The Church Family
Before they came to British Colonial America, the Church family lived in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, England. Samuel Church, Jr. (Dec 18, 1737- Feb 25, 1804) and Rhoda Bush (Dec 15, 1741- Dec 30 1819) were both born in Sheffield, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were married on August 6th, 1761, and had their first child, Orpha Church, in 1763, when Samuel was 26 and Rhoda was 20. In all, they had twelve children: Orpha, Amaziah, Ephraim, Sarah, Lucina, Olive, Rhoda Ann, Hulda, Daniel, John, Mary and Lucy. The 1790 Census lists the family in Milton, Vermont, with two “Free White Males” over 16 years old (Samuel and Amaziah), one “Free White Male” under 16 (Ephraim) and six Free White Females (likely Rhoda, Sarah, Lucina, Olive, Huldah, and Mary (“Polly”)). You can read an explanation of the terminology used in the 1790 US Census here.
Samuel may have owned the first paper mill in Sheffield, in an area called South Lee. Samuel served as a Private in the militia in the Revolutionary War, alongside his 15 year old son Amaziah and Ephraim Blackman, whose son eventually married Samuel’s first daughter Orphia. They all served in Lemual Hyde’s Company of Militia, in Col. Webster’s Regiment. Lemuel Hyde’s son Heman eventually married Samuel’s daughter Mary (AKA Polly), and they migrated to Streetsville Ontario, where they became wealthy running the first hotel, along with a significant mill, in the community. Heman and Mary’s property in Streetsville was located at the corner of Mississauga Road and Ontario Street. It was eventually known as Ontario House and Ontario Mills. Later in life, Mary was known afectionately in the Streetsville community as Mother Hyde.
During the War for Independence Samuel and Rhody moved their family from Sheffield Massachusetts to Milton, in the new territory / state of Vermont. This new home on Lake Champlain was only a short journey south of the Lower Canadian border, and it seems that around 1796, several of Samuel and Rhody’s offspring migrated north to seek their fortunes in the vicinity of Hawkesbury, LaChute, St. Andre de Argentuile and Carillon, Lower Canada. Amaziah and his brother-in-law, Dr. Abner (or Aner) Matthews, under the leadership of Colonel William Fortune, swore an oath of allegiance to the Queen in 1798 along with a group of American immigrants, and received a grant of 200 acres in Hawkesbury (on the south side of the Ottawa River).
Many aspects of Amaziah’s story are still shrouded in mystery. He lived in and around the Ottawa River for about fifteen years, and all five of his children were born by the time that he left Hawkesbury. He is next noted as squatting on the flats of the Credit River, operating a rudimentary saw mill in the near wilderness. His wife, Azubah (Azubiah, Zubah), died in (or around) 1815, which begs the question of why he would subject the family to such an experience. One theory is that he moved out to settle in the wilderness because of the predominant anti-American (and corresponding anti-Episcopalian Methodist) sentiment that was commonly directed at Late Loyalists in the early 19th Century. There is no record of him arriving in Port Credit, where he must have set out along ancient indigenous trails north along the banks of the river. The stories of he and his sons forging a path up the Credit while dragging their millstones until he reached the flats feel like the stuff of colonial-era legends. While the area between Port Credit and Churchville was a near-impenetrable ancient forest, the paths north were long-established and he would have likely passed several indigenous settlement sites along the way. You can see where the mills & distillery were located in the image at the right. The curve in Churchville Road is Raines' Hill.
The New Survey was conducted by Timothy Street & Richard Bristol in 1819, and the straight course of Third Line was diverted to bypass Church’s Mill on the Eastern flats of the Credit. The surveying team was noted as having camped near where the mills would have been, though there is no record of who owned those mills, nor a description of them. The earliest specific reference to Church’s Mills happened in 1822, when Timothy Street, in his testimony to the government’s Select Committee on Dams, mentions that Amaziah’s Church’s mills had been established “four or five” years before. If accurate, that would have made them the oldest on the Credit River in the New Survey. In the map to the right, you can see that the path of 3rd Line road allowance would have travelled straight up the river if it had not been diverted East, across the bridge, then North on Main Street (Churchville Road, then back West again on Mill Road below the hill, across a bridge and through the flats to Baseline (Steeles Avenue). With the opening of the Lower Road (Creditview Road West of the village), this convoluted route north, right through the flood plain, was no longer necessary. We still see the long-term impact of this plan in the 21st Century, as Creditview Road still has a jog to the East at Steeles Avenue, where the Northern road is still in line with where the South originally was.
The Crown granted the northern section of what would become Churchville to Mr. Andrew Scott, a member of the Beatty / Beattie Group of Wesleyan Methodist settlers. You can see a copy of his original grant in the image to the left. It is interesting to speculate on what the relationship between Scott and Church would have been like, though it is likely that finding a portion of his land already cleared, with a mill already established, would have significantly helped Scott fulfill his obligations as a grantee. Perhaps the shared devotion to Methodism helped them find common ground. However it worked, this arrangement lasted for a while, and the land began to switch hands until it was eventually purchased by Dr. Thomas Stoyell and his new wife Rhody Church Matthews Stoyell (Amaziah’s younger sister) on February 12th, 1831. Dr. Stoyell was a widower and brewery / hotel owner in York who had recently married Rhody after her first husband, Dr. Aner Mathews, had died. This allowed for a more legitimate claim to the land that the mills were situated on.
Amaziah Church died that year on September 7th at 66 years of age. The cause of death is unknown. His memorial states that “friends and physicians could not save my mortal body from the grave”, which could seem to imply that he died unexpectedly, though this could have simply been a common saying at that time. Regardless, his son Orange took over the running of Church’s Mills, along with his wife Susan (nee Ferrand). They had previously operated the first inn in the village - possibly either 7767 Churchville Road or 7825 Churchville Rd; the former (depicted in the image to the right) was close to the mills and across from Erastus Wiman’s first general store at 7772 Churchville Rd, which makes it a likely candidate; though the latter stood at the original end of Millpond Road, which was built to lead directly down to the mills and distillery.
Like his aunt Mary and Uncle Heman Hyde downriver in Streetsville, Orange was very connected to the Reform movement, and in the summer of 1836 he invited William Lyon Mackenzie to speak before a political rally on the second floor of Church’s Mills. A famous riot broke out that night as the meeting was crashed by local armed Orangemen and Torys, leading to Mackenzie’s flight across the river to safety. A similar incident took place at Hyde’s Mill and hotel in Streetsville that summer.
Church’s Mills closed permanently in 1864, and the ultimate fate of the buildings - even the home in the village the Church family actually occupied - is unknown. The creation of the Lower Road (the western branch of Creditview Road that turns off from the South side of the bridge) in 1836 meant that traffic no longer passed the mill while entering and exiting the village from the North. By the time that the Credit River was realigned by the Credit Valley Conservation Authority post-Hurricane Hazel, any remaining signs of the existence of the mills and distillery were long buried under the flats. In the 1980s, access to the former Mill Street, which lead from the bottom of Raines Hill West, to the site of the Mill and distillery, was closed off by construction of the flood berm.
Interestingly, the last record of Amaziah Church before his death listed him as working at an inn in Market Square, near St. Lawrence Market in Toronto (assuming that this was the same individual). This may have been Milligan’s Hotel or Johnson House, both of which faced the Market. Milligan’s is still standing in 2023, and is now known as the Armory Hotel. It is admittedly difficult to imagine how the 64 year-old Amaziah might have ended up working in the heart of the city after sacrificing so much to see the establishment of the community named in his honour.
Many members of the Church family (particularly in the Mathews branch) left Ontario to travel south with the Mormons, after Joseph Smith Jr’s visit to the village in August 1837. Another branch of the family moved to Streetsville and continued there.
Throughout the 19th century, many of the people who settled in the village ended up with only one or two degrees of separation between their families and the Church family. Interestingly, both Amaziah's nephew, John Church Hyde (Mary and Heman's son) and his grandson, Orange R. Church, twice served as Reeve of Streetsville. Orange Church was owner and editor of the Streetsville Review, was a Trustee for the Churchville Cemetery Board and served as Warden of Peel County in 1924.
Orange R. Church married Lena Matilda May Watson and had three daughters: Pearle, Lillian and Beatrice. With no heirs to continue it, this appears to have marked the end of the Church family name in Peel County.