William Lyon Mackenzie and the 1837 Churchville Affray

On Tuesday, August 15th, 1837, the second floor of Orange Church’s gristmill was completely packed with excited people. They were there to see two rivals speak about their vision for the political future of Upper Canada. The enormous new building had served as a sort of town hall for the village since it was rebuilt and expanded in 1833; also hosting services for the many Episcopal Methodists in the area. But this crowd was much bigger - almost 500, as several attendees later attested. This crowd consisted of locals, plus a number of French Canadian lumbermen who had been working at clearing Ostrander’s farm, a group of Scots from Scotch Block, which is north of Milton on Highway 25, and about seven Orange Lodges. 

         A stage was set up at one end of the room, and Col. Edward Thomson, now MP for York County’s 2nd Riding, had just finished speaking to a relatively reserved crowd. Thomson had recently ousted William Lyon Mackenzie from office in a hotly contested election, and everyone was keen to see what their former MP had to say. The people of Churchville liked Mackenzie, and the general belief among Reformers was that the government had unfairly influenced the election, leading to Mackenzie’s first ever loss.

         Churchville and its surrounding area, being largely populated by "Late Loyalist" American settlers, including Episcopal Methodists and a significant community of converts to the new Mormon religion, was full of Reformers. These groups were all feeling increasingly marginalized in Upper Canadian society, as the government had recently passed bills seeking to maintain the British culture of the colony. Orange Church himself was an outspoken Reformer, as was his well-known brother-in-law Dr. Thomas Stoyell, who had recently left Toronto for the village out of concern for his welfare. Orange’s Aunt, Mary Hyde, had hosted several Reform meetings at her hotel just down the river in Streetsville earlier that year, including a locally infamous one that Mackenzie attended. Something similar, but on a much larger and more violent scale, was about to happen now in Church’s Mill, on the banks of the Credit in Churchville. 

          Mackenzie and his team of Reformers were touring the colony that summer, and they had had some time to practice and hone their message. When Samuel Lount, a well-known blacksmith and farmer from north of Toronto, spoke, the audience listened intently. His sister, Jane, lived in the village with her husband James Pearson, and he had a legitimizing connection to the community. Like Mackenzie, he maintained that he was loyal to the Crown, but emphasized that the current system of government in Upper Canada needed to be reformed in order to be truly democratic. A small group of wealthy, Anglican families, nicknamed the Family Compact by Mackenzie, controlled the government in Toronto and were preventing progress. Mackenzie himself was an impassioned, captivating and talented speaker. There is no record of what was said that night, though at some point around this time, a wagon arrived outside the gristmill, driven by two women, its cargo concealed under blankets. 

          A shower of rotten eggs began to rain down on the speakers. The Townline Blazers, a brutal gang of Loyalist Irish farmers and woodsmen, mostly Orangemen, who lived near where Winston Churchill and Britannia are now, attacked the unarmed Reformers. They numbered about fifty men. The blankets were thrown off of the waiting wagon outside, revealing a load of hickory shillelaghs, which had been prepared the night before during a planning meeting at leader Harry Cole’s home. The crowd, trapped in the mill, quickly devolved into a donnybrook. Thomson pleaded with the thugs to stop, but was cowed into submission when he was threatened with a club. The Townline Blazers set a man outside the backdoor to the mill with instructions to attack all fleeing Reformers and force them into the water. It was said afterward that he accidentally attacked eight of his own men with his cudgel, as well as seven Reformers. 

           Witnesses later recalled a gunshot ringing out in the room, leading many to assume that this was a plot hatched by the Tories to assassinate Mackenzie. The attackers screamed “No surrender!” and “Down with him!” as they climbed the stage and surrounded Mackenzie with their clubs. John Stewart, a large Scot who had traveled to the meeting with others from the Scotch Block north of Milton, came to his defence and managed to get Mackenzie off the stage uninjured. One of the quick-witted Reformers created confusion by yelling that Mackenzie was out by the front, which allowed his supporters to safely escort him away from the gristmill. It is said that, as Mackenzie escaped across the river (likely on one of the bridges that stood next to the mill at the time, not where our current bridge is located), another man from Scotch Block, Big Jim Macpherson, covered his retreat by hurling stones at the attackers from the banks of the Credit.

            Mackenzie himself later identified three of the men who chased him as David Orr, Peter Cook and George Sparling. Sparling was Master of a local Orange Lodge at the time. 

        The event was often referred to afterward as the Churchville Affray, and it marked a significant shift in the tone of the Reform Movement. Prior to this, Mackenzie had advocated for a peaceful political change, and had insisted that his followers not bring any sorts of weapons to his rallies. Afterward he seemed to encourage his followers to be prepared for violence at any time. He described his attackers as being “more like devils than human beings” and claimed that he was saved by a “great body of defenseless Reformers”. 

        There is no proof that Mackenzie ever returned to Churchville, though a (rather dubious) story exists that he did stop in the village while later fleeing for his life, and gave a rousing speech in front of Fogarty’s Store. He did, however, write about Churchville in his paper, the Constitution, that November. The satirical article features an imaginary discussion about Reform between himself, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and William Pitt and others. It is set in the “Long Room” at Churchville’s Royal Oak Hotel.