Moore Family Reunion and Presentations 2021 July 17, 2021 via Zoom
All are welcome to attend the upcoming 2021 Moore Family Reunion, which includes three presentations that are of note to CFHA members. This event is a gathering of the descendants and friends of Samuel Moore I, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Province of New Jersey, born c. 1630, and his great-grandson, United Empire Loyalist Samuel Moore of Upper Canada, formerly of the Provinces of New Jersey and Nova Scotia, born 1742, died 1822, Norwich Upper Canada.
Saturday, July 17, 2021 Informal meet and greet, 1:30-2:00 p.m., ET
Welcome, Introductions 3 Presentations, each followed by discussion and a break (topics below) 2:00 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. ET
Presentation topics: 1 – “The Flushing Remonstrance: An Examination of Founding Contributions Made by the Colonial Ancestors of the Moore and Hicks Families to the Establishment of Now Universally Recognized Rights and Freedoms, Including Freedoms of Speech, Assembly and Religion” by John Hicks.
This talk addresses the Flushing Remonstrance, a 1657 petition to the Director-General of New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant, where thirty residents of Flushing (now a neighbourhood in NYC) requested an exemption to the ban he implemented on Quaker worship. This was an area where Quaker missionaries were often sent, and where Quaker Robert Hodgson was was arrested and imprisoned for preaching. Though none of the signees were Quakers, they believed in the fundamental right of freedom of religion. The Flushing Remonstrance is often regarded as a precursor to the freedom of religion clause in the 1789 US Bill of Rights. The Flushing Remonstrance begins with:
Remonstrance of the magistrates and inhabitants of Flushing, L. I. (with names), against the law against Quakers, 27 December 1657. Photo courtesy of the New York State Archives.
Right Honorable, You have been pleased to send unto us a certain prohibition or command that we should not receive or entertain any of those people called Quakers because they are supposed to be, by some, seducers of the people. For our part we cannot condemn them in this case, neither can we stretch out our hands against them, for out of Christ God is a consuming fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
2- “Whence Cometh Samuel?: Tracing the Lineage of the Honourable Samuel Moore I, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Province of New Jersey” by Bob Moore.
3- “Colonialism, Fundamental Freedoms, and Connection to the Land: How Understanding the Ancestors Deepens Our Sense of Belonging in the New World” by M. Jane Fairburn.
We look forward to sharing stories and insights into the rich historical tradition of the Moore family in North America, all without the distance restrictions! Please share this invitation with those who might be interested.
You can attend this Zoom reunion via computer or telephone (computer preferred so you can see the participants and presenters) Contact Donna Moore to receive the Zoom link ([email protected]) 519-850-7224 Donna Moore
Quakers in the Thirteen Colonies During the 1770s Quakers living in North America had large families and, like many settlers at that time, found that land for younger family members was becoming scarce and expensive. So began the great westward migration.
During and after the American Revolution, Quakers found themselves in a precarious position. Both the British forces and the American rebels and were suspicious of where the Quakers’ affiliations lay, since the Quaker Testimony Against War led them to refuse to bear arms or participate in military service. The Quakers’ strong sense of community revolved around their religion, their membership in a monthly meeting, and to a hierarchy culminating in a yearly meeting.
Timothy Rogers and his Family Timothy Rogers (1756–1834), a convinced Friend, was said to be “the best man for settling a new country.” In his journal, he articulates the evolution of his spiritual life as he visited Quaker meetings in the eastern United States. In 1795, travelling as a companion to Quaker minister Joshua Evans, Rogers visited Quaker communities in Nova Scotia and Upper and Lower Canada and met Friends in Pelham (Niagara Peninsula) and Adolphustown (on the Bay of Quinte).
Peter Hunter, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, wanted to attract United Empire Loyalists and British veterans of the American Revolution as settlers to Upper Canada. Quakers were neither veterans nor loyalists, but Timothy Rogers convinced Hunter that they would make good settlers, and received an initial grant for forty 200-acre farms. Interestingly, under the British Militia Act of 1793, Quakers were exempt from service in the militia, but were required to pay a fine, a requirement that Quakers saw as recognition of their peace testimony.
Yonge Street Meeting Timothy and his family were part of a group of Quakers that had moved northwards into Vermont. He had a prescient sense that the US-Canada border was not safe and he understood Friends’ need for more land and security. He convinced his wife Sarah that they should move their family of eight children north up the line (now Yonge Street) in Upper Canada to what would become Newmarket (in Whitchurch and East and West Gwillinbury).
They travelled in winter, arriving in May 1801 with the necessities for starting pioneer life: oxen, horses, seed, tools, guns (for hunting game), cooking pots, bedding, clothing, and more. To keep a 200-acre land grant a family had to build a cabin and clear the roadway in front: clearing land, building a one-room log house, and planting crops was the first order of business. A gristmill to grind wheat and a sawmill to mill lumber were soon erected on the Holland River east of Yonge Street.
These new settlers had the skills necessary for a community, and more Quakers followed from Pennsylvania. That same year Timothy took his certificate of removal from his meeting in Vermont to Pelham Monthly Meeting.
Yonge Street Meeting and Friends Burying Ground The first meetings for worship at Yonge Street were in cabins, but as the community grew the need for a meeting house soon became apparent. Yonge Street Meeting was set off from Pelham Monthly Meeting in 1806. Three daughters of Timothy Rogers—Hannah, Mary, and Lydia—had married the three sons of Wing Rogers, and in 1807 Asa and Mary Rogers sold a parcel of land on the west side of Yonge Street to the Yonge Street Meeting.
Tragedy struck this Quaker community in 1808–09 in the form of an epidemic that, combined with malnutrition, measles, influenza, and tuberculosis, took more than thirty lives in the community. Timothy and his wife Sarah lost their five married daughters with some of their husbands and children. The first parcel of land acquired by Yonge Street Meeting was used for a burying ground.
The wooden markers and field stones that likely marked those graves are long gone. The Yonge Street meeting house, constructed in 1810–12 on a second parcel of land adjacent to the burying ground, is still in use today by Yonge Street Monthly Meeting. The original plans specified a larger building, but with so many deaths the dimensions were reduced. Meanwhile, Timothy Rogers had moved with his younger children to Duffin’s Creek in Pickering Township in yet another stage of his expansionist plans.
Yonge Street Burial Ground
Yonge Street Friends Burial Ground in the 21st Century Ownership of the Burial Ground eventually passed to the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting Progressives (Botsford Friends Church). In 1980, when the Botsford Meeting was laid down and the Botsford Meeting House (Newmarket) sold, the Burial Ground was transferred to Canadian Yearly Meeting (CYM).
Today the Yonge Street Friends Burial Ground is owned by the CYM Board of Trustees. The Yonge Street Friends Burial Ground Committee (appointed by CYM Trustees) cares for the maintenance of the cemetery and grounds, with an administrator (currently Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg) responsible for the business affairs, subject to the Bereavement Authority of Ontario. The Burial Ground remains an open cemetery for the use of members and regular attenders of the Religious Society of Friends and their immediate family members. Quakers may purchase lots for interment of coffins or urns, and there is also a Scattering Ground for cremains.
Preserving Quaker Grave Markers The material and design of Quaker grave markers went through many changes through the last two centuries. The earliest extant markers in the Burial Ground—the “old whites” dating back to 1820—are simple limestone slabs 12–15 inches high, 12 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. The first granite stones appeared in 1910.
One problem compounding the early lack of markers is that, prior to the 1966 Ontario Cemeteries Act (which specifies record keeping for all burials), the records for the Yonge Street Friends Burial Grounds do not indicate interment locations! This lack of precise detail lends a sense on anonymity to the individuals buried there. David Newlands noted that pioneer Friends “put emphasis on Friends community as the focus of life. The close kinship ties in the meetings were the web that supported the strong emphasis on the community. In a real sense the Friends community experienced in a corporate sense the death of a member, with the realization that was the fate of all being shared by the community in worship.”[i]
The limestone grave markers worn down by age and air pollution have been further damaged by frost as the soil heaves and settles. Some stones have been broken or even removed by vandals. Other older gravestones are missing bases (keys) and lean over from lack of support; still others fell and slowly disappeared under the sod. Mowing the grass (done since the 1900s with social pressure for park-like grounds) can chip the edges of the stones, letting in moisture that causes the stones to crack. Cement used for repairs also interacts negatively with the limestone.
The Restoration Project Under its mandate for care and maintenance of the cemetery—including the historic stones—the Yonge Street Friends Burial Ground Committee has undertaken a restoration project using the services of Tom Klaasen (of Memorial Restorations Inc., Sarnia, Ontario), a recognized specialist in the care and restoration of gravestones and monuments.[ii] His work for the first phase of the project, completed in November 2020, was excellent. The second phase will begin in the spring of 2021. Some fundraising has already been done: the Committee has received funding from the Samuel Rogers Memorial Trust and the A.S. Rogers Trust Fund. The Canadian Yearly Meeting Trustees continue to support this work, but additional contributions are needed. Those who would like to support this project can make tax-deductible donations by cheque, payable to “Canadian Yearly Meeting” with “Yonge Street Friends Burial Ground” (or “YSFBG”) on the memo line. Please mail donations to the CYM Office, 91A Fourth Ave, Ottawa, ON K1S 2L1.
More about the Yonge Street Friends Burial Ground can be found on their website, https://quaker.ca/ysfbg/.
Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg, February 2021
Yonge Street Friends Burial Ground Committee
Before and after restoration.
[i] David L. Newlands, “Gone but not Forgotten: Quaker Burial Grounds and Grave Markers in Central Ontario,” Canadian Quaker History Journal, 2010.
On the subject of marriage, William Penn wrote, “Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.”[1] Marriage was an expectation for most young Quakers, yet the practice of endogamy and the parameters surrounding marriage set out by Quaker discipline governed the choices Friends made. Particularly in the early nineteenth century when discipline surrounding endogamy was strictly enforced, marriage outside of the faith ended in disownment. In Robynne Rogers Healey’s study of the Yonge Street Friends, From Quaker to Upper Canadian, she argues that while companionate marriage was common in Quaker communities before it became popular in nineteenth-century society, “membership still took precedence over emotion.”[2]
For Friends who married out, their names quickly disappeared from meeting records. Though some might have remained adherents to the faith but not actual members, their experience in Quakerism is not reflected in the minutes. Other Friends produced acknowledgements for their behaviour, only to later leave the faith for other reasons. The marriage of Isaac D. Noxon, a Quaker from a prominent family, and Janet (Jennet) Demorest, a young woman raised Presbyterian, gives us insight into a couple who married outside of their faith backgrounds and their experience of religion and Quakerism throughout their relationship. In many ways, their lives follow a number of trends common to Friends in the nineteenth century.
Isaac D. Noxon and Janet Demorest Noxon
Isaac D. Noxon was born 11 March 1809 in Adolphustown, Ontario, the eighth child of James Noxon and Elizabeth Dorland. Both James and Elizabeth were weighty Friends who were involved in the Adolphustown Monthly Meeting and later theWest Lake Meeting. James served as a minister and Elizabeth as an elder. During the 1828 Orthodox-Hicksite schism that devastated North American Quaker communities, both James and Elizabeth were vocal supporters and leaders of the Hicksite faction in the West Lake community. Isaac was a young man at the time of the schism and was likely affected by the volatile nature of the break.
Janet Demorest was born 23 April 1813 in Demorestville, Prince Edward County, to Jane Davis and Guillaume Demorest. Guillaume emigrated from Dutchess County, New York in 1790 to Adolphustown, marrying Jane Davis in 1793. The couple settled in Prince Edward County soon after their marriage and built a grist mill near Fish Lake, and the surrounding area soon grew into a small village called Demorestville. Guillaume was a Presbyterian but later became a Methodist and donated land to both the Presbyterians and Methodists in the area.[3]
Where Janet Demorest and Isaac Noxon met is unknown, but their communities were small, and any number of events could have brought them together in 1832. Janet clearly made quite an impact on Isaac, as he wrote her an acrostic love poem soon after their initial meeting. The end of the poem reads:
Remember those who think of you
Each have their fault, but pass them by
So you may find, among these true
The one that hopes it may be I
The pair were wed soon after in the spring of 1833 in Demorestville. The wedding was performed by Janet’s brother, Thomas Demorest, who was a Methodist minister. As Janet was not a Quaker and they were married outside of Isaac’s meeting, the issue of their marriage was soon raised in the Green Point Preparative Meeting.[4] The matter was brought to the West Lake Monthly Meeting (Hicksite), where Cornelius White and Stephen Bowerman were appointed to visit Isaac and look into the report. By the next meeting, Isaac had produced an acknowledgement, stating:
Dear Friends – I have so far deviated from good order as to marry a person not of our Society and to have said marriage accomplished by the assistance of a Priest which practice I condemn and wish to be continued a member.[5]
Though his wife Janet never became a member, Isaac maintained his membership for eight years after their marriage. His acknowledgement demonstrates a willingness to stay in good standing with the meeting, and he is named on a committee in 1835. However, in 1841, a complaint was brought against Isaac for not attending meetings and going out of plainness. When visited by a committee this time, Isaac made no attempts at acknowledgement and was disowned.[6]
In the 1871 Census of Canada, Isaac and Janet listed their religion as Methodist New Connexion. Arthur Dorland addressed the influence of Methodism on Canadian Quakers in his 1927 study, A History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) In Canada. Dorland argues that despite attempts by more conservative Friends to maintain separate from Methodism, Canadian Quakerism in the mid to late nineteenth century eventually adopted “many things peculiar to this type of evangelical religion, including many of its methods of evangelistic propaganda.”[7] He concludes that the most important influence on the life and thought of Canadian Quakerism was Methodism, a reality that led to a further schism in the community in 1881. The turn towards Methodism is thus unsurprising for Isaac Noxon. His wife, Janet, likely identified as Methodist herself at the time of their marriage, and both her brother and father were Methodist ministers.
Despite different faith upbringings, Isaac and Janet had a happy and long-lasting marriage. They raised their seven children in Sophiasburgh, eventually taking over the Noxon family farm.[8] Their children were Elizabeth, Isaac James, William Grant, Bartholomew Davis, Harriet Isabel, Emma Gertrude, and George Relyea. Isaac and Janet remained in Ontario until 1877 when the couple moved to New York to help one of their sons. Some of their children remained in Ontario while others emigrated to the United States.
Family anecdotes about their lives detail the importance of faith for both Isaac and Janet, and it seems that the pair passed on aspects of Quakerism to their children despite their Methodist faith. Paul Noxon, the great-grandson of Isaac and Janet, wrote about the family’s history and commented on the continuance of certain practices. He stated, “Although the family later abandoned the strict observance of the Quaker customs, during our childhood we still had silent grace at mealtime.”[9] Though Paul was born after Isaac’s death, he grew up in Avoca and spent time with his great-grandmother, Janet.
Another anecdote comes from a letter written by Ruth Winn Huntley, the wife of Isaac and Janet’s son, Isaac James. Isaac James and Ruth were married in Newmarket in 1861. Ruth’s parents, Theodore Huntley and Hulda Winn, were members of the Yonge Street Meeting (Orthodox).[10] Ruth’s letter was written to her daughter Eudora on 26 May 1889 and discusses the family’s attempt to attend church one morning in Avoca. In the letter, ‘Pa’ and ‘Grand Pa’ both refer to Isaac D. Noxon, who was eighty at the time.
“… There was no Church to the Lutheren Church, & George would
not go anywhere else & Dell would not be cause she had no
new hat & Grand Pa says I’ll go I said Come on, & we started
for the Methodist Church. It was then late but we trugded on
got way down there & there was nobody there. Pa says we aint
agoing to be beat, let’s go to the Babbist [Baptist]. So we come part
way back crosed over and got there before the first Prayer
was over. The house was more than full. Found it was Union
Memorial Servises, Pa had not heard anything about it. But
he thought & so did I that the services were very nice not
haveing heard anything of the kind before. We had dinner to
Grand Pas, boys were there too. Ma has her house all cleaned
& papered looks real nice …”[11]
Travelling from church to church to find a service was not an uncommon occurrence. Avoca, in Steuben County, was a small rural town and church services relied on the availability of ministers and attendance. As well, evangelical culture in late nineteenth-century North America tended to homogenize a number of otherwise separate religions. In his study of Orthodox Friends and their place in broader religious movements, Thomas Hamm argues that by the 1880s, American Quakers were “in the final stages of adjusting the society’s traditions to the evangelical and holiness teachings that they had embraced.”[12] The prominence of evangelicalism in America meant that moving between different denominational services was just another reality for many. For Isaac Noxon, his persistence on attending a Sunday service suggests the continual importance of religion and faith in his life.
November 1892 photo of Isaac and Janet with three of their children.
When Isaac Noxon passed in 1896, his obituary detailed his religious upbringing in the Society of Friends as well as his father’s role as a minister. On his adherence to Quakerism, his obituary specified that, “In early manhood he felt to discard some of their forms and peculiar customs although retaining the fundamental doctrine of that denomination to the close of his life.”[13] He was further remembered as a genial, peace-loving man, and a true Christian gentleman. At Isaac’s funeral in Avoca, NY, a Quaker preacher from Ontario conducted the service.[14]
Janet lived another eighteen years after Isaac passed, dying in 1914 at the age of one hundred. In a newspaper clipping celebrating her hundredth birthday, she was described as “a woman who has loved life with all the genuineness and depth of her nature, imparting to others her joy of existence.”[15]
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My thanks go to Don Howe, the third great-grandson of Isaac Noxon and Janet Demorest, and descendant of Isaac James Noxon and Ruth Winn Huntley, for permission to use his family’s photos and for sending Isaac Noxon’s obituary and Ruth Huntley’s letter. Don graciously shared his recollections of his family with me and filled in many of the gaps of Isaac and Janet’s life.
I’d also like to thank Erin Fraser for her permission to use Isaac Noxon’s letter. Erin is a descendant of Emma Gertrude Noxon, the daughter of Isaac and Janet.
[1] William Penn, Fruits in Solitude, in Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Humanlife, 10th ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Benjamin Johnson, 1792), 22.
[2] Robynne Rogers Healey, From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community Among Yonge Street Friends, 1801–1850 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 55.
[3] Women’s Institute, History of the Churches of Prince Edward County (Picton, ON: Picton Gazette Publishing Co., 1971), 97.
[4] 17 April 1833, West Lake Monthly Meeting, Book C, 1824–1837.
[5] 15 May 1833, West Lake Monthly Meeting, Book C, 1824–1837.
[6] 19 May 1841, West Lake Monthly Meeting, 1837–1849.
[7] Arthur Dorland, A History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada (Toronto: MacMillan Co., 1927), 132.
[8] James Noxon’s account book has been fully transcribed and is available on Randy Saylor’s website.
[9] This anecdote was relayed by Don Howe, found in Paul A. Noxon’s 1985 work, “A History of the Noxon Family.”
[10] Records of Theodore Huntley and Hulda Winn’s marriage can be found in the Yonge St Monthly Meeting Records, 1828-1835 (Orthodox), 16 October 1834; 13 November 1834; 18 December 1834.
[11] This letter was transcribed by Don Howe’s father and reflects the spelling and grammar of the original letter. I have added capitalisations in places for clarity. In the letter, George refers to George Noxon, Isaac and Janet’s youngest son.
[12] Thomas Hamm, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), 121.
[13] Isaac Noxon’s obituary appeared in the Avoca Advocate in 1896.
[14] The preacher in question was likely Isaac Wilson. Wilson, part of the West Lake Meeting, travelled extensively around New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and was in New York in 1896. Many of his trips are detailed in the Friends Intelligencer, a Hicksite journal that ran from 1844 to 1955.
[15] “One Hundred Years Young Today: Many Generations Pay Homage to Mrs. Janet Demorest Noxon,” Herbert Clarence Burleigh Fonds – Family Files – Demorest (i), 50.
This new transcription is two books in one. The first forty-seven pages include removal certificates from 1797 to 1808 and record a number of removals from the Muncy Meeting in Pennsylvania to Pelham Meeting in the Niagara area and the Yonge St Meeting in the Newmarket area.
As well, the minutes detail a number of Friends, including Ellen McCarty and Mercy Ellis, who travelled to Upper Canada in the aftermath of the Orthodox-Hicksite schism.
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.
A photo of the Friends Meeting House, Pennsdale (Muncy), courtesy of the James V. Brown Library.
An exciting new anthology, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690–1830, is coming out this May. Edited by Robynne Rogers Healey, the anthology features articles on Quaker testimonies and practices, Quakerism in community and in the world, and expressions of Quakerism around the Atlantic world. More information on the book can be found on Penn State University Press’ website.
Below is the description from Penn State University Press:
This third installment in the New History of Quakerism series is a comprehensive assessment of transatlantic Quakerism across the long eighteenth century, a period during which Quakers became increasingly sectarian while simultaneously expanding their engagement with politics, trade, industry, and science. The contributors to this volume interrogate and deconstruct this paradox, complicating traditional interpretations of what has been termed “Quietist Quakerism.”
Examining the period following the Toleration Act in England of 1689 through the Hicksite-Orthodox Separation in North America, this work situates Quakers in the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. Three thematic sections—unique Quaker testimonies and practices; tensions between Quakerism in community and Quakerism in the world; and expressions of Quakerism around the Atlantic world—broaden geographic understandings of the Quaker Atlantic world to determine how local events shaped expressions of Quakerism. The authors challenge oversimplified interpretations of Quaker practices and reveal a complex Quaker world, one in which prescription and practice were more often negotiated than dictated, even after the mid-eighteenth-century “reformation” and tightening of the Discipline on both sides of the Atlantic.
Accessible and well-researched, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690-1830, provides fresh insights and raises new questions about an understudied period of Quaker history.
In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Richard C. Allen, Erin Bell, Erica Canela, Elizabeth Cazden, Andrew Fincham, Sydney Harker, Rosalind Johnson, Emma Jones Lapsansky, Jon Mitchell, and Geoffrey Plank.
Since October, the blog has featured two articles about Coldstream from both Donna Moore and Dave Zavitz. We continue this week with an article by Dave Zavitz on Coldstream’s early economic development and the impact of early Quaker families.
Coldstream’s Early Development Dave Zavitz
The early Coldstream area was heavily forested with the Bear Creek (Sydenham River) running through it. The area was traditional hunting grounds for the Anishinaabe. In later years, arrowheads and other artifacts were found by settlers. John Edward Bycraft collected, labelled, and displayed these items, detailing when and where they were found. His display was later donated to Museum London and now resides at the Museum of Ontario Archeology on Wonderland Road.
The area was surveyed in 1819–20 from the Thames River in the south, north to Fernhill Road, Vanneck Road to the east, and Amiens Road to the west. It was laid out in long one hundred-acre parcels south to north and numbered from the south. Lots were numbered from Amiens Road to Vanneck Road.
Family history says that Jonas and Jesse Zavitz were already here with cabins on the eleventh concession (Charlton Drive) but may have come right after the survey. They appear in the earlier census holding the land between Poplar Hill Road and Coldstream Road. Around 1832–33, their Uncle, Benjamin Cutler, came to visit as he had heard of inexpensive land for sale and was looking for better land for his large family. He had amassed considerable holdings by purchasing from others unable to afford their property in Bertie and Humberstone Townships.
Benjamin Cutler’s Mill
Benjamin Cutler was an enterprising person and a staunch Quaker. Land in Lobo was selling for $1–3 per acre. He saw Bear Creek (Sydenham River) as a good location for a mill, and there was lots of materials to work with nearby. Returning to Bertie Township, he sold up all his property and in 1837, at age sixty, moved his family to Lobo Township after purchasing two hundred acres on the Coldstream Road. He decided to build a mill at Bear Creek on the Coldstream Road. Being a staunch Quaker, it was a dry barn raising. People complained but came to help as they needed a local supply of lumber. In 1839, Cutler extended the mill over the river adding a grist and flour mill. It turned out that the mill was on the road allowance but by that time it was abandoned and in collapsed in 1905.
Cutler was also socially minded and took a keen interest in local politics. He was elected Reeve of the township for several terms. In the early years, he advertised to his family and connections about the good land to be had in Lobo. In 1838, his brother-in-law, John Moor Marsh purchased 450 acres west of the Coldstream Road and moved his family to Lobo Township. John also built a dam and sawmill down river from Benjamin. He built a furniture factory on a creek on the north side of the river near his log home. He was followed by Daniel Zavitz in 1843, who purchased a one hundred-acre lot west of John’s. Benjamin and John built identical houses on a plan they saw in London, Ontario.
Daniel and Susan Zavitz
These were all Quaker families, and they met for worship in either the furniture factory or Benjamin’s or Daniel’s homes. As the community began to grow there was less space for worship, so in 1849, they applied for meeting approval and a log structure was built on land donated by Benjamin Cutler and John Marsh. Later, Daniel’s daughter Caroline donated one half acre to this property. They soon outgrew this building and in 1859, a brick building was constructed with bricks from the Rutherford Brick Yard in Poplar Hill. It has remained much the same and is still in use today.
In 1848, John Wood purchased fifteen acres from Benjamin Cutler at the corner of Coldstream Road and Ilderton Road. He built a home there, containing a store. After his death, his wife and daughter Louisa continued to run the store. When Louisa married Jacob Marsh (son of John), Jacob took over running the store. When Louisa’s mother died in 1869, Jacob decided to move the house to the site of the Marsh Mills so he would be closer to work as he had taken over running the business from his father. The two-storey house was moved down the concession to its present location and a two-storey store was added to the west side. This soon became the centre of activity and the village grew around it instead of its original location at the corner of Coldstream Road and Ilderton Road. Over time, the other buildings at the corner were torn down or moved as they also were on the road allowance.
Coldstream Blacksmith Shop
Coldstream became a busy village. Jacob Marsh’s store housed the first telegraph, first telephone system in Lobo, the Mechanics Institute (library), Post Office, Lobo Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and office store and mills. T. McNeill opened a blacksmith shop beside the Mill Pond on the Ilderton Road. He later sold it to Samuel Clare in 1877 who ran it until his death upon which it was taken over by his son John R. Clare. It was later torn down so a grandson could build a store/gas station. This site is now the woodworking shop of Jack Webb.
Samuel and Annie (Cutler) Brown
Gravel played a large part in the development of the community. Lots of gravel was found under the shallow topsoil. Part of obtaining land was to build a road in front of each property and to assist with township road building. Each year, farmers drew gravel to build roads or to maintain them. The Cutler pit was used to draw gravel for the building of Highway #22 (Egremont Road) and the early Brown Tile Company. The tile company was before its time and was discontinued. The house, named Bell Fern, was built in 1864 by David Cutler (Benjamin’s son) and his wife Caroline Zavitz. Upon David’s early death, the house was sold to John McPherson. Samuel Brown and Annie Cutler purchased it in 1908 upon the death of John McPherson. In 1919, their son Pearson Brown purchased a blacksmith shop in Poplar Hill and moved it to the Brown farm and started a concert tile business. It also did not flourish and so he turned it over to his brothers, Howard and Chester, who ran it briefly before closing. In 1945, after WWII, Chester and his wife Florence came back to his parent’s home and started Chester Brown Concrete Products. This business was later taken over by their sons Ronald and Robert. It has undergone updates, modernization and several expansions. Today it is a flourishing business directed by Robert and managed by his daughter Amy.
Today most of the early businesses have vanished but still remains a growing community. The Cutler, Marsh, and Zavitz families have left their mark on this area and have descendants still residing in the township.
While Friends globally hold differing views on the holiday season, early Quakers did not mark Christmas as a day different from any other. In his book, Christmastime in Pennsylvania, Don Yoder argues that while Quakers were against Christmas celebrations, some Quakers in mid-nineteenth century Pennsylvania “succumbed to a modified attention to Christmas at least as a family festival.”[1] For a humorous look at what early Quakers did on Christmas, below is a post by Rob Pierson, originally posted in Quaker Life in December 2011, copied here with the author’s permission.
For a modern discussion on Quaker and the holiday season, QuakerSpeak, a member-supported project of Friends Publishing, recently published interviews of Friends and historians discussing their views on Christmas, titled “Do Quakers Celebrate Christmas?”
[1] Don Yoder, “The Folk-Cultural Background,” in Christmas in Pennsylvania, ed. Alfred L. Shoemaker and Don Yoder (Lanham, MD: Globe Pequot, 1999), 9.
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Early Quaker Top 10 Ways to Celebrate (or Not) “the Day Called Christmas”
By Rob Pierson
Until they got mushy and liberal in the last century, Quakers didn’t celebrate Christmas at all. In fact, celebrating “the day called Christmas” was a good way for a Friend to get him/herself dragged (figuratively) before the monthly meeting and asked for an explanation of such worldly behavior.1
As a member of Mushy Yearly Meeting firmly committed to the Testimony of Holiday Ambiguity, I’ve urged the Committee for Worrying about Change to consider how we might recapture the zeal with which early Friends did not celebrate the holidays. After painstaking research, combing through Friends’ journals and late-night talk shows, the committee has gathered the following “Top 10” surefire ways to recover the true meaning of Christmas — oops! the day called Christmas — in the spirit of early Friends.
Slaughter Hogs. This is how Alice Allen’s Quaker ancestor recorded the day in 1882: “Dec. 25. We killed three hogs. Uncle Austin Gray and Tom Brady helped us. We went to meeting in the evening. Weather pleasant with some snow.”2 New Years Day was equally festive: “Pa and I hauled two loads of wood in the forenoon. Afternoon I fixed my boots. It was snowing all day.” Unfortunately, fewer Friends today slaughter hogs, mend our sneakers or haul our crude oil. So, perhaps, we could spend December 25 grilling some turkey burgers and paying utility bills?
Sell Things. That’s right. ‘Tis the season for blatant capitalist enterprise! If there’s one thing early Friends agreed upon, it was that there’s no better day than December 25 to man the cash registers in defiance of both law and custom. Since Friends saw Christmas as an un-Christian outward ritual foisted upon them, it followed that only godless heathens would close up shop. Celebrate your Quaker heritage by demanding that the local mall reopen bright and early Christmas morning or by marketing your seasonal George Fox Apps and ring tones for download.
Repair Windows. No, not the computer operating system (since it’s still not clear what operating system was preferred by early Friends), but do recall that many Quakers spent December 25 sweeping up broken glass. As George Fox noted in 1689: “We have greatly suffered both imprisonments, and the spoiling of our goods, because we could not observe your holy-days, as you call them, and for opening our shops we have been much assaulted by the rude multitudes.”3 So, if those mass mailing for George Fox Apps and ring-tones you sent on December 25 convince some neighbors that you are an anti-social misfit, you are in good company. Count your blessings for your physical safety but check your Windows™ for any malware.
Accumulate Debt. Yes, sad to say, early Quakers racked up serious holiday charges and fines — legal fines. In some cases, penalties for ignoring Christmas ranked second only to charges for refusing to take up arms. For example, Joseph Borden was fined nearly 7,000 pounds sterling for not bearing arms when riding patrol but another 2,000 pounds for “opening his Shop on Holy-days.”4 Today’s Quakers fear MasterCard™ more than magistrates, but it is important to follow George Fox’s example and pay money where it is due. “When the time called Christmas came,” he writes, “I looked out poor widows from house to house, and gave them some money.”5
Employ Seasonal Workers. Nothing says Quaker Christmas quite like hiring some unemployed seasonal laborers and supervising a major building project. Quakers Herbert Griffith and William Fortescue discovered this strategy in 17th century Barbados:… on the 25th of December, the Day called Christmas-day, Herbert Griffith and William Fortescue, standing to inspect some Workmen employed about the Wall of a Burying-place, were observed by William Goodall, a Justice of the Peace, as he passed by; who in much Anger called to those who were with him, saying, Is there no Constable here? Lay hold on these Rogues …6One suspects the workers were grateful for the Quakers’ Christmas Day graveyard shift, but this strategy propelled Herbert and William straight to Top 10 item number six.
Get Arrested. The Quaker “rogues,” Herbert and William, were arrested, knocked to the ground and dragged away. Constables locked them in stocks, then sent them to jail for four weeks before releasing and promptly re-imprisoning them for six more weeks. A jury trial set Herbert and William free just long enough for the judge to set aside the verdict and throw them back in jail. A second trial, in October, found both men innocent again — since neither had tools in hand at the time of the heinous Christmas wall-building. One suspects that few of us are going to jail for committing Christmas this season. But perhaps there are still some rogue Quakers to be found, laborers to be employed and walls that need building up or tearing down around the world this holiday season.
Avoid Frolic. A young John Woolman complained of being “much troubled” by the behavior of his fellow Americans: “I observed many People from the Country, and Dwellers in Town, who, resorting to Public-Houses, spent their Time in drinking and vain Sports.”7 Luckily Woolman missed the advent of happy hour, ESPN and big-screen TVs. Still, when he visited Blackwater, Virginia, in December 1817, he seemed to find most Friends out at the mall: “there are but few Friends; and it being the time called Christmas, many were preparing for their intended frolick.”8
Go Green. Yes, eco-green. Although there are few signs left of the early Quaker “Reduce, Reuse and Repent” program, Friendly eco-warriors waged a major green campaign against the rampant consumerism of colonial America. Writing in 1656 to those well-known profligate party-animals, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, two Quaker women asked: W hat is the ground, and cause, and reason, that about the time called Christmas, there is so much provided of the creatures, that which people calls good Chear, which abundance is provided against that time, and wasted upon the lust, and destroyed, and this is in most places through the Nation …? 9 Today, good cheer comes pre-packaged, vacuum-packed, year-round, online, in the super-economy size. Please dispose of properly.
Sit and Wait. Okay, this one was predictable. Go to meeting, or hold a meeting where you are. Although both Quakers and Christmas have changed over the years, nine out of 10 Quakers can still find consensus that there’s nothing better than a group of Friends gathered together and breaking spontaneously into silence. Just don’t try taking this door-to-door like caroling.
Celebrate Christ. Well, I know this is pretty radical and controversial, but remember, every day, in Quaker terms, is Christmas Day. It’s not that there’s no Christmas; there’s just a whole lot more of it than most people expect. As one Quaker puts it:T he closer one lives to Christ, who makes all things new, the less proper it seems to treat 364 days as less special than one … Today Christ is born in me, in each of his people and in us all together. The star never leaves the sky, the song of the angels is never stilled.10So, Friends, I hope you enjoy your day in the company of early Friends. The angels are never stilled. Glory to God! Peace on earth! Good news of great joy for all the people! And on behalf of Mushy Quakers everywhere, I wish you the day called Christmas of your choice.
Mark Dixon, “Re: Quaker Christmas Traditions,” 9 Nov 1998, Quaker-Roots-L Archives, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ QUAKER-ROOTS/1998-11/0910646229.
Alice Allen, “Re: Quaker Christmas Traditions,” 11 Nov 1998, Quaker-Roots-L Archives, http://archiver.roots web.ancestry.com/th/read/QUAKER-ROOTS/1998-11/0910848525.
George Fox, “Inward AndSpiritual Warfare, And The False Pretence Of It. And A Distinction Between The True Liberty And The False,” 1689, inWorks of George Fox, Vol. 6, 1831.
Joseph Besse,Collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers, Vol. 2, 1753, Ch. VI. Barbadoes.
George Fox,Journal Or Historical Account Of The Life,Travels, Sufferings, Of George Fox, 1694.
Joseph Besse,Collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers, Vol. 2, 1753, Ch. VI. Barbadoes.
John Woolman,Journal of John Woolman, 1774.
William Williams,Journal of the life, travels, and gospellabours of William Williams, 1828.
Margaret Killam and Barbara Patison,Warning from the Lord to the teachers and people of Plymouth, 1656.
Paul Thompson, “Friends’ Christmas Experiences Part 1,” http://www.quakerinfo.com/quakxmls1.shtml, includes paraphrase of Howard Thurman’s “The Work of Christmas.”
For many of us in Canada and around the world, this holiday season will look a little different from past years. As we prepare to celebrate apart from our loved ones and many of our traditions are put on hold, we look forward to Christmases in the future where we can again gather safely.
Many of the early Quakers in Canada also faced challenging Christmas seasons. Bad weather, illness, and long distances kept families and friends apart. A glimpse into some of these challenges can be found in the letters and diaries of Deborah Mullet (1804 – 1892). Deborah emigrated from England to Canada in 1821 with her family when she was seventeen years old. Her family settled first in Adolphustown and later Amherst Island. In her article on the Mullet family and the Quaker Atlantic, Robynne Rogers Healey discusses Deborah’s initial struggles to adjust to her new life in Upper Canada and her desire to return home.[1] After four years of living in Canada, Deborah wrote to her grandmother in Bristol about their Christmas. The Mullett family had hosted two young men from Ireland at their table and Deborah stated they enjoyed “two of the fattest geese I have ever seen and a fine large piece of roast beef.”[2] While Deborah wrote to her grandmother that she was thankful for the health of her family that winter, she spoke of how she missed the society she used to keep and their former meeting in Bristol.
Deborah eventually settled into life in Canada. Her first marriage to Consider Haight gave the couple six children before his death in 1838. Twelve years later, Deborah married Vincent Bowerman at the age of forty-eight. Both Vincent and Deborah were active members of the West Lake Preparative Meeting (Orthodox). Deborah continued to write throughout her life. Though her diary entries are considerably shorter than her letters, they offer important details about her life. Christmas in 1875 brought “thunder and lightening with rain, no sleighing,” though Deborah writes her grandchildren were delighted with their presents.[3] Three years later, she recorded the weather on Christmas day as stormy, with the surrounding roads blocked due to the storm. Christmas 1888 was a quiet affair. At the age of eighty-four, Deborah wrote that her and her daughter Lydia spent the day alone, writing: “not a very pleasant day, hope it may be better next time.” However, her and Lydia did enjoy a large goose for dinner, and days later received cards from her family in England. Though it was a solitary affair, Deborah made note of both life’s misfortunes but also of life’s little joys.
In a year filled with uncertainty, may we find joy in better days ahead. In light of a busy (and mostly online) end of year, Robynne and I will be taking a short break from the blog this December, but we look forward to coming back in the new year. We wish you a safe and peaceful holiday season. May the roads be clear and the weather bright!
[1] Robynne Rogers Healey, “ ‘I am Getting a Considerable of a Canadian they Tell Me’: Connected Understandings in the Nineteenth-Century Quaker Atlantic,” Quaker Studies 15 (2011): 233.
[2] This quote comes from Deborah Mullet’s letter to her grandmother on 21 January 1825, the sixth letter in the “William Mullet Family Letters, Canada-England, 1821-1830,” transcribed by Thomas Sylvester and available in the Canadian Quaker History Journal 63 (1998): 27-40.
[3] Deborah Mullet’s diaries (#1, 1874 – 1882; #2, 1887 – 1892) are at the Prince Edward County Archives. They were transcribed by Lydia Wytenbroek in 2008 and are available on Randy Saylor’s website.
Coldstream Meeting House in the fall. Photos by Donna Moore.
Peaceful. If I had one word to describe the setting of the Coldstream Meeting House, it would be peaceful. Coldstream is a small village about twenty-five minutes west of London. The Meeting House, on Quaker Lane, is beside a conservation area and the Quaker burying ground. The setting is very picturesque.
On a table inside the meetinghouse, you’ll find a flyer about Quakers and the Coldstream Meeting specifically. It tells the reader that the first settlers, John Harris, Benjamin Cutler, John Marsh, and Daniel Zavitz, hosted Meetings at their homes until 1850. At this time, land was donated on which a burying ground was established and a frame building erected to serve as a Meeting House. By 1859, this frame building was inadequate to accommodate the growing families and it was replaced by the present brick building. The building was well constructed and has been lovingly maintained.
More history about the Coldstream Meeting can be found in several places. If you look up the minute book transcriptions on our own CFHA website (https://cfha.info/LoboH-3-1.pdf), you will find this historical overview:
“The township was settled around 1834 in part by Quakers from the Pelham area and directly from Pennsylvania. In 1849 the growing Quaker community was granted indulged status by Norwich Monthly Meeting. In 1857 the meeting became a Preparative Meeting under Norwich Monthly Meeting and this minute book starts at that time. Arthur Dorland in his A History of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada, 1927 & 1968, states that Lobo Meeting became one of the most progressive centres of the Hicksite Branch of Friends in Canada [172]. In 1893, since Lobo was the most active meeting within the Monthly Meeting it was decided that the name of Norwich Monthly Meeting should be changed to Lobo Monthly Meeting [Dorland, 172]. According to Jane Zavitz Bond, in the 1980’s Lobo Monthly Meeting became Coldstream Monthly Meeting and Yarmouth was set off as Yarmouth Monthly Meeting at Sparta.”
Dorland describes the early beginnings: “The first settlers in Lobo Township literally had to hew their homes out of the forest, as this district was extremely heavily wooded. Daniel Zavitz, for example, who came to Lobo in 1843, purchased one hundred acres of land at four dollars an acre on which not a tree had been cut. During the first year he managed to clear seven acres, which he sowed with wheat, only to have his promised crop caught by the late frost and ruined.”
Dorland references an essay written by Edgar M. Zavitz, the son of Daniel Zavitz mentioned above: “The Society of Friends in Lobo Township” which can be found online at: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.84652/1?r=0&s=1
It includes more about his father’s experience settling the land, and also a recounting of how Daniel “went back (to New York) to get a companion.” Edgar also discusses such topics as temperance and the relationship with the local First Nations. It is so clear that Edgar had a deep appreciation for the Quaker legacy in the Lobo/Coldstream area.
I hope I’ve given you an introduction to the Coldstream Meeting. In a future blog, I’ll share some highlights from the delightful interview I had with Marilyn Thomas, a birthright Quaker. Marilyn highlighted some of the distinctive contributions of the Coldstream Quakers. I’ll also include details about the architecture of the meeting house and the cemetery.
In this month’s Founders and Builders Series, we introduce you to an influential Friend and early contributor to the CFHA. Our fourth essay features Fred Haslam and is written by Dorothy Trimble. Dorothy passed in 2014 at the age of 91 but remembers the life of Fred Haslam here in her 2012 essay written for the 40th anniversary of the CFHA.
Remembering Fred Haslam 1897-1979
By Dorothy Trimble
Fred was a vital part of the Toronto Meeting where my family found its spiritual home. We first started attending Meetings for Worship at the end of 1957. Fred had retired the year before from the Canadian Friends Service Committee, and he and his wife Maud were living at Inglewood in the Caledon Hills, about equidistant to the Meetings of Toronto, Newmarket, Hamilton, and Kitchener. They had hoped that it would be of help to Quarterly Meetings, but sadly, Maud died of cancer in 1958. Unable to maintain the home alone, Fred moved to an apartment in Toronto.
I remember Fred as reserved and quiet-spoken, but I soon came to appreciate the depth of thought and wealth of experience behind his well-chosen words. It took me longer to realize how many ways his life spoke of Christian faith.
Fred Haslam’s early years were spent at the Providence School in Middleton, Lancashire, run by the Providence Congregational Chapel where the family attended two services and two Sunday School classes each week. Fred left school right after his thirteenth birthday and took a job at a cotton mill to support his family. He continued his education at night school and read extensively.
Fred first came in contact with the Society of Friends in 1917 during the First World War. After spending three months in detention for refusing to take any part in combat, he was assigned to the Work Centre at Wakefield. One of the men at the centre invited him to go to the Adult School held at the Friends Meeting House. He also started to attend morning and evening meetings there, and to study Quaker literature.
After the war, Fred worked for Friends’ Emergency and War Victims Relief Committee, which was concerned with the repatriation of German citizens who had been interned during the war. Fred also volunteered for service overseas and joined the Friends Relief Mission in Vienna where he was in charge of the twenty-one food depots. While there he was also instrumental in persuading the government to improve conditions for prisoners, many of whom had been incarcerated for stealing food for their families.
In June 1921, Fred heard from his family, who had emigrated earlier, that his father had had an accident that ended his work as a carpenter. Fred came to Canada the next month. By the next year, he was not only helping his family but also serving Toronto Meeting as its treasurer.
One of the letters of introduction that Fred carried to Canada was to Albert S. Rogers. This was the beginning of a deep friendship and collaboration that lasted until Albert’s death in 1932. One of the projects they worked on was the Boys and Girls Clubs, held at Toronto Meeting on Maitland Street, where a bowling alley was installed in the basement for the purpose. Fred directed the Boys Club for many years. In 1930 Albert offered to purchase a property to provide a summer vacation for the children in the clubs and Fred helped find a suitable ten-acre property on Sturgeon Bay. In 1940 Fred purchased the adjacent property to the camp to increase its size. His vision of Camp NeeKauNis as a place for communal education and recreation helped to bring together the three separate yearly meetings in Canada in 1955.
When Albert’s son, Ted, developed “Rogers Batteryless” and started a radio tube company in 1924, Fred was appointed the secretary-treasurer. He resigned in 1940, when, a year after Ted’s death, the products were in demand for war purposes.
Fred served as the treasurer and general secretary of the Canadian Friends Service Committee from its beginnings in 1931 through 1956. During World War II, drawing on his own experiences as a conscientious objector (CO), he was able to counsel and assist COs in Canada. His 1940 letter to the Prime Minister resulted in expanded opportunities for meaningful alternative service, including conservation, road maintenance, social service work, and participation in post-war rehabilitation. He was later instrumental in Canada’s recognition of work in the British Friends Ambulance Unit as a form of alternative service, and he helped organize the first group of twenty Canadians to serve in China. His work included assisting Japanese-Canadian evacuees from the west coast who had moved to Toronto, and providing post World War II relief.
Ellen Johnson, whose parents Margaret and Reg Smith served as Resident Friends, remembers Fred Haslam as “like a grandfather to me. I was born in 1952 and have a sense that he was always around. In fact, a major snowstorm blew across Toronto on the day I was born. Dad was at school and couldn’t get home fast enough, so Fred drove mom to the Women’s College Hospital. It was Fred who taught me my colours sitting at the window of the library and watching the world go by. One day he came to my mom’s rescue when she discovered that I was sitting on the window ledge of what is now the daycare with my legs dangling outside. Fred went outside ready to catch me if I startled when mom approached me from behind.”
When I was serving as Superintendent of the First Day School, Fred would sometimes speak to the older class. One day after Meeting, I was mulling over something related to the First Day School and realized that I needed to speak to Fred. He had already left Friends House, so I dashed out the front door and down Bedford Road, managing to reach him before he stepped on the streetcar. But I was huffing and puffing so much I couldn’t speak. Fred reached out and gave me a big steadying hug, enabling me to catch my breath and relate what was on my mind.
Fred’s compassionate hug is a symbol for me of the many ways that Fred reached out to help those in need. His many efforts included frequent visits to the Toronto Jail, work with the John Howard and Elizabeth Fry Societies, work with the Canadian Council of Churches to abolish capital punishment, and support of relief work and projects of the Right Sharing of Resources, UNESCO, and the Friends Service Council of British Friends. Fred maintained that properly caring for the people of the world is essential for peace.
Fred also reached out to coordinate efforts of a wider circle, serving as full-time treasurer and general secretary for Canadian Yearly Meeting from 1960-1972, representing Friends on the Canadian Council of Churches, and representing Canadian Friends on the board of Friends United Meeting and on the World Committee for Consultation. Through example, he answered the question he posed: “Why try to do the job with a teaspoon when by cooperation you can use a bulldozer?”
Photo of (from left) Fred Haslam, Ralph Eames, and Murray Thompson at the Toronto Meeting, 1963. Photo by Barry Philp, 1963, Baldwin Collection, Toronto Star Archives, courtesy of the Toronto Reference Library.
I am especially grateful for Fred’s selfless service to Toronto Meeting. I have been told that he could be uncompromising at times, but I think we all knew that we were near and dear to him, and he took a real interest in our activities. During the three years that Bill and I spent in Lesotho, Africa, he sent three letters, expressing appreciation for Bill’s Letters from Lesotho book, and for his work in education. He took a special interest in my work with Canadian Save the Children Fund because of his long connection with the organization (which earned him the Canada Medal in 1977).
A letter written in January 1976 included a note on his health:
For me 1975 was a hard year with the discovery of cancer and operations on both eyes. However, the doctors involved agree that progress is being made, and the cancer doctor at Princess Margaret Hospital has now suggested that I take a trip to San Carlos near San Francisco. I had no idea that I would be able to take such a trip at this stage, but the medical people, including personal friends in the meeting, are all encouraging the idea. It has now taken hold of me and I hope to go for a month on February 5th. My sister and all my other immediate relatives are in San Carlos, I am all excited and hope it will be useful in keeping me to a more normal life.
Back in Canada, not long before Fred died in 1979, I visited him at the Salvation Army’s Grace Hospital in Toronto. He was very weak but enjoyed singing some of the hymns of his favourite poet, John Greenleaf Whittier.
Resources:
Dorland, Arthur. The Quakers in Canada, A History. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1968.
Haslam, Fred. A Record of Experience with Canadian Friends (Quakers) and the Canadian Ecumenical Movement 1921 – 1967. Woodbrooke College, Birmingham, England, 1970.
Muma, Dorothy. “Fred Haslam (1897-1979): “Mr. Canadian Friend” – A Personal View.” Canadian Quaker History Journal 66 (2001): 23 – 34.
Toronto Monthly Meeting of the Religions Society of Friends. “A Testimony to the Grace of God in the Life of Fred Haslam.” March 1980.
Zavitz-Bond, Jane. “CFSC Records.” The Canadian Friend 107, no. 2 (2011): 40.
More history about the Coldstream Meeting can be found in several places. If you look up the minute book transcriptions on our own CFHA website (
It includes more about his father’s experience settling the land, and also a recounting of how Daniel “went back (to New York) to get a companion.” Edgar also discusses such topics as temperance and the relationship with the local First Nations. It is so clear that Edgar had a deep appreciation for the Quaker legacy in the Lobo/Coldstream area.
