Canadian Friends Historical Association

Author: Sydney Harker

  • New Transcription: Toronto Monthly Meeting, 1893-1902 (B-2-47)

    We’ve updated our transcriptions page with a new upload: Toronto Monthly Meeting (Orthodox) book from 1893-1902.

    You can also see the PDF here: http://cfha.info/TorontoMMB-2-47.pdf

    The Toronto Quaker Meeting continues to be an active meeting to this day. More about the history of the meeting can be found on the first page of the transcription.

    The minutes themselves provide a wealth of information for researchers and genealogists alike. Visitors were welcomed and certificates of membership accepted from meetings in England (Newcastle, London, and Norwich), Ireland (Lisburn and Dublin), and across the United States (Kansas, New York, Iowa, and Indiana).

    The following insight into the minutes has been provided by CFHA co-chair, Gordon Thompson:

    The latest minute book to be transcribed is that of the Toronto Monthly Meeting (orthodox) 1893-1902. To readers familiar with transcriptions of the 1860s or earlier, the tone and shift in principles away from the primacy of the personal ‘inner light’ to one based on salvation and acknowledgement of sin will be jarring. This minute book commences a little more than ten years after the Orthodox/Conservative split, and it appears the Orthodox meeting continues to reverberate and rebound away from the traditional founding Quaker precepts. Researchers will find an abundance of family names and like references. Please note that this is the earliest minute book of any of the early Toronto meetings that is known to have been preserved and available for microfilming and transcription.

    Our thanks and appreciation go out to Carman Foster once again for his transcription from images of the original text, and to Randy Saylor for researching and writing the detailed introductory notes. Thanks are also due to Jane Sweet, a member of the Toronto Monthly Meeting Library Committee, for tracking down Toronto Monthly Meeting library sources.

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    Friends’ Meeting House at 28 Pembroke St., Toronto. The Toronto Preparative Meeting purchased this meeting house in 1881 and it was in use until 1902. Photo is courtesy of the Toronto Public Library.

  • Textiles in Upper Canada

    Anne Adams on Three Generations of a Quaker Family and Their Textiles

    Published in the 2006 edition of the Canadian Journal of Quaker History, Anne G. Adams’ article, “‘Done Without Spectacles…’ Three Generations of a Quaker Family and Their Textiles,” follows the textile trail of the British-born Mullett family who settled in Upper Canada in 1821. The Mullett family quickly integrated themselves in the Quaker community of Adolphustown and their eleven children married into local Quaker families, including the Haights and Bowermans.

    Adams’ article includes letters sent between family members across the Atlantic and their many discussions of knitting, sewing, and spinning. Of particular interest to textile enthusiasts are the letters sent between the children of William and Mary Mullett and their grandmother, Hannah Clothier, who lived in Somerset, England. In some of their early letters, the Mullett children sent samples of their own spinning and requested their grandmother send pieces of cloth in return. Adams includes an 1825 letter sent from Deborah Mullett in which she notes that her and her sisters were “becoming tailoresses since being in Canada” (39). For those who have recently taken up a craft while staying at home, the letters and diaries of the Mullett family are an exciting window into early and mid-nineteenth century textile making in Upper Canada.