with
Elias Hicks.* 3s previously noted it was the same Nicholas
Brown who had, in all probability, publicly opposed Thomas
Shillitoe at Yonge Street Monthly Meeting in Second Month,
1827. Soon after the disownment of Nicholas Brown about
fifteen outstanding Hicksite supporters were also proceeded
against and eventually disowned. i
Faction and party strife now broke loose throughout the
wnole Society in Canada, and while no scenes of disorder
occurred comparable to those in several of the American
Meetings, it was a sufficiently lamentable example of a house
divided against itself. When the Orthodox party tried to
Bold their Prep"rative Meeting in the Meeting House at Pick-
ering, Nicholas Brown, who was caretaker, refused them
admittance to the building. They were, therefore, compelled
to retire to "the school house on Friends' West Lot near
Timothy Rogers", and to hoid their meetings there for
season. Eventually the Orthodox party regained possession
ui the building and grounds, whereupon the Hicksite Friends
were compelled to acquire a new Meeting T�iouse property
about two miles further east along the main Kingston road,
-where a substantial brick Meeting House was eventually built.
'rouble seems to have broken out next in West Lake
Monthly Meeting, which met at Bloomfield, in Eighth Month,
S2S. The same three official representatives of New York
Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) who had been at Pickering were
aiso present at Bloomfield. + There was likewise present at
*.Tanney, History of Friends, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. a89-tW :also � bid,
oi. iv, p. t47.
Y Joel Hughes, .Tames Starr, Abraham Brown, James Carpenter,
Joseph Brown, Silas Orvis, Eleazer Orvis, Nicholas Austin, James Brown,
ames Webster, Roland Brown, Ira Brown. Silvanus Brown, .Tames Eves,
_baron Bunnel.—Minutes of Pickering Preparative Meeting, 11,' 9 % 18Q8.
+ Thomas Linville, Mead Attwater, Michael Robson, whose presence
.he minutes (Orthodox) record "has been a strength and satisfaction tc
_�riends."—JVest Lake :Monthly .Meeting, 21!8/1828.
174 THE QUAKERS IN CANADA, A HISTORY
THE "Hlcxsl,
Street Monthly Meeting. He had joined Friends before he
Monthly Meetings, that
came to Canada, about 1804; and in 1834 his gift in the
ministry was acknowledged by his Monthly Meeting which he
Canada Half Year's Me
continued to serve faithfully until the time of his death in
membership joined to th;
In 1840 Freeman Clarke,
1865.
in Haldimand, moved t(
Pickering Monthly Meeting
this branch of the Society
At Uxbridge and at Pickering, as the Orthodox Friends
au year HalCa aPre:
authority of Canadd a Hal :
were in control, they retained the meeting house and property.
Consequently a new meeting house
main centre of the Hick
was eventually built by
Hicksite Friends at both of these places. The meeting house
tipper Canada was in Pri
Lake,
at Pickering was built about 1834. It was struck by lightning
and West at which
alternately for the next
and completely destroyed (about 1876), but replaced by a
substantial brick edifice which stood on the north side
membership of West La:
of the
Kingston Road, two and a half miles east of Pickering village.
reported one hundred an,
Though the records show,
The meeting house at Uxbridge was not built until about 1844.
In 1842 Canada Half Year's Meeting
these accessions never m
reorganized Uxbridge and
Pickering as "Pickering Monthly- Meeting", which was held in
removal to other distric
First Day School organi2
alternate months at these two points. The scattering of the
many years. The grade
,younger people into other districts, and the gradual decline of
Pickering Monthly Meeting, made necessary further
finally led to the laying
reorganiza-
tion, when in 1886 Pickering was changed from a Monthly to an
this place (1873) and t.
Meeting hereafter at Blo
Executive Meeting. This change made possible the holding of
About 1834 or 1835,
the meetings at less frequent intervals than once every month
for the transaction of what little business
secured from Stephen W
required to be done.
At the present there are no active meetings of this branch of
which was situated in lo,
of the Township of Hall(
Friends either at Uxbridge or at Pickering.
of the village of Bloomfie!
a mile above the origin,
West Lake Monthly Meeting
been held by the Ortho
In West Lake Monthly Meeting the Hicksite Friends,
meen
oblo The new ng frame lding,
while numerically stronger than in Yonge Street, were still in
a decided
across he front, and t
minority, so that, with the exception of the Green
Point Meeting House, they lost control of
which, except for the a€
practically all the
property in this Monthly Meeting. In fact so few of the
bering either up to or do
wagons, called "democr.
Hicksite Friends remained in Cold Creek and in Ameliasburg
Preparative Meetings, in
days. Behind the meetii
and Leeds and Adolphustown
sheds for the horses, ai