Blog

Bear with us!

The CFHA is in the process of updating its website and developing a separate digital archives platform to host all of our publications and transcriptions. During this time you may experience issues with loading and accessing our website. Please contact our executive directly if you have any urgent needs, such as for specific requests for publications or transcripts. A reminder that our AGM this September will be in-person at Coldstream, with Zoom for remote attendees: https://cfha.info/staging/2025/07/cfha-annual-general-meeting-and-visit-to-coldstream-friends/  Any questions please contact Eve Schmitz-Hertzberg — [email protected]. Please Read more

By CFHA, ago

CFHA Annual General Meeting and Visit to Coldstream Friends

Canadian Friends Historical Association Annual General Meeting and Visit to Coldstream Friends Saturday September 27, 2025 Join us for our 2025 AGM! The meeting will be in person with a Zoom link (to follow) for those who cannot be at the AGM. 10:30 arrival Coldstream meeting house 11:00 Annual General Meeting 12:30 catered lunch (by donation) 1:30 Tour of Coldstream meeting house 1859 and burial ground with a talk about the history of the monthly meeting. Coldstream (Lobo) was established 1857 as a preparative meeting Read more

By CFHA, ago

Reminder! Renew Membership Before the AGM

The CFHA Annual General Meeting will be held in Coldstream Friends meeting house in Coldstream, Ontario, on Saturday, September 27th.  A reminder to please renew your CFHA membership before the meeting, as only current members may vote on an AGM resolution. All registration information can be found here, including online membership renewal. CFHA is planning an in person and hybrid meeting this year. There will be lunch served and afterwards presentations of Canadian Quaker historical interest. More information to follow in the coming weeks.  

By CFHA, ago

Canadian Friends Historical Association News

The Canadian Friends Historical Association (CFHA) works to preserve and communicate the on-going history and faith of Friends (Quakers) in Canada and their contribution to the Canadian Experience. CFHA has been in existence since 1972. Over the years it has been very active holding gatherings and soliciting papers for the CFHA Newsletter and Journal. It is not only Friends and not only academics that have been involved with CFHA. Enthusiasts of Quaker history, often non-Quakers are the backbone of the association. People who discover that Read more

By CFHA, ago

Friendly Friday – George Fox Journal Discussion Group

Interested in exploring and reflecting on the source document of Quakerism? In Friendly Friday, our participants reflect an eclectic group of voices, opinions and viewpoints. We gather to read aloud, spiritually contemplate and reflect on George Fox’s Journal, respecting that of God in every one, including different viewpoints and experiences, to learn and grow from one another. We have found that a deep and prayerful listening to Fox read aloud tends to flow naturally into personal insight and comment that has much in common with Read more

By CFHA, ago

“From Wartime Refuge to Peaceful Hippie Haven”: Chapter by Dr. Tarah Brookfield

CFHA is thrilled to share a chapter on Grindstone Island by historian Dr. Tarah Brookfield. Brookfield’s chapter, “From Wartime Refuge to Peaceful Hippie Haven: Generations of Youth on Grindstone Island,” is featured in the newly-released anthology Small Stories of War: Children, Youth, and Conflict in Canada and Beyond, edited by Kristine Alexander, Andrew Burtch, and Barbara Lorenzkowski (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) p 167-185. This chapter is reprinted below with permission from McGill-Queen’s University Press. Tarah Brookfield is an associate professor of history and youth and Read more

By CFHA, ago

Extracts from the CFHA Chair’s Message to CFHA Membership

Extracts from the CFHA Chair’s Message to CFHA membership and friends at the CFHA AGM September 14, 2024: On November 16, 2023 the remaining members of the CFHA executive met via Zoom*. Because Elaine Bishop, interim chair, had stepped down at the 2023 AGM there was no one acting as chair. Eve Schmitz-Hertzberg offered to take on the role until the 2024 AGM. At the 2024 AGM the current Executive volunteered and has been accepted to continue until the 2025 AGM. As chair I have Read more

By CFHA, ago

“Spiritual Life” by Charles Zavitz

From the estate of Gordon Thompson, we have received a large volume of papers relating to his work with the CFHA and his personal search for meaning in Quaker principles and thought. While the archiving of these papers is ongoing, we have also acquired a few non-archival items of interest. In some special cases, we will take books that are small press, old, or otherwise limited in run, ideally local to areas of Canadian Quaker concern, and explicitly on topics of interest to our members Read more

By Allana Mayer, ago

Growing Up Friendly: The Early Life of a Secular Quaker

This guest post is contributed by Christopher K. Starr. Starr was born in Newmarket, Ontario, but has spent the bulk of his adult life in the tropics of Asia and the Caribbean as an entomologist. These are some reminiscences of my early years in an unwavering Quaker family. They are reflections on a way of life that was once a major part of some English-speaking societies but has now largely passed from among us. It was already fading when I was a child. The title Read more

By CFHA, ago

The Solomon Moore Home

For those interested in the Quaker history of Welland, the St. Catharines Standard posted an article by Mark Allenov a few years ago about the home of Solomon Moore and its history as first a farm, later the Welland’s Country Children Center, and eventual purchase by the Welland Historical Society. The Moores were a Quaker family originally from Lancaster Country in Pennsylvania. Jeremiah and Mary Moore were original founding members of Pelham Monthly Meeting in 1799. In 1795, Solomon Moore received Crown grants for three Read more

By CFHA, ago